THE XARA XONE | XARA.COM | THE XARA CONFERENCES

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 Infobar 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.

Select the Rectangle Tool (keyboard shortcut M) and draw two rectangles to the sizes shown above.

TIP: The most efficient way to draw a rectangle or ellipse to an exact size is to draw any size rectangle or ellipse, then enter the Width and Height dimensions on the Infobar and press Enter (or Return).

Draw an ellipse to the size shown. Center the ellipse over the bottom of the rectangle and center the tall rectangle just touching the bottom of the ellipse.

Center the three objects using the Object Alignment dialog (Arrange > Alignment or Shift Ctrl L)

Draw a small rectangle and two small ellipses to the sizes as shown above. Center the ellipses over the top and bottom edges of the small rectangle.

Draw a rectangle 96 pixels deep and the same width as the tall narrow rectangle. Align this rectangle to the top of the tall narrow rectangle.

Select the Shape Editor Tool (F4). Click at the bottom left of the large rectangle to place an anchor point. Click again on the bottom right corner of the large rectangle to place a control point. Click again at the bottom right of the 96 pixel tall rectangle and then click again on the original anchor point to create a closed wedge shape.

With the wedge shape and the Shape Editor Tool still selected, edit the shape as shown. First drag the left side and the right side to get an approximate curve. Then click on the control points to enable the Bezier control handles (the lines with the small red squares on the ends). Drag the red square control handles vertically upwards or downwards the same distance as shown above. The goal here is to create that sinuous wine bottle shoulder.

I find it helps to hold down the Ctrl key while dragging the red control handles to constrain the direction to vertical. Also, dragging guidelines from the screen rulers (Ctrl L to display rulers) helps to align the matching control points.