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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.

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. Enough small talk, let's get on with the tutorial.

This month, we will revisit image slicing. Image slicing is a process that slices a larger image into many smaller parts to make the image load faster when viewed on the Internet in a Browser. Xara can do this automatically, but I prefer to do it manually as you will see in this tutorial.

We will use the Layers Gallery and the Names Gallery, two galleries that don't get much attention but which can be quite useful tools. In the process we'll build a small control panel, which we will then slice into smaller pieces.

Next month we'll animate some of the smaller sections and then put the whole thing together.

Using the Rectangle Tool create the rectangles and squares to the exact sizes shown above. Use the Infobar immediately after you create the rectangle and with both the rectangle and Rectangle Tool still selected, to change the size of the rectangles and squares to the exact sizes shown above. Set all outlines to none.

Enable Snap to Objects (the red magnet icon on the Infobar) and snap the rectangles and squares together as shown. I have added colors to make it easier to see the shapes, you may want to do that too.

TIP: It is easier to do this accurately if you zoom to 200% and set the View Quality slider to Outline (Window > Quality > Outline).

TIP: Align the green rectangles to the large rectangle using the Object Alignment menu (Arrange > Alignment). Then add the smaller squares and rectangle. Marquee select the entire row of objects and set the Horizontal Positions in the Object Alignment menu to Distribute Equi-spaced and the Vertical Positions setting to Align Top . Press Apply and the objects will be evenly distributed. The row of squares and rectangles should be exactly 525 pixels in width and 46 pixels in height.

Marquee select (draw a rectangle around the objects with the Selector Tool) all the rectangles and squares. Cut them to the clipboard (Ctrl x or Edit > Cut).

Open the Layer Gallery (located in the upper top right area of the Infobar). Click to the right of the word Guides to select the Guides layer.

NOTE: If you don't see the Guides layer, drag a guideline from the screen rulers onto the page (Ctrl L to display the rulers).

Paste (Ctrl v or Edit > Paste) the squares and rectangles onto the guides layer. All fills are gone and replaced by red dashed guidelines.

Select the Layer 1 title bar and close the Layer Gallery.

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