The nifty intuitive graphics program, CorelXara, is now reborn as Xara X. Originally Xara Studio from Xara, it has ended a marketing relationship with Corel and a somewhat unnecessary association with CorelDraw. 

Xara is a vector illustration package but is meant more specifically for Web designers. It was originally, and is still today, an incredibly easy tool to use. Its much-admired interface still has a clean, roomy look, uncluttered by extruding toolbars and dialog boxes. The toolbars are, in fact, action-sensitive—relevant icons and information boxes appear as you click to use a function. This package is so quick at redrawing and its tools so easy to use—usually just a matter of a click or a drag-n-drop—that it turns out to be great for beginners at design. Although theoretically usable for print graphics, the resolution and pre- cision generated by Xara are more appropriate for screen viewing rather than printing. Other than Web graphics or graphics for multimedia, it can be used to create excellent presentation templates complete with special graphics effects.

Xara is an excellent vectorizer though it handles bitmaps as well. Old fans will find a few cool additions to the collection of tools. With version X, Xara finally has soft shadows of its own, with contrast, angle, and the degree of softness and even color being adjustable. A slider control lets you feather objects too. There’s a bevel tool with a healthy range of options in bevel styles—rounded, chiseled, pointed, ruffled, or framed. And again, the size, contrast, elevation, and lighting are all adjustable. You can even apply multiple bevel effects if you convert the graphic to an editable shape after each effect. The Mould and Blend tools are now accompanied by a Contour tool. There’s also a Button tool, which is probably one of the quickest ways of creating buttons, rollovers and other navigation elements for Web pages, including the generation of the HTML and JavaScript that you need. Xara X had an upper limit bug with buttons but there’s now a patch you can download from www.xara.com to fix that and a few other glitches. Frame-by-frame animation is also possible. 

If you’ve used CorelXara, you’ll remember the true transparency and the multi-stage graduated colored fill effects that the package had. These are much the same, but combined with the other tools, offer more design potential. Combining tools in Xara can in fact lead to an endless exploration of special effects to graphics, including to bitmaps. The package also has a speedy bitmap tracer.

Because of the sheer ease and speed with which it responds, this package is a pleasure to use. It has a lot of high-end hidden features but is, nevertheless, not really appropriate for experienced and professional print-oriented designers as the primary tool to work with. There isn’t even a version for the Mac, which is what most professional designers like to use. It doesn’t handle text particularly well. While you can apply effects to text, more than a line or two will be cumbersome in this package. There’s a great collection of very good clipart and an extensive font arsenal. 

Xara’s makers plan to distribute the package online for $149. You can download a trial version of Xara X (or even the older CorelXara) from www.xara.com. You’ll also find other downloads here: Xara Webstyler, a template-based utility for creating Web graphics like buttons, banners, backgrounds, etc; Xara3D for stylized 3D text, buttons and other elements; and a few other goodies like the Xara Cube screensaver. If you buy Xara X, you get these  extras as trial versions on a set of two CDs, in addition to the complete Xara X. 

Enhancements to Xara X have concentrated on Web development, and while Xara X is best for Web designers, it’s still a little behind sophisticated Web graphics programs, including Macromedia Fireworks. 

Mala Bhargava for PCQ Labs