MX
Table Of Contents
- Purchasing and unlocking Web Designer MX Premium
- Support
- What is new in Web Designer MX Premium? (v8)
- Introduction
- Getting Help
- Getting Started
- Program Layout
- Objects On The Page
- Object Based Web Design
- The Selector Tool
- Website Toolbar
- Creating a website
- Previewing Your Website
- Using Templates, Clipart & Widgets
- The Designs Gallery
- Website Colors
- Photos
- Text
- Selecting a page size
- Automatic page resizing
- Saving Your Work. Creating A Website
- Stretchy Objects
- Groups
- Repeating Objects
- Links, Buttons & Navigation Bars
- Displaying your own icons in browser tabs: favicons
- Drawing Tools
- Right-click menus
- Layers, Mouseover (Rollover) & Pop-ups
- Creating Buttons, Banners And Other Web Graphics
- Publishing Your Website
- Document handling
- Starting a new document
- Opening an existing document
- The Web Designer MX Premium window
- Opening a second window
- Changing the zoom value
- Sliding the document within the window
- Changing the page size
- Multiple pages in the document
- Saving the document
- Support folders
- Closing the document
- Automatic Backups
- On-screen grid
- Rulers
- View quality
- Galleries
- Undo and Redo
- Object Handling
- The Selector Tool
- Moving objects
- Removing objects from the document
- Duplicating and cloning
- Moving objects forward and backwards
- Rotating using the mouse
- Scaling (resizing) objects
- Flipping objects
- Stretching and squashing objects
- Skewing objects
- The Mold tool
- Snapping
- Guide Objects and Guidelines
- Summary of shortcuts on the numeric keypad
- Grouping and ungrouping objects
- Soft Groups
- Alignment
- Copying Styles: Paste Attributes
- Naming objects
- Repeating Objects
- Footers and objects that stretch with the page
- Drawing Lines and Shapes
- Drawing a line or shape
- The Freehand & Brush Tool
- Editing lines/shapes with the Freehand & Brush Tool
- The Straight Line & Arrow tool
- The Shape Editor tool
- Extending the line
- Finishing the line
- Adding a new point handle
- Selecting multiple point handles
- Deleting points
- Moving point handles—Shape Editor Tool
- Smoothing a line
- Constraining the line
- Changing curves
- Changing a straight line to a curve (and vice versa)
- Joining lines
- Splitting a shape
- Line Gallery
- Closing a shape
- Changing the line width (thickness)
- Shape Handling
- Color Handling
- The color line
- Applying fill & line colors by drag & drop
- Editing an object’s color
- The Color Editor
- Local colors and Theme colors
- Theme color schemes
- Creating your own color schemes
- Creating new named colors
- Editing named colors
- Normal colors, Tints, Shades and Linked colors
- Creating a Tint, Shade or Linked color
- Text Handling
- Introduction
- Terminology
- The Text Tool
- The Font Menu
- Simple text
- Text in a column
- Text areas
- Text along a curve
- Editing text
- Spell checker
- Find & Replace
- Synchronising Text using Soft Groups
- Tabs, Margins and Indents
- Repelling text objects
- Anchored Graphics
- Embedded Graphics
- Text Styles
- Applying text attributes
- Text links
- Text inside groups for websites
- Copying text appearances
- Copying/Pasting formatted text (RTF)
- Seeing fonts in use
- Document font embedding
- Website font embedding
- Browser text compatibility
- The Fill Tool
- Transparency
- Shadows
- Bevels
- Masks
- Web Properties Dialog
- Live Effects
- Photo Handling
- Introduction
- Photo Objects
- Photo Groups
- Importing Photos
- Zero-memory Copies
- The Bitmap Gallery
- Embedded JPEG files
- Blending & Merging photos
- Photo display quality
- Saving & Exporting Photos
- Photo Edit Attributes
- Editing the outline of Photos
- Cropping photos
- Cropping photos with a mask
- Cutting objects out of photos
- Screen capture utility
- Coloring photos
- Resize, rotate and position a photo within its frame
- Horizon Straighten
- Viewing a scaled photo at its full size
- Making a photo its full size
- Optimizing Photos and Bitmaps
- Converting objects or drawings to bitmaps
- Photo Documents
- Editing Photo Files
- The Photo Tools
- 3D Extrude Tool
- Navigation Bars
- Using template Navbars
- Navigation bar properties dialog
- Site navigation bar
- Buttons & Menus
- Updating your Navbar across all pages
- On canvas editing
- Changing the font on Navbar buttons
- Importing & pasting Navbars
- Creating your own Navigation Bars
- Button margins
- Advanced - Editing a Navbar button design
- Navbars with different first or last buttons
- Website Presentations
- The Presentation toolbar
- Creating a presentation
- Managing presentation steps
- Adding new presentation pages
- Creating Number and Bullet lists
- Deleting presentation pages
- Linking to next/previous step
- Applying transitions to presentation step links
- Applying presentation step transitions
- Applying presentation page transitions
- Advanced presentation information
- Hosting remote presentation sessions
- Website Widgets
- Page & Layer Gallery
- Animations
- Introduction
- Core Principles
- Your First Animation
- Exporting a Flash File
- Exporting animations as AVI
- The Animation Frame Gallery
- Photos
- Animation Frame Rate and Tween Steps
- Cropping, Clipping and Animation Size
- Animation Speed
- Animation smoothness
- Rotation
- Groups
- What Web Designer MX Premium features does Flash support?
- Color Transforms—Animating Color Changes
- Transparency
- URLs in Flash
- Advanced Flash Commands
- Web Designer MX Premium Flash Animation Summary
- Creating animated GIFs
- Animation properties
- Importing and Exporting
- Printing
- Customizing Web Designer Premium
- Changing the blank template document
- Options in the Utilities menu
- General tab
- Recent file list size
- Current layer always visible and editable
- Ask before setting current attribute
- Make groups be transparent as a whole.
- Maintain imported layer names
- Marquee Object Selection
- Angle constraint
- Document is intended to be a website
- Show Windows compatible text lengths
- Nudge size
- Duplication distance
- Grid and Ruler tab
- Mouse tab
- Page Size tab
- Backups Tab
- Effects & Plug-ins tab
- Control bars
- Galleries
- Displaying a gallery
- Moving and docking a gallery
- Grouping galleries
- Using galleries
- Selecting items
- Re-ordering items in the gallery
- Searching for an item name
- Adding to a gallery
- Deleting sections from a gallery
- Closing a gallery
- Removing a gallery from the workspace
- Restoring the default control bars/galleries
- Menus and Keyboard Shortcuts
- Introduction
- File menu
- New (Standard control bar or Ctrl+N)
- New from Designs Gallery
- Open (Standard control bar or Ctrl+O)
- Open recent
- Close (Ctrl+W)
- Save (Standard control bar or Ctrl+S)
- Save As
- Save All
- Save Template
- Import (Ctrl+Alt+I)
- Export (Ctrl+Shift+E)
- Export JPEG
- Export PNG
- Preview web page (Shift + F5)
- Preview Website (F5)
- Export Website
- Publish Website
- Preview Flash
- Export Animation
- Document Info
- Page Options
- Printer Setup
- Print Options
- Print (Ctrl+P)
- Exit
- Edit menu
- Undo (Standard control bar or Ctrl+Z)
- Redo (Standard control bar or Ctrl+Y)
- Cut (Edit control bar or Ctrl+X)
- Copy (Edit control bar or Ctrl+C)
- Paste (Edit control bar or Ctrl+V)
- Delete (Edit & Standard control bars or Delete)
- Select All (Ctrl+A)
- Clear Selection / Reset current attributes (Esc)
- Duplicate (Edit control bar or Ctrl+Alt+D)
- Clone (Ctrl+K)
- Pages
- Arrange menu
- Move to Layer in Front (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+Shift+U)
- Bring to Front (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+F)
- Move Forwards (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+Shift+F)
- Move Backwards (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+Shift+B)
- Put to Back (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+B)
- Move To Layer Behind (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+Shift+D)
- Group (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+G)
- Ungroup (Arrange control bar or Ctrl+U)
- Apply soft group (Ctrl+Alt+G)
- Remove soft group (Ctrl+Alt+U)
- Alignment (Ctrl+Shift+L)
- Fit Text to Curve/Remove Text From Curve
- Repelling and Anchoring
- Create Navigation Bar
- Repeat on all pages (Shift+Ctrl+Alt+R)
- Stop updating (Shift+Ctrl+Alt+O)
- Utilities menu
- Window menu
- Clear Selection / Reset current attributes (Esc)
- Multiple Page View
- New View
- Arrange Views
- Animation
- Show Scrollbars
- Show Rulers (Ctrl + L)
- Control Bars
- Quality (Standard control bar)
- Show Document Tabs
- Full Screen (8 on numeric keypad)
- Show Grid (#)
- Show Guides (1 on numeric keypad)
- Snap to Grid (. on numeric keypad)
- Snap to Guides (2 on numeric keypad)
- Snap to Objects (* on numeric keypad)
- Documents Loaded
- Help menu
- Key shortcuts
- More about Xara Group
- Legal
By default for JPEG images the settings are such that the photo will be optimized to a 96dpi (normal
screen resolution) JPEG at the size that it appears on your page. This is normally what you will want for
photos in your website.
When optimizing non-JPEG images, Web Designer Premium will automatically decide whether it's best to
optimize to a PNG or JPEG, depending on the nature of the image itself.
You can click the Settings
button on this dialog, if you want to change any settings such as the image format used for the
optimization, JPEG quality, etc.
You can change the resolution used in this dialog, by either choosing the physical size you want for the
optimized image (width/height in pixels), or by entering a different dpi (eg. perhaps 150dpi if you want
print quality).
If you choose the dpi option the value you enter is remembered and becomes the default just for the
current session. You can also maintain the photo's current resolution by choosing Current from the ppi
list.
You can also choose to optimize as a PNG (produces much larger images, but better quality for graphics
and text images) or change the quality used for JPEG optimization (higher quality means larger JPEG
sizes).
If your photo is cropped, only the visible part of the image is preserved in the optimized image.
For printing, a photo resolution of 150dpi gives very good results, whilst 300 dpi will provide the highest
quality commercial printing (most people cannot tell the difference between 150dpi and 300dpi, but the
300dpi requires four times as much memory or file space).
Note
: The optimum JPEG quality is 85%.WE DO NOT recommend saving JPEGs with a quality at 100% -
they are virtually indistinguishable from JPEGs saved at 85%, but use considerably more memory and file
space.
Warning: "Optimize photo
" is a "destructive" operation. When you save the file the parts of the image removed are lost, and the
resolution changed permanently (you can of course undo the changes while the file is open for editing).
You can optimize multiple photos at once if you want them to all have the same DPI. Select the photos
you want to optimize and then choose the Optimize
operation as described above. If your photos have different dimensions, the option to optimize by pixel
size is disabled and you must just choose the required dpi.
Or you can use the "Utilities" > "Optimize all images"
facility to optimize all the bitmap images in your document in one operation.
The optimization process will convert large non-JPEG images to smaller JPEG images if it decides that
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