The TIP SHEET

READER TIP: Paul Söderholm submitted this technique for creating eerie glowing text. NOTE: Your editor added the white-colored wedge in the center to show the size of the characters used in the blends.

 1) Type text (in this case EERIE XARA. Set the fill to black.

2) Create a neon effect:

a) Duplicate the text and add a thick outline (i.e.  8 pt) with a "neon-ish" color. Add 100% transparency.

b) Duplicate the outlined copy and change transparency to 80% and make the outline thinner (i.e. 1 pt).

c) Blend the to copies and place them behind the original.

3) Duplicate the original text and fill it with the neon color.

4) Add a Fractal Plasma transparency with the starting transparency set to 90%

5) Duplicate the copy and make it larger (at least by 50% in both directions). Set starting transparency to 100%

6) Blend the two copies (a 25 step blend is OK) and place them behind the original and the first blend.

Bonus: You can make an eerie light "shine through" by adding a similar blend in front of the original text as shown on the bottom example.

Another Reader's TEXT TIP: Marc Fisher discovered that if you drag the text cursor from right to left (bottom example), key in your text in Leonardo da Vinci fashion (upside down and backwards), then select the text and a path (in this case a circle that has been Converted to Editable Shapes) then select Fit Text to Curve (Arrange menu), the text will be placed on the inside of the circle instead of the top as shown in the first example.

Your Editor's Follow Up TIP: While it is always fun to key in text upside down and backwards, right clicking on the first example and selecting Reverse Text on Curve achieves the same effect.

Yet Another Reader's TEXT TIP: Alec Stewart reports if you place a duplicate of your text on top of the text  before exporting an image as a GIF file the text is stronger and easier to read as in the middle example.
Your Editor's Follow Up TIP: A second duplicate increases the strength and legibility of the text.

There is absolutely no reason why this should work. None, at least, that I am aware of. But it does! And you can see for yourself. And this works with thin outlines too.

ZOOM TIP: Pressing Alt Z produces the Zoom Tool. Pressing Alt Z again returns you to your last selected tool.

ANIMATION TIP: If you want to copy something from a drawing window and paste it in the center of an animation window use Ctrl V to paste. Xara automatically pastes in the center of the window when you use Ctrl V.

If you use Ctrl K (Clone) to paste on top, your object(s) may be pasted outside your view.

Should this happen, press the Zoom to Drawing button on the Infobar and Xara will zoom back to show all objects.

Got TIPS?
Click Here to send your editor your TIP(s) via e-mail. If I use your tip, I'll give you credit. Fair enough?

We're desperate! As you can see it doesn't even have to be a Xara-releated tip.