August 2015 Video Tutorial -- Typesetting With Xara

[Gare]

Determination Poster.

Stygg

Stygg, I love your ingenuity and original thinking in combining several of the sections in the video tutorial. All are obvious and all are well done!

[Gare]

Typesetting Etiquette

• Don’t use hyphenation for two consecutive lines. Use a Soft Break if necessary to kick a word or two down a line to get rid of second hyphenation.

• Depending on the column width and point size, when making a drop cap, try to have between 5 to 7 words on the line. Too many and the line looks crowded and invites “whiplash” as reader moves to next line. Too few words and the line doesn’t look like part of a sentence.

• Use paragraph spacing in a multi-paragraph document, or intent a paragraph, but don’t do both.


By the way, what you might have read in The Outsider today is true: due to budget limitations, Magix can't support my work in the future, they're bringing Xara Xone into the company internally to continue to run it, and I am going to earn my daily bread elsewhere.

None of which means I'm leaving TalkGraphics. I'm still a Mod, and will enjoin you folks in other areas of interest in Xara Designer.

TGIF everyone!

My Best,

Gary

[Rik]

[Ron Duke]

Great pointers and info Gare!
Thanks for ALL your hard work and generosity!

[angelize]

By the way, what you might have read in The Outsider today is true: due to budget limitations, Magix can't support my work in the future, they're bringing Xara Xone into the company internally to continue to run it, and I am going to earn my daily bread elsewhere.

IMO this stinks and I think it's a bad decision but I'm sure this is a Magix decision not a Xara one and we could all complain till the cows come home and no one will listen. I wish you well on the new site mentioned in the outsider and I'm glad that you and Barbara will continue to be a part of TG!

Getting back to typesetting here is a sample from me that shows a use for strikethrough text

[csehz]

I wish you well on the new site mentioned in the outsider

+1 and going to visit it of course.

Relating the new (company) Xone? I liked the inside Outsider tutorials if maybe that will be the style, the hardest will be for them to host it with the same encouraging atmosphere which was here by Gare.

Anything crazy was posted by anyone, Gare always found the positive side and encouraged people to run that Xara software also on the next day

[Gare]

Hi everyone—

Regarding what I wrote in Post #12, and similarly, what was written in The Outsider this month (I really wasn't leaking the story or anything!): I just wanted to post some sort of reassurance that I'm not disappearing from tg, and that's it. The press release in The Outsider was a little vague because it's uncertain when the Xone will start again, and I'm not certain when I'll have a new website up.

For as much as I'd like to embrace and savor the comments above, it's not my responsibility as a Moderator to cry over spilled milk in a public forum. I'm not soliciting sympathy—this could get me off my butt and make me work harder and produce better tutorials than ever!

So please, let's get back to typesetting, the core of this thread. And thanks.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



Disproportionately scaling text:

You probably discovered that in later versions of Xara Designer, if you drag a middle selection handle on text, it scales the whole text evenly...you're not smooshing it.

One way to fix this is to use the Aspect Ratio field on the Infobar when text is highlighted using the Text tool. However, if you want to drag the text to smoosh it interactively to suit your needs, select the text with the Selector tool, and then press Ctrl+G to create a group on one shapes. Then try the traditional way of created fake condensed text!

My Best,

Gary

[Gare]

Thanks for the excellent Typesetting video tut. Gary, somethings I already knew but personalized bullets, soft break, had no idea. Also at the end of your video on fade out, I was surprised to see five of my drawings, Milano-Xmas Girl-Mighty Milk-Coffee Cup and Bad Girl, absolutely made my day

Stygg

I did that segment months ago, stygg, with the dulcimer music, and I'd forgotten (old guys tend to forget!) I'd annexed your work and put it in the clip!



You're most welcome!

My Best,

Gary

[Gare]

Here's a little something in the typographical nature that might help you on your next logo assignment:

A lot of examples of good logos involve typing a product or company name, and then altering one or two characters to emphasize the type of product or other quality. Example? Below: "Manly Cologne", a fictitious men's hygiene product, has a visually opportunity to put the symbol for Mars (the male symbol in biology) in place of the first or second "o" in "Cologne".

But you might not want to convert the text to editable shapes, given that clients always want revisions.

1. Type your logo. Highlight the character you want to alter.

2. With the character selected (using the Text tool), choose the Transparency tool, and then drag the slider all the way to the right, making only the "O" invisible.

3. Create the replacement character or graphic, and then put it into position to create a custom logo.

Simple and perhaps obvious.





Perhaps not :)

My Best,

Gary

[angelize]

Neat tip! I learned something new here is one for the ladies