discount shadow when centering text within an object

[gpholman]

At present, when centering an object which has a drop shadow Xara will take the shadow into account as if it is part of the object's actual height and width.

Personally, I don't view a shadow as a physical part of an object's size so I always nudge the object around to compensate for the shadow causing an offset OR remove the shadow, center, then reinstate the shadow.

How about an option to not take shadows into account when centering?

[ad1066]

+1. This would be extremely useful to me.

-- Ben

[gwpriester]

Turn the shadow off, center, then restore the shadow.

[gpholman]

Hi Gary, that IS what I sometimes do. Is there an easy way to 'restore' the shadow, other than noting down the settings first?

[James Allen]

Not that I know, gpholman, though someone here might know better. What I do in a situation like that is to use the pencil to give myself some quick points of reference, and take note of the shadow details. I remove the shadow, and reconstruct it using the info as per this VIDEO. If it was a more complex shadow and a more important job, I would use more care in drawing the reference points. I agree it would be helpful to have the centring ability you describe, but in the meantime I hope this helps.

[gwpriester]

I guess you could copy the shadow to and paste attributes to another object. Center the original object and the paste the shadow attributes back.

[itsfransie]

Clone the original object including its shadow, remove shadow from object, center it, and copy/paste the X and Y position to the object with the shadow. Delete the object without a shadow. Copying positions works more predictably than copying shadow attributes.