Xara Delivers Great Graphics at a Low Price

About this time every year, I look forward to the latest refreshes from Gaddesden Place UK, home of Xara software.    I have been a dedicated user of Xara’s graphics offerings since the mid-90s and am always amazed at how they manage to deliver such amazing software for such a small price.   Although Xara was acquired by Magix AG back in 2007 (a company known mostly for multimedia software), the quality of their applications has not suffered one iota and just keeps getting better and better.  Let’s take a look at the latest versions:

Xara Pro X and Xara Photo and Graphic Designer MX

The eighth iteration of Xara’s graphic design tool comes in two flavors: Xara Photo and Graphic Designer MX (their base version product), and Xara Pro X, which includes advanced features targeted to professional graphics designers.  That doesn’t mean that you cannot achieve professional results with either tool; you certainly can!

Installation and activation of the apps was quick and easy, and their footprint is comparatively small at less than 100MB.  On boot up, the apps look very similar to version 7 with its modern, dark-gray color scheme.  The nice thing is that the basic program layout is quite similar to previous versions of Xara, eliminating the steep learning curve that often accompanies new versions of programs.  

Among the new features of both programs are: an improved clone/magic erase tool, enhanced panorama stitching, allowing you to knit together up to 8 photos (previously just 6), support for multi-threaded processing, a shape eraser tool, support for inline graphics and improved import/export capabilities.  In addition, there is a color select/erase tool, hue adjustment, smarter photo replacement and a media exchange feature, allowing for integration with other Magix/Xara apps, as well as Flickr and Facebook.    

One new feature that I am particularly excited about is text styles, which allows you to globally format text attributes just as you can in many word processors and desktop publishing apps.  Text handling has always been Xara’s weak spot and this addition gives it a big boost as a graphic design app for documents as well as graphics.

Xara Pro X adds support for chart drawing, QR code widgets, embedded fonts, automatic object positioning and smart resizing, graphic bullet and number lists, resizable Java widgets, presentations and professional web design.

Web Designer MX and MX Premium

If your needs strictly involve web design and you can’t afford Xara Pro X, Xara offers Web Designer MX and MX Premium.   These programs allow you to easily create great-looking websites via a library of attractive themes without knowing any HTML, Javascript or other code.  If you have web design chops, then you can build pages and sites from scratch using Xara’s powerful design toolbox.  

The program is completely WYSIWYG and web-standards compatible (W3C, XHTML, CSS).  You can import all kinds of formats including PDF, RTF, RAW, PSD, TIFF, JPEG, PNG and GIF.  Web Designer MX offers many of the new features of Xara Photo and Graphic Designer MX and Xara Web Designer MX Premium adds presentation templates, GIF and Flash animation, animated transitions, additional graphics tools and more.  

If you need an app for graphic design, vector drawing, photo editing, compositing, desktop publishing or web design--one of Xara’s apps is certainly up to the task at a price that is refreshingly low in these tight times.

For more information:

http://www.xara.com

Xara Web Designer 6 Review

Xara, a leader in affordable graphic design software, recently introduced the sixth iteration of their Web Designer package.

The first thing that I noticed when booting up is its new redesigned interface with new fly-out tools and a dark gray theme that seems to be popular these days. Even with its new look, veteran users will have no problem finding their way around.

New features include improved Navbar and DHTML support, a new selection of templates including complete web site designs, automatic photo optimization, the ability to publish only changed files, drag and drop color schemes and widgets and improved text handling.

As always, the program is intuitive, well laid out and easy to use. And at only $49, it costs only a fraction of of the purchase price of other programs in its class. If you are a web designer (novice or professional), this is a must have package!

www.xara.com

Xara Web Designer

Designing web pages is an arduous process using most tools. As someone who has built web sites with simple tools and occasional hand coding for the past 14 years, I can attest to the complexity of the task.

Xara Web Designer enables anyone to effortlessly build killer web pages and sites without having to learn HTML or JavaScript. All you need to do to get started is to select a template and load it. Edit the content to your liking and customize to taste and you are done. You can export your site to HTML complete with graphics or upload it directly to your server using its built-in FTP client.

With Web Designer, you also have the ability to create web pages manually and save them as templates, providing tremendous flexibility to the experienced web and/or graphic designer. Another huge plus is true WYSIWYG display of web pages--something that anyone who has designed web pages with simple HTML editors will instantly appreciate.

Those who have used any of Xara's other programs (Xara, Xara X, Xara Xtreme) will feel quite at home. The GUI is very similar and the tools are where you expect them to be. The resulting quality is incredible, just as you would expect from any Xara product.

Xara Web Designer also allows you to perform tasks which would be daunting in many other programs, such as liquid text flow around objects, Flash creation and easy mouse-over. That makes for a very compelling offering.

And the price--$49 US. All I can say is: Wow!!!

www.xara.com