General
Designing
Web Graphics
Interactivity

Drawing Tools

Brushes

Transparency

Color Support

Feathering

Contours

Bevels

Fills

Shadows

Molds/Envelopes

Text Handling

Clip View

Name Gallery

The vector factor
BECAUSE Xara X is a vector drawing package, it gives you greater freedom compared to traditional bitmap programs. While bitmap graphics distort when you resize them, vector images retain their quality no matter what size they are. This is because a vector file uses mathematics and geometry to define shapes, while bitmaps remember every pixel used. The added bonus is that a vector image has the same small file size whether it's 10 x 10 pixels or 1000 x 1000 pixels, while the file size of a bitmap increases along with its physical size. Almost all sophisticated graphics systems, including CAD systems and animation software, use vector graphics. In addition, many printers also use vector graphics.

Drawing tools
XARA X uses two types of drawing tools: Freehand tools and Shape tools. Freehand tools, such as the Pen tool and Freehand and Brush tool allow you to hand-draw shapes, lines or objects on the page. With the Freehand and Brush tool you can choose how closely you want the computer to follow your movements, or whether you want it to smooth out any minor bumps with Xara X's retroactive smoothing. You can even draw one shape, then add another bit to it by drawing some more and joining up with the original object. Shape tools, like the rectangle, circle/ellipse and Quickshape tools allow you to draw pre-set shapes very quickly and easily. Any object you create, either Freehand or Shape, can be resized, and manipulated simply by dragging its handles.

Brushes
THE new real-time brush feature of the Freehand and Brush Tool is a fun but extremely powerful addition. It enables you to create any shape, then use it to 'draw' with, giving endless possibilities. One such possibility is to create airbrush-like effects. There are also a number of pre-defined brushes that you can use.

The brush feature's power lies in the fact that you have complete control over the way the brush paints to the screen. You can alter the size of instances, color, spacing, rotation and offset properties, and each of these has a randomize option which can give a less ordered look. When using brushes, you can also take advantage of Xara's pressure sensitive feature by setting the brush to adjust the scaling or transparency of brush instances according to how hard you press with your graphic pen. Each brush you create is saved along with the document it's used in, so you can re-use them whenever you wish.

Transparency
ANY object you create (including text and bitmaps) can be made transparent using the wide variety of transparency options available. Like real-time anti-aliasing, Xara was the pioneer of vector transparency. Transparency can be used in a number of ways - one of the most common is to simulate glass, but it can also be used to create subtle reflections and highlights that are very difficult to achieve in any other way. Another common use is to overlay parts of your drawing with additional transparent objects which can then be used as filters to modify colors or contrast in your image, for example. Transparency can be applied in a linear graduation, or in fact in a variety of shapes such as diamond or conical to get some very unusual effects. Xara X also allows you to create textured transparencies by using bitmaps of your choice to give a special effect to any graphic or selection of graphics.

Color support
Blending: THE Xara X Blend Tool allows you to blend or merge between any two objects. These objects can be any of the available object types (text, bitmaps, shapes), or even other blends. Using the tool creates a set of intermediate objects so you get a transition from the start object to the end object. You can change the number of steps in the blend and also have more than one stage so you can blend between several objects. Blends can be used to create complex highlights, blurred edges on objects, repetitive patterns and many other effects. You can even edit objects within the blend once you have created them. You can also set blends along a path, such as a curve. Xara X performs blending in a very quick and memory-efficient way compared to other drawing packages - meaning less waiting for you and less draining of your systems resources.

Feathering
FEATHERING is a technique of slightly blurring the edges of objects and until recently has been impossible in vector drawing programs. Simply by selecting an object - any object - and moving the slider on the feather bar, it makes the affected object merge into background objects and avoids a sharp line at the boundary. This is particularly useful when overlaying bitmaps. Xara X allows you to change the feathering profile, altering the transition across the feather. You might want a regular rate of change or a more pronounced change towards one end or the center. Note that feathering affects only the object's edge and no other part of the object.

Contours
CREATING contours around objects is easy with the Xara X Contour Tool. Contouring is a special effect which adds evenly-spaced concentric rings inside or outside an object. These rings can be made to fade in to the background, or progress through a rainbow of colors. When you have applied a contour to an object, if you resize or alter the object, the contour changes with it. The contour itself can be edited and you can change any of its properties, including the distance between the steps, the number of steps, contour width and profile. The Inset Path button lets you convert your contoured object into a larger or smaller shape, removing the actual contours. This gives you more flexibility than simply resizing an object, as it deals with thickness as opposed to size.

Bevels
BEVELS give objects the appearance of depth instead of being flat on the page. They are particularly useful when creating buttons or headings for web pages. The Xara X Bevel Tool allows you to quickly apply customized bevels to any object you draw. There are a range of set bevel types to choose from, such as flat, frame and rounded, and each one can be altered to make it unique. You can alter the depth, contrast and lighting elevation (unique to Xara X) and angle, and you can choose whether the bevel should be inside or outside the object. Xara X also allows you to treat a bevel like you would any other object in a document - so you can apply transparencies, color bitmap fills and so on. And again, the Bevel Tool takes advantage of Xara X's direct action feature.

Fills
FILLS allow you to flood the center of an object within a drawing. Xara X offers a wide range of fills - flat, linear, circular, conical, elliptical, diamond and three and four color fills. You can also use bitmaps as fills and have multi-color or multi-stage fills. You can apply fills to Quickshapes, shapes and even text. If you apply a fill to a compound object (a blend, mold or group) it affects all the objects in it.

Once you have applied a fill to an object you can change its size, position, direction and the colors it uses as well as the way the colors change across the fill. With bitmap fills you can change the bitmap used and with fractal fills you can change the properties of the fractal.

One of the nice features of Xara X's fills is the simple and interactive way colors can be applied. Just drag a color from the color line and drop it onto the object you want to fill, then move the arrow. This direct action makes working with fills much easier than in other programs.

Shadows
CREATING realistic shadows has commonly the realm of the bitmap graphics package. Xara X's new Shadow Tool changes all that and lets you apply, remove, and modify semitransparent (or "soft") shadows to any object, with a single click. There are three different shadow types to choose from - Wall, Floor and Glow. Wall shading produces drop shadow effects, the Floor option works like a sundial would and Glow creates a shadow effect around an object. Any shadow you make can be manipulated in a number of ways, allowing you to change the color, blur, transparency and profile. Again, the Shadow tool takes advantage of the direct action feature.

Moulds / envelopes
MOULDS allow you to distort any object you select according to a set shape - rather like a jelly mold does. There are two types of mold - Perspective Molds and Envelope Molds. Perspective Molds are ideal for creating banners and three-dimensional effects. They distort an object by making it appear to have perspective. With Envelope Molds you can have curved sides and you can distort and warp a shape using the four corners of the mold shape. Molds and Envelopes can be applied to shapes, bitmaps and text, and all objects remain editable.

Text handling
THE Text Tool allows you to create text objects consisting of as many lines of text as you want. Like any word processing program, you can change the font, size, color and justification of the text, alter the line spacing and kerning, and have bold, italic, superscript or subscript. You can also set your text along a path, so you could draw a line and make the text follow it, curves and all. Additionally, just like any drawn object in Xara X, you can grab hold of the corners of the text object and resize it on the page that way, and apply all the usual formatting, such as transparency, fills, molds and so on - and yet the text remains editable.

ClipView
XARA X has several ways of using objects to "mask" or "clip" other objects. You then see part of the objects through that mask. ClipView is one of these methods, but it is different from the others because it is dynamic. It lets you use an object as a 'window' onto other objects. You see only those parts of other objects that are within the window. We call this creating a ClipView. You can move the window object to change your view while the window object remains visible.

Name Gallery
THIS unique and powerful new tool sees an end to the days when graphic designers had to put each object within their image on a separate layer just so they could easily select them when they wanted to make an alteration. The Xara X Name Gallery automatically lists all fonts, bitmaps, colors and Named Objects in a document - and you can name any object or group of objects within a document. It means you are able to see at a glance all the objects you have in a document and you can then use the Name Gallery to select objects you want just by clicking on their name in the list. You can also edit objects at group level - for example, you could change all the occurrences of Times New Roman within a document and apply a shadow to each instance. This saves valuable time because in the past each item would have to be edited individually. When naming grouped objects, you can then make group alterations, or export them all in a particular way.