How did you get involved with Xaa or other graphics software?

[SCALEBACK666]

Me?
I started off with basic text art in Microsoft word but for some reason it stopped working and I wanted a good alternative (3D Powertext is good if you can get hold of a copy), the next really good one I've got is one called Printmaster by Broderbund (you can't warp text but you can give it a psychedellic look). Another one I can reccomend is Fotoview's Word Artist (free to download). I heard about Photoshop and what could be done with it and would have got the cheaper version which was out ot stock so I got Xara PGD7 and love it.

[pauland]

I bought Xara Studio 1.0 at a trade stand at a computer arts exhibition in North London. Several years ago..

It came as a suprise to hear many years later that I had used Xara software even before then - wordwise for the BBC Micro.

[SCALEBACK666]

I think I remeber using it at school.
A description might help if nobody else has used or can remember it.

[pauland]

Wordwise was a very basic word processor that ran on the BBC Micro. Xara then went and built more software for the successor to the BBC Micro - the Acorn Archimedes. That later morphed into Xara Studio 1 - their first product on the PC, I think.

[wizard509]

I started off with Xara screen maker (I think that was the name), it quickly became too limiting, then I bought X3D and that kept me fascinated for a long time. Finally I bought Xara X1 and that seemed to be the answer I was looking for. I kept upgrading and now am a loyal Xara guy.

[Rik]

Well, if Wordwise for the BBC Micro was something to do with Xara, then I've been using Xara since May 1984.

But, for drawing I got Xara X1 first. It was free with a magazine, I think.
Didn't really know what it was, or what you could do with it.
Tried a few tutorial by Gary Priester, but as a beginner, I either got stuck or there was something in the tutorial that could not be done in Xara X1.

Decided to get Xtreme Pro 3.2, and with the help of all the TG members, I got started and managed to learn enough, to be able to get some decent results.
Of course, I've been upgrading whenever a new version of Xara has come out.

Would you call Aldus PhotoStyler a graphics software? I never did any drawings in it. Used it to make a few changes on a few photographs.
If you count that, then I was using that in 1991.
Then I was told that PhotoStyler changed into PhotoImpact.

EDIT: Yes. You're right, Paul. Computer Concepts Ltd. (now Xara) developed software for the BBC Micro, Atari ST etc... So, Wordwise was by Xara.
Never got ArtWorks or CorelDRAW.
So, my first drawing package (as I would call it) was Xara X1.

[Soquili]

I started with Xara's public beta of Xara X then bought the release version when that became available. That was after they resolved their marketing agreement with Corel. I have upgraded to each new version as they have come along.

Because there are different versions with different features I have purchased each of them to be able to help answer questions when I can. Not being into web design I avoid those question so more knowledgable members can provide useful information.

[Karateed]

I first came across Xara in the form of Webstyle 4.....my interest at the time was building web pages, strictly from a learning point of view. I stopped playing with that for a while, built some sites in Dreamweaver and finally came across Xara again at the Xara X version. I think I finally bought at Xara5 and have been upgrading ever since. I'm slowly learning a bit here and there about graphics but am pretty slow in that area, just because I'm spread so think on all my too many hobbies and work.

[angelize]

All these stories are really quite interesting. I found Xara through a forum for another software. I was using an old outdated version of Illustrator that was given to me by a friend and a second hand version of Pagemaker 6.5 to cobble together the paper I was saving what little I could for a software and computer upgrade. I also had copy of Artrage mostly as a hobby kind of thing and I was lurking on their forum when I came across post mentioning a program with a funny name Curiosity and a Google search lead me to Xara.com and I found everything I needed in one program! And for less money than one of the Adobe programs I was looking at before! I downloaded the trial for Xtreme Pro 3.2 and loved it. The rest as they say is history!

[PhilM]

I got started with Wordwise on my first ever computer, my old BBC Micro, which I still have in a cupboard somewhere. Those were heady times: the explosive growth of home computing meant that people were doing new and amazing things (at the time) every week. And all with a 2Mhz 6502 processor with 32K of RAM!

That set me on the path to computing as a career and after graduating in Microprocessor Engineering from Essex University my first job was with Computer Concepts.

I've worked for Computer Concepts and Xara ever since, working my way through various Atari ST, Archimedes and PC projects.

Phil