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 unnamed 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.

Some of the tool icons have changed in Xara X1, and this may cause some confusion for new users. If you are using an older version of Xara, click here to see my Rosetta Stone for translating the old buttons into the new.

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. While you should be able to create all the steps in previous versions of Xara, some of the tool icons have changed, and this may cause some confusion for new users. If you are using an older version of Xara, click here to see my Rosetta Stone for translating the old buttons into the new.

We will begin this tutorial with a perfect spiral. Where is the Spiral Tool? you ask. Well, Xara does not have a Spiral Tool. But in the Xara Xone Shareware Page, you'll find something even better: Dmitry Malutin's SPIRALS-EPS. It's free and easy to use. Click here to go to the download page where you will also find a short tutorial. Let's get started, shall we?

Open Xara X and then open SPIRALS-EPS (referred to as SPX-E in the Shareware Page). Go to the Xara window then click the icon for SPIRAL-EPS on the task bar to bring the application in front of the Xara X screen.

In SPIRALS-EPS, Select the Linear tabbed section. Drag the top slider to the right to Step = 22.

Drag the spiral from the window and drop it onto the page in Xara X. Close SPIRAL.EPS.

I'm not sure why, but the spiral when dropped onto the page is flipped from how it is in the SPIRALS-EPS window. No problem. Select the spiral with the Selector Tool (F2) then press the Flip Vertically icon on the Infobar. (The before flipping version is shown in blue dashed outline)

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