Glory Be!

[Ironsage]

C'mon, tell me the truth! Is there No place I can buy an Xara X manual? It is awesome software, but I know, despite being smarter than your average bear, that I am only using a small percentage of it's capabilities. Where have I heard that before?

Some of the "simple" things I haven't got yet are:

1) How to lock the size of a background/border so it doesn't readjust with the size of the objects on it. (placing dots in the corners or using a large transparent box can't be what they had in mind!) This would especially be helpful for animations. Is that little magnet thingy what I use to lock things to the background so they don't come along for the ride if the cursor happens to pass over them while grouping other objects? I have had to go outside of the borders and come in at an angle to try to group or ungroup items without including others. This is very frustrating when I have to do several groups to get to the one I want to change. The help index has not been particularily helpful.

I am reluctant to purchase this without a manual.

Any pointers?

Thanks

[Ironsage]

C'mon, tell me the truth! Is there No place I can buy an Xara X manual? It is awesome software, but I know, despite being smarter than your average bear, that I am only using a small percentage of it's capabilities. Where have I heard that before?

Some of the "simple" things I haven't got yet are:

1) How to lock the size of a background/border so it doesn't readjust with the size of the objects on it. (placing dots in the corners or using a large transparent box can't be what they had in mind!) This would especially be helpful for animations. Is that little magnet thingy what I use to lock things to the background so they don't come along for the ride if the cursor happens to pass over them while grouping other objects? I have had to go outside of the borders and come in at an angle to try to group or ungroup items without including others. This is very frustrating when I have to do several groups to get to the one I want to change. The help index has not been particularily helpful.

I am reluctant to purchase this without a manual.

Any pointers?

Thanks

[gwpriester]

Try issues 16-30 of the WebXealot in the XaraXone. It's as close as you get to a manual and IMHO better :-)

There are also over 6 years worth of monthly step-by-step tutorialsXara Tutorials to show you how to put all the information together.

And you can better support in this conference both technically and socially than you will find with any other graphics application.

Glory be, what more do you need. Paper is obsolete.
Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

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XaraXone

[Ross Macintosh]

The early versions of CorelXara (ie when Xara was 'marketed' by Corel) had a very good printed manual. I found I didn't go to it much even though I am the kind of person who likes manuals. Xara's in-program help files are good and I found answers more quickly there than I ever did in the manual.

The closest thing to a Xara X manual you'll find is the WebXealot pages at the XaraXone.Com that you've been directed to previously. Some folks have tried to persuade Gary to do a nice printable PDF version but I don't think that is in the works. (Any Acrobat experts out there in Xara land who could approach Gary about a colaboration?).

To date there haven't been books published about Xara - so you won't find any "Idiot's Guides" etc. (No offence [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] ) in the bookstores. If any such a book were published they likely wouldn't have any more info or insights into the program than what can be found at the XaraXone. (Gary is a professional journalist/graphic artist of higher caliber than your typical writer of graphics-software-related books).

When you purchase Xara X, you'll be sent two CD's. One has the program and the other is full of very well done 'movies' that demonstrate almost all features of the program. They are a great way to jump-start learning of the program.

Regarding your problems: If I understand your difficulties correctly, you need to discover Xara's layers. Check them out in the help files and try them out. Put things you don't want to move on an uneditable layer and save yourself some frustration.

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[Delta Moon]

Why would you want to buy a manual when everything you could ever want is here for you, free...web xealot, tutorials, individual one on one help (that's what sold me).


[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]