FREEBY TIP: You can get Free Fonts and Graphics by signing yourself and a friend up for the Efuse Newsletter, edited by Master Xealot, and Editor of Efuse, Daniel Will Harris whose tip also appears on this page. Efuse is the friendly place to learn all about Web graphics (and NetObjects Fusion--which is what I use to create the WebXealot). CLICK HERE for details.

NOTE : Do not sign up your editor. He is already a subscriber and you will not get your free goodies.

How I created this chart TIP:

I created the colored pie chart and placed a copy of the chart in the clipboard. (I used Adobe Illustrator to generate the pie slices).

I made a larger white circle and Blended the white circle to the colored chart creating the soft edge. I pasted a copy of the chart on top, changed the fill to white and applied a Circular Transparency . I reversed the transparency so the outside is 0% and the inside is 100% transparent.

Reader, Tony Roberts, offers this TEXT TIP: When text straddles an object which contrasts greatly from its background it can become difficult to read.

To overcome this, select the object, then clone (Ctrl K) and additionally select the text; then Arrange > Combine Shapes > Slice Shapes to enable both parts of the text to be colored separately.

Editor of Efuse's TIP:
Daniel Will Harris, Xara fan and Efuse editor (see tip at top of page) offers this TIP and BONUS TIP. To create a soft-edged circular image, crop the bitmap to a square and apply a default Circular Transparency. Or for a rectangular image, apply a default Elliptical Transparency.

To restore the color saturation that is lost due to the transparency, duplicate the image one or two times (Ctrl K).

VARIATIONS ON A TIP—TIP: If you place your vignetted image over a non-white background you will see the white square background (top left). To remove the white background, create two circles, a white circle the size of the bitmap, and a smaller black circle. Blend the two circles to create a soft black circle shape (middle left). Create a 24-bit bitmap of the soft black circle (Arrange > Create Bitmap Copy). Select the colored bitmap, then open the Bitmap Gallery, select the soft-edged black bitmap, and press the Trans button. The result is the image shown bottom left.

I used Daniel Will Harris's duplicate trick to increase the color intensity.

(Courtesy of Sean Sedwards)

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