2013

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www.xara.com
When you drag and drop a JPEG file (or use the "Open" or "Import" menu options)
the JPEG (reduced in size if it was large) is stored in the document, and this is what is
saved in the .xar file when you save your document.
It's important to understand how this differs from other graphics tools, both vector
drawing software and photo editing programs. Other products will typically un-
compress the image and store the un-compressed "raw" image in memory and the
native file when you save to disc. What's more each copy you make is typically a
complete copy of the original raw image, as mentioned above. Make four copies of
your photo and save your file - it will be four times larger. In MAGIX Page & Layout
Designer 2013 the file is no larger, no matter how many copies you make.
So by embedding the JPEG file instead of saving the un-compressed image, that's a
file size saving of more than 7:1 compared to other graphics editors. The fact that
there are four complete copies of the image means that in this particular case the
memory used is more like 30 times less. So this represents a huge file size (and time)
saving over other graphics tools*.
*This is easy to test. Import a JPEG into your favourite graphics editor, make four copies, perhaps
change each one slightly, to be colored or blurred or rotated. Then save the native file and
compare it against the original JPEG size, and the equivalent .Xar file. A .Xar native file is about
the size of the original JPEG, no matter how many copies of the image are made.
Extracting the original JPEG
Right click on any image in the BITMAP GALLERY and select the SAVE menu option to
save the original JPEG back to your file system.
Blending & Merging photos
By making copies of photos on top of each other, and applying different effects to the
copies, combined with Page & Layout Designer's advanced transparency controls, you
can easily create blended photo compositions. For example to selectively blur parts of
a photo takes a few seconds.