THE XARA XONE | XARA.COM | THE XARA CONFERENCES

NEW USERS - PLEASE READ

As always, we will be using Pixels as our units of measure. Right click on the screen and select Page Options... from the pop up menu. In the Units tabbed section, select Pixels for the Units and 0-255 for the Color Units. In the Grid and Ruler tabbed section set the Major Spacing to 100pix (key it in exactly like this please) and the Number of Subdivisions to 10 . Press OK to close the dialog and apply the changes.

To see a tutorial on Xara Basics visit Workbook 20.

NOTE: You will notice from time to time I apply arbitrary colors to objects. I do this to make the objects easier to see. If I do not specify a fill for an object, you do not have to apply a fill or outline color.

When I show an ellipse or rectangle that has just been created, that has no fill, it is because I have set the fill to none before I exported the illustration. By default, all ellipses, rectangles and Quick Shapes have a black outline and a black fill. There is nothing wrong with your copy of Xara.

Naming Conventions. I use bold face to indicate the names of tools, galleries, keyboard shortcuts, and dialogs. Items such as unnamed icons and drop down lists, which have names when you let your cursor rest over them for a moment, are displayed in italics.

The Infobar is the context sensitive menu at the top of the screen and changes to reflect the options for the selected tool.

New Users? I have created some quick start mini-tutorials to get you though the basics. Workbook 20, Workbook 30, and Workbook 31 cover the main things you need to know to get started.

While you should be able to create all the steps in previous versions of Xara, some of the tool icons have changed, and this may cause some confusion for new users. If you are using an older version of Xara, click here to see my Rosetta Stone for translating the old buttons into the new.

Select the Rectangle Tool (keyboard shortcut m). Hold down the Ctrl key to constrain the rectangle to a square and drag a 20 pixel square.

TIP: You can actually draw any size rectangle or square and then enter the desired dimensions in the Width and Height text entry boxes on the Infobar at the top of the window. Press Enter (or Return ) to apply the change.

Whenever I need to move an object a specific distance a number of times, I use the following method. Right click on the page and select Page Options... from the fly out menu. In the General tabbed section (shown above), change the X (side to side) or Y (up and down) Duplication Distance setting to the amount you want to move the selection. Press Apply to keep the Options menu open.

In this case we want to duplicate the 20 pixel square 20 pixels to the right so enter 20pix in the X text entry box and change the Y amount to 0 then press Apply.

Press Ctrl d (as in duplicate) 14 times to make a single row of 15 squares.