Ooh what nice pictures.... (Xara X)

Member Name: brother_x

Product:	Xara X
Date:	29/06/02 (186 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small and fast, easy to use, inexpensive compared to others

Disadvantages: nothing worth mentioning.

There are many art packages out there along the same lines as Xara X - vector based and loads of useful tools. But what is it that makes Xara so special?

First, is the size of it. It does come on 2 CD's but the fact of the matter is that it only takes up about 20Mb of disk space. Most modern applications would take 10 times that. So you must be thinking 'what's missing?' Also, it costs only $149 (approx £100)

The answer is nothing. Xara X is a fully featured package that has been designed with speed in mind and as such, is faster than most equivalents. It doesn't have as many features as Corel Draw (in fact, the original Xara was marketed by Corel) but it has most features needed for clean simple graphics.

The package is geared towards web developers with tools to create buttons and roll-overs for websites. It also has facilities to create animations that can be exported as animated GIF files. In addition it has tools to create bevels, transparencies and filling with bitmap patterns. It can also trace bitmaps turning them into vectors.

One feature definitely worth mentioning is that it supports pressure-sensitive graphics tablets, allowing lighter and darker lines when drawing.

And the list goes on.

A problem, however, with these kinds of packages tends to be the level of complexity in their interface. Xara has manged to keep the interface as simple as possible but with some features, you just can't do that. It isn't overly complex however. With a little patience and on to my next point, the tutorials, it becomes second nature.

So far I have only mentioned the main package. It only takes 20Mb and it's on 2 CD's I hear you say. So what is on the other CD's.

Lots.

The second CD is full of videos that are tied into the help system that shows you how to use the package in great detail. It's so much easier to watch than read a manual. It covers pre
tty much all of the system and admittedly, I've not watched them all being a user of the package for over 6 years now.

That still leaves the first CD. It comes with 500 true-type and 500 postscript fonts, fills, brushes and loads of clipart (have a look at the Xara clipart on their website, www.xara.com) The detail on some of the art is incredible with one having a minute drawing at 25000x magnification! (see the microscope and zoom into the slide on it - the demo is worth downloading just to look at this)

If you are a web designer and need a nice quick and clean package then it's worth a look. If you like drawing or make up posters then it's alsod worth looking at.

A highly recommended piece of software.

Summary: