Version 19.0 (March 2022).................... 3 Show Profiled Colors.................................................. 3 Text Improvements..................................................... 3 Import/Export................................................................. 4 Final Notes........................................................................ 4 Version 22.0 (July 2022)............................. 5 A New Subscription Option From Xara.......... 5 New Look User Interface......................................... 5 Online Help...................................................................... 6 Shape Tool........................................................................ 6 Live Copy Improvements........................................ 7 Numbered Lists - show all level numbers.... 8 Change font size and Auto-fit.............................. 9 Multi-line SmartField Values................................. 9 Other Improvements & Fixes............................ 10 Version 22.1 (Sept 2022)...................... 11 Table Tool........................................................................ 11 Other Fixes & Improvements............................ 16 Version 22.1.1 (27 Sept 2022)...... 16 New Table Tool Fixes & Improvements....... 16 Photo Color Selection Tool Fix.......................... 17

Version 22.2 (05 Oct 2022)................ 17 Table Improvements............................................... 17 Selection improvements....................................... 18 Make Repeating.......................................................... 21 Align Toolbar................................................................ 22 Other fixes & improvements............................. 22 New Templates (12 Oct 2022)...... 22 Photo Overlays (19 Oct 2022)...... 23 Version 22.3 (24 Oct 2022)................ 23 Table Improvements............................................... 23 Other fixes & improvements............................. 24 Version 22.4 (08 Nov 2022).............. 24 Table Improvements............................................... 24 Other Improvements.............................................. 25 Version 22.5 (07 Dec 2022).............. 26 Table Improvements............................................... 26 Font handling for missing characters.......... 26 Line Gallery................................................................... 27 Account menu............................................................. 28

Other improvements.............................................. 28 Photo Overlays (13 Dec 2022)..... 28 Calendars (20 Dec 2022)...................... 29 Version 23.0 (27 March 2023)...... 29 Designs Gallery - Now Online........................... 29 Table Improvements............................................... 30 Other Fixes & Improvements............................ 30 Version 23.1 (24 May 2023)............. 31 German Support........................................................ 31 Accounts Menu........................................................... 31 Other Fixes & Improvements............................ 31 Version 23.2 (5 July 2023)................... 31 Personal SmartFields.............................................. 31 Name Gallery Font Selection............................. 32 Other Fixes & Improvements............................ 32 Content Update (5 July 2023)........ 32 Social media.................................................................. 32 Web.................................................................................... 32 Version 23.3 (17 Aug 2023).............. 33 Fixes & Improvements........................................... 33 Version 23.4 (31 Aug 2023).............. 33 Support for Dutch, Spanish & French.......... 33 Version 23.5 (14 Nov 2023).............. 33 Elements......................................................................... 33 FlexGroups..................................................................... 33 Editing the Contents of a FlexGroup............ 38 PDF Export..................................................................... 41 Other Fixes & Improvements............................ 42

Calendars (6 Dec 2023).......................... 42 Version 23.6 (18 Jan 2024)................. 43 Italian Support............................................................ 43 Text Improvements.................................................. 43 Other Fixes & Improvements............................ 45 Valentines Content (7 Feb 2024) 46 Version 23.7 (21 Feb 2024)............... 47 Changing the height on a text column........ 47 Import/Export Improvements........................... 47 Other Fixes & Improvements............................ 47 Spring Content (26 March 2024) 47 Version 23.8 (3 Apr 2024)................... 48 Mold Tool - Replace Image.................................. 48 Tables................................................................................ 49 Other Fixes & Improvements............................ 50 Photo Mockups (4 April 2024)..... 50

Version 19.0 (March 2022)

Show Profiled Colors

The Show Printer Colors option in Window > Show Printer Colors has been replaced with Show Profiled Colors. As the name suggests, in this mode all HSV and RGB colors in your document are processed using the current document’s selected color profile, in the same way as when your document is exported to PDF/X for printing purposes using the same profile. So in this mode the on-screen appearance of these colors should now more closely match how the colors will appear in the PDF. And the colors seen on screen will vary, depending on the color profile used (as set in Utilities > Options > View). As you can see in the following example, the HSV/RGB green voucher design looks very different on screen in Photo & Graphic Designer, compared to how it appears when exported to a PDF/X for printing. By turning on Show Profiled Colors, the colors on screen in Photo & Graphic Designer look much closer to those of the PDF/X. Note that this mode does not change the on-screen appearance of any CMYK colors in your document, as these are always displayed by applying the same document color profile.

Text Improvements

New Google Fonts

We’ve added 21 new Google fonts offering new and interesting typography options.

Other Text Improvements

• When pages in a flowing document are re-ordered, page breaks are now added to prevent text moving between pages, which can be confusing. • Spell checker: Each SmartField is now treated as a separate word. • Fixed an issue with some font type icons missing in the menu, on HiDPI displays. • And other minor enhancements.

Import/Export

As with every Photo & Graphic Designer release we continue to improve on our industry-leading file format support: • Improvements to Word and PDF import • Enhancements in PDF to Word export • Fixed reported issues with import of AI files in the stock illustration folder of the Online Content Catalog.

Final Notes

We’ve also implemented a large number of minor enhancements including improvements and fixes in the button palette and Shapes.

Version 22.0 (July 2022)

A New Subscription Option From Xara

We’re happy to introduce a brand new subscription option called Xara Photo & Graphic Designer+. It offers all the advantages of a subscription model, namely frequent delivery of new features and content, as they are developed, and fastest possible response to new compatibility issues and bug reports. You can always be sure you’ll have the latest version. What’s more Web Designer+ comes with direct support from Xara, via chat.

New Look User Interface

Xara Photo & Graphic Designer+ has a new, clean, modern appearance.

Key highlights: • The new darker background puts more focus on your design, with less user interface distractions • There are new, clearer icon designs throughout. • All icons and mouse pointers are now High DPI, so they look sharp and clear on high resolution displays • And other minor tweaks and improvements - for example in the Page & Layer Gallery, the Page names are now separated from the page thumbnails, so both are clearly visible.

Online Help

Xara Photo & Graphic Designer+ help is now online. The various Help buttons throughout the application now open your default web browser onto the online help system, where you can browse and search the help, just as you could with the locally installed help in earlier versions. Having the help online allows Xara to update it more frequently without having to release application updates, and to integrate it with the online knowledgebase articles.

Shape Tool

A nice improvement for vector illustration has been made to the Shape Tool, with the introduction of an easy way to maintain the angle of the bezier curve when you drag its handles to change its length. Now when dragging a point or curve handle you can hold down Alt to constrain the movement of the handle relative to its original angle with nearby points. It works for both curve handles: (the Shift key can also be used to balance the control handles around the selected smooth point) and point handles in shapes with straight lines:

(In this case the Shift key chooses which of the two possible angles connected to the selected point should be used to constrain the angle of the dragged handle. See the Online Help for more details.)

Live Copy Improvements

Live Copies allow you to create multiple copies of any image that can be updated simultaneously with a single edit (similar to Repeating Objects, but more flexible since you can have multiple Live Copies on a single page and they don’t have to be in the same position). It’s a valuable time-saving feature for illustration and document creation. We’ve made various improvements, which will make working with Live Copies easier and more flexible: • Deleting/cutting a Live Copy no longer prompts you to confirm that all instances of the Live Copy should be deleted, as this is rarely needed. • Double-clicking on a Live Copy will now always initiate an ‘edit inside’ on the Live Copy. Previously this worked for multi-object Live Copies, but not for single object Live Copies. • Now when you edit a Live Copy the ‘edit inside’ view shows the design with its original size and orientation, even if the Live Copy has been rotated/scaled. This generally makes editing easier. • You can now easily partition a set of Live Copies into two separate sets. In the following example there are 6 instances of the same Live Copy design. Editing any one of them will also change all the others, because they are all part of the same Live Copy set. 1 Live Copy Set But what if you want to make the last 3 look different to the first 3? Now you can simply select the last 3 objects and choose the Live Copy > Make Unique Live Copies option

on the right-click context menu. Now you have 2 separate sets of Live Copies, so you can edit one of the last 3 objects to make them different. 2 Live Copy Sets

Numbered Lists - show all level numbers

Normally when using Numbered Lists, only one number is shown at the start of each list point, as in the left example below. But now there is also the option to show parent numbers too, as shown in the example on the right: This new option is available in the List Properties dialog. To show the dialog, place the text caret in a list, right-click and choose List properties … in the context menu.

Change font size and Auto-fit

Auto-fit is a feature on a text area, whereby the font size of the text is set automatically by Designer Pro+, so that the text fills the text area container exactly. See the vertical text alignment option on the Text Tool InfoBar . This works even when you have a mix of different text sizes - the relative size differences are maintained. However if all the text is the same size, and you don’t realize that auto-fit option is on, it can be confusing. Attempting to change the font size manually will do nothing, because the font size is set automatically. It’s an easy mistake to make if you’re editing a template and don’t realize that auto-fit is on. So now if you attempt to change the font size on all the text in a text box with auto-fit on, auto-fit is turned off automatically, so that the text size change will just work. The same happens with the related Shrink text on overflow option. Other text handling fixes • Serious error merging in List Styles on paste/import. Fixed. • CID font Noto Sans causes serious error. Fixed.

Multi-line SmartField Values

SmartFields are another great time-saving feature of Xara Designer Pro+, offering an efficient way to deal with commonly used text phrases that you want to insert in multiple places in text. In this update we’ve added the ability to have multi-line SmartFields. Open the SmartFields dialog (Utilities > SmartFields…), select a SmartField in the list and press the new Edit button, to bring up the multi-line text editor.

SmartFields can now be multi-line- postal address is a typical example Where a value has more than one line, only the first line is displayed in the dialog and a … symbol in the right column indicates that the SmartField has more than one line. You can also click in the right side column to bring up the multi-line editor and see the full multi-line text. Note you can still edit single line values directly in the dialog.

Other Improvements & Fixes

Text

• Serious error merging in List Styles on paste/import. Fixed. • CID font Noto Sans causes serious error. Fixed. • External text pasted into list not added as list items. Fixed.

Import/Export

• Word document caused serious error on import. Fixed. • EPS import fix.

Other

• Opening color editor onto page color initially shows ‘no color’. Fixed. • Applying color to a page no longer turns on page shadow automatically. Page shadow can still be

turned on/off in File > Page Options … . • FX Painter Tool profile adjustment not working. Fixed. • Company and licensee information now shown correctly in Help > About.

Version 22.1 (Sept 2022)

Table Tool

Tables are often a key part of any business document, which is why we’ve been working on a new, very flexible and powerful Table Tool, to replace the old Smart Table SmartShapes. You will find the new tool at the bottom of the main Toolbar on the left . The Table Tool InfoBar is where you can change the settings for a selected table and for selected cells within a table. Table Tool InfoBar

Creating Tables

In the Table Tool, click the first button on the InfoBar to quickly create a new table . Or you can click- drag on the page, to drag out a new table with the number of rows and columns you want.

There’s also a great range of professionally designed tables in the Online Content Catalog (Insert > Table > Tables …), all the existing table designs have been updated and we’ve added 20 completely new designs. Some of the table designs in the Online Content Catalog

Table Size

In the Selector Tool, single-click to select the table, then simply drag the table width/height handles to change the width/height of the whole table. Or you can set the width and height in the InfoBar, as you would with any other object.

Changing Rows & Columns

When you have a table selected in the Table Tool, move the mouse pointer over the hotspots as shown below.

Using these controls you can quickly add rows and columns, change row and column sizes, select and delete rows and columns, all directly on the table without using the InfoBar. Use Ctrl+click or Shift+click on the row and column headers to select multiple rows/columns. Backspace will also delete a selected row or column (whereas Delete will delete the contents). You can set the selected row heights and column widths on the InfoBar numerically, which makes it easy to give multiple rows or columns the exact same sizes.

Selecting Cells

Selecting cells you want to change is easy. First click to select the whole table, then in the Table Tool you can click on individual cells to select them. Or click-drag to select a rectangular range of cells. You can also Ctrl+click on a cell to add it to the current selection, or Shift+click to extend the current cell selection range. You can also select multiple cells while in the Text Tool, by simply click-dragging.

Cell Contents

Once you have selected the cell(s) a simple Delete will delete the contents. The usual copy and paste commands will work, Ctrl C and Ctrl V. Font, font size and color can be changed like regular text.

Cell Background Color

By default cell background color is white. To change this, select the cell or cells you want to change, and click the new color you want in the Cell color background dropdown on the right side of the InfoBar, which includes all the theme colors in the current document. If you select the Edit option in that dropdown, you can open the color editor to create a custom color. Alternatively you can right click any color on the color line and select Set Table Cell Background. Note there is also a table background color behind the cells, which you will see if you open up spacing between the cells; see Table Spacing below.

Cell Justifications

You can choose between left, right and center justified text using the buttons on the InfoBar. Use the vertical alignment dropdown to choose between top, center or bottom aligned text in the cell.

Cell Borders

Click the Borders button on the right end of the InfoBar to open the Borders dialog. Borders Dialog First select the cell(s) you want to change as this dialog always works on the selected cells only. In the top Border Filter section of the dialog you first choose which borders you want to change. For example if you want to change only the right side of the whole cell selection, select the filter. Then as you change the border style, width and color in the lower half of the dialog, only that right side border will change. If you

want to change all borders of every individual cell in the selection, choose the filter, then again choose the border settings you want. If you have a lot of different border colors, styles and widths in your table, you may have to perform several border changing operations on different cell selections with different Border Filters, but every possible combination of borders on a table is possible!

Cell Padding

Cell padding is the space you see between the text in a cell and the borders of that cell. In most cases it’s desirable to have some non-zero padding applied, so text doesn’t appear too close to the cell borders.

Table Spacing

The table spacing setting lets you add space between all the cells of the table. Most tables tend to have zero spacing, meaning that cell borders overlap with no space between one cell and the next. The color you see in the spaces between cells, blue in the example above, is the Table Background Color, which you can also set using the Table Background Color dropdown towards the left of the InfoBar, or with a right click on a color in the color line > Set Table Background.

Merging & Splitting Cells

Select multiple cells and click the Merge button on the InfoBar, to merge them into a single cell. For example you can easily add a header row to a table by selecting all the cells in the first row and merging them into a single cell. To unmerge/split cells again, select them and click the Split button.

Useful Table Shortcuts

• Double click on a cell in the Table Tool, to jump to the Text Tool and start adding/editing text in the cell.  • When you’ve finished typing in one cell, press Tab to jump to the next cell, or Shift+Tab to move to the previous cell. When you are in the last cell of a table, pressing Tab again will automatically add a new row so you can keep extending the table.  • Clear the contents of all selected cells by hitting the Delete key. Delete will also clear the contents of a selected row(s)/column(s), whereas Backspace will delete the row(s)/ column(s). • If you are in the Table Tool with a cell selected and you press the Return key, Xara will switch to the Text Tool and place the caret at the end of the text. • You can set cell background colors and table background colors using the color line, as well as on the InfoBar. Select the cells, right-click on the color line and choose from the menu. • You can drag and drop embedded objects between cells.

Other Fixes & Improvements

• Pasting list items from external source into list, did not add list items. Fixed. • Docx file caused serious error opening. Fixed. • Inserting components via the Insert menu will always brand the components with the current document styles and colors, without asking the user as previously. • Missing handles in Mold Tool. Fixed. • Scrollbar thumbs now more visible against scrollbar backgrounds. • Installation problems for some users caused by missing MS VCRUNTIME DLL. Fixed. • Can’t scroll to all pages in Page & Layer Gallery due to new page name position. Fixed.

Version 22.1.1 (27 Sept 2022)

New Table Tool Fixes & Improvements

• Cell selection behavior with merged cells improved. • Undo fails after resizing table column while a cell is selected. Fixed. • Error when pasting a larger table into a smaller table. Fixed • Error after closing document with table cell selected. Fixed • Difficult to change cell background color. Fixed • Status line text misleading for column grid position drags. Fixed • Applying borders to merged cells doesn’t work as expected. Fixed • Unselected table backgrounds still appearing when in Solo mode (Page & Layer Gallery). Fixed • Serious error resizing column with merged cells. Fixed

Photo Color Selection Tool Fix

• Photo color selection tool not working as expected. Fixed

Version 22.2 (05 Oct 2022)

Table Improvements

Re-order rows & columns

You can now re-order rows and columns using drag and drop. To move a single row, simply click+drag on the row header. As you drag up/down, a thick blue line shows you where the row will be moved to. To move multiple rows at once, first select the rows (use Ctrl+click and Shift+click to add rows to the selection) then drag on one of the row headers. Similarly you can move columns left/right using the column headers.

Convert old tables to new

The old Smart tables will continue working as before, but will not be improved in future. But now with one click you can convert these to new tables, so that you can edit them with the new Table Tool. Whenever you click on an old table, you’ll be asked if you would like it to be converted. You should see that the converted table look almost exactly the same as the old table, although you may see some small differences. The prompt will allow you to refuse the conversion and to turn off future prompts, but we strongly recommend you convert all old tables to new tables when you next need to edit them. Old tables will continue to work for now but may not be supported in future.

Other table improvements/fixes

• Some table context menu entries are inappropriate when merged cells are selected. Fixed. • Minimum cell size reduced to 1mm.

• Problem copying and pasting cells containing embedded objects. Fixed • Changing page height interactively is slow/difficult in documents with tables. Fixed.

Selection improvements

The following changes have been made to selection handling in response to user feedback and to make selection more consistent across different object types.

Offset handles

Selector Tool transform handles are now offset by a small distance so that they don’t obscure any part of the selected object, or get in the way of any other handles on the object. The offset remains constant for all zoom levels and does not affect object snapping. In addition to the lollipop rotation handle, there are hidden rotate ‘hotspots’ just inside the 4 corner resizing handles (in the offset gap).

Rotate and Skew mode

If you click a second time on an object that is already selected, the selection handles change to show rotation and skew handles. Each time you click, the handles toggle between the two modes. You can also change this mode using the handle on the Selector Tool InfoBar. The skew operation used to rely entirely on dragging hidden handles near the stretch handles or on the InfoBar field, which only skews in one axis. It was too easy to drag the hidden skew handles by accident without realizing it, resulting in unwanted skew effects in a document. So the hidden skew handles have been removed completely and skewing by dragging is now only available in Rotate & Skew mode, using the new visible handles.

SmartShapes & Photos

The Selector Tool only shows SmartShape handles that don’t interfere with the (now offset) transformation handles. This means that the Selector Tool handles now always work consistently, whatever is selected.

The most significant result of this change is that photos can now be scaled and stretched by any of the selection handles. Switch to the Quickshape Tool tool to see all the handles of a SmartShape and to the Photo Tool to see all photo related handles. Double-clicking on a SmartShape now switches to the Quickshape Tool where all its handles are always available, just as double-clicking a photo switches to the Photo Tool. Note the two different effects of dragging photo stretch handles: • In the Selector Tool stretching keeps the center of a photo in the center of the object and only scales the photo if it needs to make it fit the new shape. This is the least intrusive way to stretch a photo without distorting it and is appropriate when the photo is being stretched along with other objects. • In the Photo Tool stretching the photo shape keeps the photo position fixed and only moves it, or starts to scale it, if required to fill the shape. This is most appropriate when editing a photo on its own.

Stretching & Squashing

Wherever possible, stretching objects will stretch their outer shape and automatically reformat the contents to fit in the stretched shape, without distorting. For example when stretching a rectangular object that has rounded corners, the corners won’t distort, they’ll remain circular. This is called Smart Transformation and it prevents the introduction of unwanted or accidental distortion into documents. However, sometimes you may want to deliberately stretch both an object and its contents (e.g. to stretch/distort a photo or some text).

It is now possible to stretch any object, including Text and Photos, by holding down the Alt key to disable Smart Transformation when dragging the Selector Tool’s stretch handles.

Other Selection improvements

• The Selector Tool now shows the full width of a text column, instead of just the width of text in the column. This makes text columns consistent with text areas/boxes.

Make Repeating

Repeating Objects are used where you want the same object to appear on multiple pages of a document, in the same position on each page. They are most commonly used for page headers and page footers. Until now the only way to make an object repeating was to use the Arrange > Repeat on all pages operation. This makes a copy of the object on every single page of the document. This is great if you want

the object on every page, but sometimes documents have more than one different page design and you may want one Repeating Object only on some of the pages and perhaps a different Repeating Object on other pages. Now there is a new operation Arrange > Make repeating, which simply makes the current selected object into a Repeating Object, without making any additional copies of it on other pages. Once you’ve done this, you can then copy and paste the Repeating Object to whichever pages it’s needed on. Note that you can achieve this very quickly by first selecting the target pages in the Page & Layer Gallery (use Ctrl+click and Shift+click to select multiple pages in the gallery), then paste, and the object will be pasted onto all the pages you selected.

Align Toolbar

The distribute options on the Align Toolbar (Window > Bars > Align) have been changed from Distribute centers, to Distribute equally spaced, which is more commonly used because it works well with objects of different sizes. The Arrange > Alignment dialog still includes the center distribution options.

Other fixes & improvements

• Inconsistent font sizes when pasting same sized text into ‘Shrink on overflow’ text boxes. Fixed. • Icon line widths wrong when replaced with SVG. Fixed. • Serious error opening Document info with specific document. Fixed. • Help users recover from unusual installation, update and activation errors. • Check and (when necessary) fix the Windows Explorer ‘thumbnail view’, automatically during program startup. • When replacing a color in an object, Xara will no longer preserve shading if there is only one shade of the color used. The user’s chosen color is applied directly instead.

New Templates (12 Oct 2022)

A bonanza of 200+ new templates in the Online Content Catalog of Xara Photo & Graphic Designer+: • 57 extra tables, so you can make the most of our brand new table tool (in Components > Print & Web Components > Tables) • 42 social media buttons, to help you maximize the potential of social media (in Components > Print & Web Components > Buttons > Social Media) • 125 'fancy' buttons with creative outlines (in Components > Print & Web Components > Buttons >

Fancy) • 3 restaurant menus templates (in Print > Menus) • 1 invoice template (in Print > Invoices) You can find them now in the folders indicated above or in the WHAT'S NEW folder in the Online Content Catalog.

Photo Overlays (19 Oct 2022)

Almost 1300 extra Overlay Photo Filters in the Online Content Catalog of Xara Photo & Graphic Designer+. Overlays can be added to your photo, even on top of other photo filters, to provide a massive array of different creative effects. You can find them in Components > Image resources > Photo Filter Presets > Overlays, in 4 new categories (Bokeh, Color Gradient, Light Leak and Snow). Simply select your photo, then select the overlay and click Import. 1285 new photo overlays in the Online Content Catalog

Version 22.3 (24 Oct 2022)

Table Improvements

Copy/paste external data

An important step forward for our new Table Tool. You can now copy and paste text and numbers from your spreadsheets and other sources into Xara tables. Simply copy the cells you want to copy in your spreadsheet, then in the Table Tool select a table cell and paste (Ctrl+V).

Technical notes: This should work with data from any application that is able to place TSV (Tab Separated Values) as unformatted text onto the clipboard, when you copy it. If you find it doesn’t work with an application you use, please let us know. Support will be added for pasting data from HTML format in a future release.

Other Table improvements

• Table reformatting fixes. • Pasting an image into a selected cell in the Table Tool now works as expected. • Pasting an image into a cell no longer increases the row height excessively. • Error deleting rows that are part of a merged row. Fixed. • Error pasting RTF tables. Fixed.

Other fixes & improvements

• We’ve added an option to apply page settings changes to all pages. See the Page Size tab of the Utilities > Options dialog. So, for example, this allows you to change the bleed margin settings across all pages of a document, even when the All pages the same option (in the same tab) is off. • Error when pasting list items into an existing list. Fixed.

Version 22.4 (08 Nov 2022)

Table Improvements

Paste of multi-line text

We have improved handling of multi-line text when copy and pasting data from external applications such as spreadsheets into your Xara tables, see 22.3 above.

Paste unformatted

Sometimes when working with tables you’ll want to copy the contents of one table to another table. If you simply copy the cells of one table, and paste them onto another, this will also paste the style of the source table cells, as well as the content. Now there is a new Paste unformatted option, in the right-click context menu. So to paste just the cell contents, copy (Ctrl+C) the source cells in the first table, select the target cells in the second table, then right-click and choose Paste > Paste unformatted from the context menu.

Other table improvements

• Improved handling of multi-line text copied and pasted from other applications. • Other clipboard handling improvements. • Tables don’t always redraw correctly after width/height changes. Fixed. • Error when importing a particular table with color matching. Fixed. • Extending row selections using the Shift key is now more reliable. • Error when exporting a PDF while table cells are selected. Fixed. • Can’t click/drag on a table’s background to select/move the table. Fixed.

Other Improvements

• Print options: The options in the print dialog have been renamed to make it clearer at a glance what they do: Automatic is now more helpfully described as Actual size and Fit as Best Fit. Tip: if you select Best Fit your design is moved to the center of the page and expanded or shrunk to suit the paper size, the print dialog will show the degree of scaling. • Second and subsequent pastes of the same clipboard contents now work the same way as the initial paste (a list of formats to choose from is shown, if there is a choice). This means if you don’t like the results of the first format you choose, you can simply paste again and choose a different format, without having to re-copy from the source application. • Lock icons are now shown in an “unlocked” or “locked” state.

Version 22.5 (07 Dec 2022)

Table Improvements

Export of tables to Word

Xara tables now appear as editable tables in MS Word, when documents are exported to Word (.docx) format.

Table Fixes

• Making a copy of a table by dragging on it with right mouse button down gives an error. Fixed.

Font handling for missing characters

Automatic font selection

Xara Photo & Graphic Designer+ now helps you to find and apply fonts that support characters that are not supported by the majority of Google fonts. For example if you enter or paste a Chinese character such as into text that is using a typical Google Font such as Open Sans, the character won’t appear correctly because Open Sans does not support Chinese characters. Instead you will see or similar in the text. Now when you enter such a character, Xara will check your device for fonts that do support the character. If it finds one, the font will be changed so you should see the character appear correctly. When changing the font automatically in this way, Xara will choose a font that is already being used in the current document where possible, to avoid introducing lots of different fonts. NOTE: Currently this automatic font selection only happens when pasting in unformatted text at the text caret, not when pasting from other formats such as HTML. Go into the Text Tool, place the text caret, select Paste and choose Unformatted text. This will be improved to include all types of paste in a future update.

Alternative Font Suggestions

If you don’t like the automatically chosen font, select the character(s) in the Text Tool, right-click and you should see a Font Suggestions entry at the top of the context menu. This shows you all the fonts installed on your device that support the first character in your text selection.

Font suggestions for selected Chinese character You’ll see the selection update to preview the font that is under your mouse pointer, so you can quickly choose which font works best.

Google Fonts

For Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters, Xara will first look for the most popular Google fonts that support the character set, if any are installed on your device. You can find the names of such fonts by searching for them on Google Fonts, using the Language filter, then download and install them onto your device using the Add option in the Google Fonts section of the Fonts menu in the Text Tool of Xara Photo & Graphic Designer+. Once installed, you should see them in the main Fonts menu and in the Font Suggestions menu described above.

Line Gallery

In previous versions of Photo & Graphic Designer, when interacting with the Line Gallery for the first time in every session, there was a delay of a few seconds while Xara downloaded all the different brush definitions that are available in the gallery. In some cases this also caused the current selection to be lost. This has now been improved so that each separate brush definitions folder is loaded only if/when needed, so there is no initial delay when using the gallery and the selection is always maintained.

Account menu

Photo & Graphic Designer+ now has a new Account menu on the main menu bar. This currently contains options for managing your Xara subscription (upgrade your subscription, or update your billing address or credit card, download invoice) and for managing members of your team, if you are using Xara as part of a team. Both options open in your default web browser. In future this menu will include other options for managing your account and device registrations.

Other improvements

• Scrolling and text editing performance improvements (noticeable with larger documents with many pages). • Image export setting sometimes changed unexpectedly when page clipping option changed. Fixed.

New Photo Overlays (13 Dec 2022)

We’ve added another 1200 Photo Filter Overlays to the Online Content Catalog of Xara Photo & Graphic Designer+. Overlays can be added to your photo, even on top of other photo filters, to provide a huge choice of creative possibilities. You can find them in Components > Image resources > Photo Filter Presets > Overlays, in 4 new categories (Light Rays, Night Sky, Rose Petal and additions to Light Leak). To apply the overlay simply select your photo, then select the overlay and click Import. Mix and match the filters and overlays for an almost infinite choice of photo effects

Calendar Templates (20 Dec 2022)

We’ve just added a new category of templates to the Online Content Catalog. You’ll find 12 new calendar designs in Print > Calendars, fully customizable to your brand - just in time to get 2023 off to a great visual start. One of the new calendar templates in the Online Content Catalog

Version 23.0 (27 March 2023)

Designs Gallery - Now Online

The Designs Gallery now automatically connects and updates online, so it has the same content as the Content Catalog, except for the stock photo & illustration and symbol libraries So you can access the same content whichever way you prefer. Generally the Designs Gallery is more convenient when importing components and other content into the current document, because you can use drag and drop from the gallery onto your document, instead of opening the Content Catalog on top of it. So for the maximum productivity, all the Insert menu options that insert objects from the catalog now open the Designs Gallery instead of the Content Catalog. The File > New from Content Catalog option works as before, because the larger window of the Content Catalog is usually best for browsing document templates.

Table Improvements

The Table Tool InfoBar has been improved, with the Table background color and Spacing between cells options moved into a new Table Properties dialog. Table Properties Bring up the dialog by clicking the button on the Table Tool InfoBar.

Header & Footer Rows

In the dialog there are new options for setting the number of header and footer rows on your table. This information is used when copying and pasting the style of a table from one table to another. To do this select a table and press copy (Ctrl+C). Then select a different table and do Edit > Paste > Paste format/attributes (Ctrl+Shift+A). Header and footer rows will become much more important once tables can be split across pages and text columns, which is coming soon to the Table Tool!

Other Table Improvements

• Improved support for dotted/dashed table borders. • Serious error right-click dragging a table from one page to another. Fixed. • Table border widths wrong at some zooms in Chrome and Edge. Fixed. • Text links not underlined inside tables. Fixed. • Drag-selecting table cells could cause serious error. Fixed.

Other Fixes & Improvements

• Auto-bleed objects now created at full print resolution.

• Accounts menu now has options to jump to Team Profile and Downloads page • Bring to front / Put to back / Move forwards / Move backwards operations now work on objects inside groups. Objects are moved relative to other objects in the same group. • Text copied and pasted from PDF reader has incorrect case. Fixed. • Can’t move text caret between consecutive embedded objects with arrow keys. Fixed.

Version 23.1 (24 May 2023)

German Support

Photo & Graphic Designer+ now supports both English and German languges. When starting the application for the first time on a device, it will use the current language as defined in Windows. Thereafter you can change the language at any time using Help > Language (requires an application restart).

Accounts Menu

The Accounts menu now has some additional options to help you manage your Photo & Graphic Designer+. Account details This option shows you which account email and Team you used to activate Photo & Graphic Designer+. Sign-out Use this if you need to re-activate Photo & Graphic Designer+ using a different account email or Team. This is important if you purchased Photo & Graphic Designer+ using a different email address to the one you used to activate it. Change sign-in details This option opens your web browser to let you change the name or email address in your Xara account.

Other Fixes & Improvements

• Spelling dictionaries have been added for Ukrainian and Amharic. • Rendering artifacts sometimes visible in auto-bleed bitmaps. Fixed.

Version 23.2 (5 July 2023)

Personal SmartFields

The set of Personal SmartFields in Photo & Graphic Designer+ (Utilities > SmartFields …) has been extended to match the fields in your Xara Cloud profile, so that templates and documents using these fields will work the same way in both Photo & Graphic Designer+ and Xara Cloud. The new fields in Photo &

Graphic Designer+ are full address, website text, facebook text, instagram text, linkedin text, twitter text, tiktok text and link, adding to the great time-saving potential of SmartFields.

Name Gallery Font Selection

The Name Gallery is a useful but sometimes overlooked Gallery that allows you to see which fonts are used on the current page, and select text that uses each font, a quick and easy way to identify which text on a page uses a particular font or font variant. A change in this release will ensure it now works reliably for all multi-weight and multi-family fonts.

Other Fixes & Improvements

• + handle disappeared on some SmartShape components. Fixed. • Serious error importing SVG file that has embedded WOFF2 fonts. Fixed. • The number of decimal places shown in the UI is no longer linked to Windows settings, which caused some user confusion. It now defaults to 2 decimal places and can be changed in the registry if required. • The Photo & Graphic Designer+ automatic updater now closes the program automatically to allow update installation to proceed.

Content Update (5 July 2023)

This release also includes a very significant update to the template library in the Online Content Catalog and Designs Gallery, adding many of the Xara Cloud designs. You’ll find over 400 new creative choices in the templates / new categories as follows:

Social media

YouTube (16) Carousel Posts (18) - New Category Instagram (66) Instagram stories (20) - New Category Facebook (50) Twitter (52) LinkedIn (54)

Web

Skype backgrounds (8) - New Category Email Header banners (20) - New Category Email Signature banners (26) - New Category Web banners (80) - New Category

Zoom background (26) - New Category

Version 23.3 (17 Aug 2023)

Fixes & Improvements

• Improved reporting of program activation problems. • Holding down Alt while resizing image width/height now distorts the image, as intended. • Very small objects could cause PDF export to error. Fixed. • Serious error when applying elliptical transparency to a group. Fixed

Version 23.4 (31 Aug 2023)

Support for Dutch, Spanish & French

Designer+ now supports Dutch, Spanish and French, in addition to the English and German languages already available. When starting the application for the first time on a device, it will use the current language as defined in Windows. Thereafter you can change the language at any time using Help > Language (requires an application restart).

Version 23.5 (14 Nov 2023)

Elements

Elements is the new name for what was previously known as the Online Content Catalog. As before, all the same content is available through Elements and in the Designs Gallery.

FlexGroups

A FlexGroup is a new type of group that has the potential to save you a huge amount of time and effort! The objects within a FlexGroup are automatically arranged according to a set of layout settings, which control how objects are spaced in a row, horizontal and vertical alignment, etc. You can use FlexGroups in any type of document where you want to organize a variable number of objects on the doc, without having to manually space and align each one. The layout settings are controlled using the Flex Layout toolbar, described below.

To create a new FlexGroup, select the objects you want to put in it and do Arrange > Create FlexGroup. To ungroup a FlexGroup, select it and use Arrange > Ungroup, or Ctrl+U, the same as for an ordinary group. The width of a FlexGroup is set manually by you and will never change automatically. But the height of the FlexGroup will vary according to how many rows are needed to fit in all the member objects. As with ordinary groups, clicking on any object in a FlexGroup will select the FlexGroup, not the object inside. Use Ctrl+click to select an object inside. With a FlexGroup selected, you can adjust its width and height using its selection handles, as you would with any other object. Flex Layout Toolbar You can turn this bar on/off in any type of document, using Window > Bars. This bar shows the current layout settings for the selected FlexGroup. Each of the available settings are described below. Horizontal alignment This setting affects how objects are positioned in a row if there is some spare horizontal space. With the 5 photo example above, this will affect how the second row of 2 photos appears. There are 6 options for this setting:

Note that the small spaces visible between the photos with the first 3 ‘justify’ settings is because each photo has its own object margin (see below). Vertical alignment This setting works the same way as Horizontal alignment described above, but in the vertical direction. Once again the setting only has an effect if there is some spare space vertically, that needs to be distributed.

Row alignment This setting determines how objects in a row are positioned, if they don’t all have the same height. The options are simply Top, Bottom or Center alignment. Object Margin This option allows you to set a margin around an object. For example in the 3 photos FlexGroup above, every photo has been given a 10px margin horizontally and vertically, so there will always be at least 20px between the photos. If you wanted the photos to touch each other with no space between them, you would set the margin to 0px on each of them. You can give all objects the same margins, or set a different margin for each object. To set the margin on multiple objects together, select one object by Ctrl+clicking on it, then add more objects to the selection by holding down Shift and Ctrl and clicking on each in turn. Then you can change the margin values on the FlexGroup bar to set them all to the same value. When an object is selected inside a FlexGroup, you can see some pale blue shading around the object that shows you the extent of its margins. In the example shown below, we’ve selected the last 2 photos and increased their margins to 100px, to force much more space around them, as shown by the pale blue shading:

Padding This option allows you to add space around the whole FlexGroup. When it is selected, the padding extent is shown in pale purple, around the contents of the FlexGroup. In the example below we’ve set 50px of padding horizontally and vertically:

Editing the Contents of a FlexGroup

You can resize objects directly inside a FlexGroup, drag objects in and out of the FlexGroup, or from one FlexGroup to another, and easily duplicate and delete objects inside FlexGroup. The FlexGroup will automatically adjust. For example if you start with the following 3 photo FlexGroup:

Re-ordering objects To change the order of objects in a FlexGroup, first Ctrl+click on one of the objects, to select it inside. Then you can drag on the object to move it within the FlexGroup. As you drag, a vertical purple line appears to indicate at which position the dragged object will be placed. In the example below, the red photo is being dragged from position 5 to position 2, so you see the purple line between the first and second photos as you drag: So the end result on drop will be:

Moving objects in and out of FlexGroups

With all FlexGroups you can easily add new objects to them by simply dragging the object over the group using the Selector Tool. As you do this, you will see the purple outline of the FlexGroup you are targeting light up. You’ll also see an insertion point indication, as shown above in the Re-ordering example. On drop, the object is moved into the FlexGroup, positioned according to its settings. Similarly you can also drag an object out of a FlexGroup, to remove it from a group. Ctrl+click to select it, then drag it to another FlexGroup, or drop it anywhere else to remove it from the FlexGroup. When you initially draw, paste or import a new object into a document, it will not automatically be added to a FlexGroup. To add it to a FlexGroup simply drag it over a FlexGroup, as described above. If you want to have an object floating above or below a FlexGroup rather than being part of the group, this can be done by holding down the Shift key while dragging the object over a FlexGroup. This prevents the object being added into the group. Similarly if you move a floating object you need to hold down Shift to prevent the object being moved into a FlexGroup on drop.

PDF Export

Text using some fonts can look wrong at some zoom factors in Adobe Reader. This only happens with a very few fonts, but there is now a workaround for this in Designer+ 23.5 for the few occasions when this problem appears. A new option in the PDF Export Advanced Options dialog (General tab, Embedded fonts format) can be set to TrueType instead of the default setting of OpenType.

Other Fixes & Improvements

• On newly created documents, the document language is now set according to the current device language. • Serious error optimizing a specific PNG file. Fixed. • Tolerance and Fade controls not visible on Photo Tool InfoBar with some languages. Fixed. • Serious error possible if font warnings are shown during program startup. Fixed. • Serious error possible selecting inside photos with effects. Fixed.

Calendar Templates (6 Dec 2023)

We’ve added 18 new calendar templates for 2024 (and updated the existing ones), you’ll find them now in Xara Elements (formerly Online Content Catalog) under Print > Calendars. Introducing the New 2024 Calendars See how a calendar is actually created Just some of the new calendar designs for 2024 in Xara Elements

Version 23.6 (18 Jan 2024)

Italian Support

Photo & Graphic Designer+ now supports Italian, in addition to the German, Dutch, Spanish and French languages already supported. When starting the application for the first time on a device, it will use the current language as defined in Windows. Thereafter you can change the language at any time using Help > Language (requires an application restart).

Text Improvements

Google Fonts Update

The set of Google fonts has been updated, adding around 350 new fonts, as listed below. A ADLaM Display,AR One Sans,Aboreto,Abyssinica SIL,Afacad,Agbalumo,Agdasima,Akatab,Akshar,Albert Sans,Alexandria,Alkalami,Alkatra,Allison,Alumni Sans,Alumni Sans Collegiate One,Alumni Sans Inline One,Alumni Sans Pinstripe,Andada Pro,Anek Latin,Angkor,Anuphan,Anybody,Aoboshi One,Are You Serious,Aref Ruqaa Ink,Arima,Atkinson Hyperlegible,Azeret Mono B BIZ UDGothic,BIZ UDMincho,BIZ UDPGothic,BIZ UDPMincho,Babylonica,Bacasime Antique,Bagel Fat One,Bakbak One,Battambang,Bayon,Beau Rivage,Belanosima,Besley,BhuTuka Expanded One,Birthstone,Birthstone Bounce,Blaka,Blaka Hollow,Blaka Ink,Bokor,Bonheur Royale,Borel,Braah One,Bricolage Grotesque,Bruno Ace,Bruno Ace SC,Bungee Spice C Cairo Play,Caprasimo,Caramel,Carattere,Carlito,Castoro Titling,Charis SIL,Cherish,Cherry Bomb One,Chivo Mono,Chokokutai,Climate Crisis,Comforter,Comforter Brush,Comme,Corinthia D Dai Banna SIL,Dangrek,Darumadrop One,Delicious Handrawn,Diphylleia,Dongle,DynaPuff E Edu NSW ACT Foundation,Edu QLD Beginner,Edu SA Beginner,Edu TAS Beginner,Edu VIC WA NT Beginner,Ephesis,Estonia,Explora F Familjen Grotesk,Fasthand,Figtree,Finlandica,Fleur De Leah,Flow Block,Flow Circular,Flow Rounded,Foldit,Fragment Mono,Fredoka,Freehand,Fuzzy Bubbles G Gabarito,Gajraj One,Gantari,Gasoek One,Gemunu Libre,Genos,Gentium Book Plus,Gentium Plus,Geologica,Georama,Gideon Roman,Gloock,Glory,Gluten,Golos Text,Gowun Batang,Gowun Dodum,Grandiflora One,Grape Nuts,Grechen Fuemen,Grey

Paint,Ruwudu S STIX Two Text,Sassy Frass,Scheherazade New,Schibsted Grotesk,Send Flowers,Shalimar,Shantell Sans,Shippori Antique,Shippori Antique B1,Shizuru,Sigmar,Silkscreen,Slackside One,Smooch,Smooch Sans,Sofia Sans,Sofia Sans Condensed,Sofia Sans Extra Condensed,Sofia Sans Semi Condensed,Solitreo,Sometype Mono,Sono,Source Sans 3,Source Serif 4,Splash,Spline Sans,Spline Sans Mono,Square Peg,Stick No Bills,Style Script,Suwannaphum T Tai Heritage Pro,Tapestry,Taprom,Tektur,The Nautigal,Tilt Neon,Tilt Prism,Tilt Warp,Tsukimi Rounded,Twinkle Star U Unbounded,Updock,Urbanist V Vazirmatn,Victor Mono,Vina Sans,Vujahday Script W Water Brush,Waterfall,Wavefont,Whisper,WindSong,Wix Madefor Display,Wix Madefor Text Y Yaldevi,Young Serif,Ysabeau,Ysabeau Infant,Ysabeau Office,Ysabeau SC Z Zen Antique,Zen Antique Soft,Zen Kaku Gothic Antique,Zen Kaku Gothic New,Zen Kurenaido,Zen Maru Gothic

Other Text Improvements

• Can’t edit SmartField value if it’s in a Repeating Object. Fixed. • Graphical numbered lists: numbers not updated when first pasting a graphical number to the list. Fixed.

Other Fixes & Improvements

Document Color Profile - None

Designer+ allows a Color Profile to be set on every document (Utilities > Options > View tab). This determines how CMYK colors appear on screen, because the color profile controls how each CMYK color is converted to RGB for screen display. With this update, the color profile is now optional, so you can select None as one of the profile options. When this is selected, CMYK colors will look the same on screen as when using older versions of Designer which did not have the color profile support.

PDF Import

• Some PDFs with ICC based images failed to import properly. Fixed.

Bitmap Export Dialog

• Zoom tool no longer working. Fixed. • Transparent option now always enabled and it automatically selects True Color + Alpha for the export when activated.

Other

• Stacking order changes not working properly with multi-selection. Fixed. • SmartShape unexpectedly removed from document after intersect operation. Fixed. • Help > Check for updates doesn’t always report when the program is up to date. Fixed. • File extension registration messages now clearer, when shown on program startup. • On-screen color separation preview incorrect when transparency is used. Fixed.

Valentines Content (7 Feb 2024)

Spread a little joy this Valentine’s Day - with a bit of help from our new Valentine themed templates! • 25 print cards • 25 Facebook posts • 25 Instagram posts You can find all this Lovely new content in Xara Elements (formerly Online Content Catalog) and the Designs Gallery in the Social Media and Print folders.

Version 23.7 (21 Feb 2024)

Changing the height on a text column

Text columns have a fixed width into which text is formatted, but unlike a Text Area (text box) they do not have a fixed height. This could be confusing for users, because dragging the top/bottom height handles in the Selection Tool did nothing. Now upon dragging these handles on a column, the user is asked if they would like to convert the Text column into a Text Area, so they can then adjust the height.

Import/Export Improvements

• PDF export: With some fonts some characters were displayed incorrectly in Adobe Reader. Fixed. • PDF Import: Some PDFs with form fields did not import. Fixed. • PDF Import: Non 8-bpp images could import solid black from some PDFs. Fixed.

Other Fixes & Improvements

• Improved error reporting on program activation failure. • Serious error copy/pasting page from one document to another. Fixed. • Project file very slow to open/save/publish. Fixed. • Serious error using Live Effects Tool on Blend. Fixed. • Replacements of a repeating logo/symbol did not always replace all copies. Fixed. • Tables: Serious error when setting padding to 0 on some tables. Fixed.

Spring Content (26 March 2024)

Spring is arriving in the North, and there’s no better time to freshen up your content. To help with the spring clean we’ve added 450+ new Spring and Easter themed templates, photo clipart and illustrations for social media, print and web design to Xara Elements (formerly Online Content Catalog) and the Designs Gallery, in the following folders: 11 Easter Facebook templates: Social Media > Facebook 11 Easter Instagram templates: Social Media > Instagram 11 Easter Cards: Print > Cards & Invitations 31 Easter Illustrations: Components > Image Resources> Illustrations 60 Easter Clipart: Components > Image Resources > Photo Clipart 160 Spring Photo Cliparts: Components > Image Resources > Photo Clipart 169 Spring Backgrounds: Components > Image Resources > Backgrounds

Version 23.8 (3 Apr 2024)

Mold Tool - Replace Image

Replacing images inside molds can now be done directly by right-clicking on the Mold and choosing the new Replace photo option.

Tables

• When in the Table Tool, clicking on an object embedded in the table now selects the table cell instead of the object. This improves consistency - now in all cases clicking in a table will select the table cell. • We’ve streamlined deleting multiple rows or columns. Now when you select multiple rows or columns you’ll see a single delete handle (gray cross in red circle), and a single delete action will delete all the columns/rows highlighted with the red header: • Cutting table row goes wrong in heavily merged table. Fixed. • Unexpected column widths when adding or pasting rows. Fixed. • Internal error when cutting cells in some table designs. Fixed.

Other Fixes & Improvements

• Display of CMYK JPEGs with a color profile incorrect. Fixed. • Selection wrong after making a single object repeating. Fixed. • Serious error when editing graduated fill on a Live Copy with shadow. Fixed. • Logging improvements to aid problem resolution, for Designer+ Activation. • PDF import: PDF file would not open. Fixed. • Italian translation improvements.

New: Photo Mockups (4 April 2024)

We’ve added a brand new Mockups template category that can add a whole new dimension to your design practice. You can find more than 130 examples in Xara Elements > Components > Image Resources > Photo Mockups. Mockups serve as visual prototypes, allowing designers to showcase their ideas in a realistic context before finalizing a product. Whether it's presenting a website design, an app interface, or branding materials, mockups offer a realistic preview, aiding in client presentations, feedback gathering, and overall design refinement. Images within the mockups can be replaced with a simple drag & drop (or right click > replace photo), and the mockups themselves can be edited. We have added 137 Mockups in 7 categories: • 8 Book • 36 Devices • 28 Frames • 13 Mug & Cup • 29 Outdoor • 5 Packaging • 26 Stationery