Page 2







	Xara X. Chapter 14 — The Color Line

Click here to download a Zipped copy of
Issue 29
(453K)




	In this issue, we will explore how Xara works with color. Some of this material has been covered in earlier issues, but we will examine every colorful nook and cranny of Xara in more detail. We'll begin with what Xara calls the Color Line. The Color Line contains the on-screen color palette and a few other color-related items which are described below. NOTE: The names of the Color Line items (shown below in bold face ) appear if you let your cursor rest over them for a few moments. This is true of almost any Xara tool, icon, or effect. a. The Current Line and Fill Colors indicator indicates the current fill and outline colors. If the outline or fill is hatched, there is no color. b. The Color Editor icon. Click this icon to open the Color Editor menu (covered later) for editing colors. c. The Set No Color box. Click the crosshatched box with the left mouse button to set the fill color for the current selection to none. Click with the right mouse button to set the outline color for the current selection to none. Click with either button with nothing selected to set the fill or outline to none as the default for the current session. For example, to set the session default so that all new objects are drawn with no fill and a red outline, with nothing selected, click the left mouse button on the Set No Color crosshatched box and click the right mouse button on the red color on the palette to set the line color. d. Local Colors. Xara has two basic color categories: Local and Named. Local colors, according to the Help menu, appear only once in a document and do not show up on the screen palette. Named colors are custom colors that appear on the screen palette and can be applied directly from the screen palette, Color Editor, or Color Gallery to any object. There are three different kinds of Named Colors, which are indicated by the shape of the color swatch on the screen palette. A square swatch represents Xara's basic color palette of 24 primary colors. e. Web-Safe or Browser Palette Colors are indicated by a diamond shape and are a palette of 216 colors that will display pure and non-dithered on any monitor capable of displaying at least 256 colors. Web-Safe colors contain one of six RGB values: 0, 51, 102, 153, 204, or 255. f. Spot Colors are indicated by a circular swatch. These colors represent specially mixed printing inks and are intended to match printed swatches found in color swatch books used for commercial printing. Xara has a Spot Color palette for Pantone Solid to Process found in the bottom of the Color Gallery on the Infobar. This is confusing as these colors are not meant to be reproduced as 4 color process colors (colors comprised of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black—CMYK) but are meant to match printed solid color swatches prepared by Pantone. Only about 50% of Pantone Spot Colors can be matched precisely using CMYK inks. About 25% of colors come close but are not exact matches, while the remaining 25% are not close at all. So even though these colors are designated as Pantone Solid to Process, beware, these colors are really intended to be specially mixed, solid inks to be printed by a commercial printing company and may not match the swatchbook colors. So why would you use a Pantone Spot Color? You may design a project for printing and use only one or two spot colors which is usually cheaper than 4-color printing. Or, you may be designing for a client who uses a certain Pantone spot color for her or his logo that cannot be matched in CMYK printing.

The Current Line and Fill Colors box (item a in the illustration in the last section) resides just above the status bar at the bottom of the screen and shows at a glance the color status of the current selection. There are four possible states as shown here.

TIP: While the line and fill status of a selection might appear obvious, many times if you are drilling down though several stacked objects, (Hold down the Alt key while clicking over an object to "drill down" to the next object, and the next object, and so on), you can refer to the Current Line and Fill Color status box, along with the text on the Status Bar, to identify objects hidden beneath other objects.

There are several ways to apply a fill to an object or text object. With an object, text objects, or a group of objects selected, click any color on the screen palette with the left mouse button to apply a Fill color, or with the right mouse button to apply an Outline color.

You can also drag a color from the on-screen palette and drop it onto a non-selected object or text object.

When you drag the color from the on-screen palette onto the screen, the cursor changes to the arrow pointer, with a square indicating the selected color, and a small downward pointing arrow. When the cursor is over an outline, the downward-pointing arrow changes to a narrow rectangle indicating an outline color if you release the left mouse button at this point. If you continue past the edge of the object, the cursor changes to an unfilled white square indicating the color will be applied as a fill color as soon as you release the left mouse button.

You can also apply a fill or outline color from the Color Editor (covered next page) or from the Color Gallery (which is covered extensively in WebXealot #22).

You can drag-and-drop colors from the on-screen palette onto a Linear gradient fill.

And, you can drag-and-drop a color onto the fill path arrow (if the Linear filled object has been selected with the Fill Tool).

(You can also double click on the fill path arrow with the Fill Tool to add a new color station).

When you drag a color to the left half on a Linear filled object, the cursor changes to a tiny down-facing arrow indicating you are about to change the starting fill color. As you pass the vertical center of the object, the tiny square and arrow reverse indicating you are about to change the end fill color.

Xara X. Chapter 14 — The Color Line