Last updated May 18, 2020
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Scroll through this document to see a description of all the great new features & content released in November 2020 (v17.1). If you have an active subscription to Xara Web Designer+ purchased from Xara, then these updates are free. If you are an owner of an older version purchased from Magix, then check out our current offers on upgrades. You can find Release Notes for the earlier v17.0 here. You can find Release Notes for the later v18.0 here.
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Contents Workflow Improvements........................ 3 New handle controls for various tools........... 3 Selector Tool.................................................. 3 SmartShapes................................................. 4 QuickShape Tool......................................... 4 Keep your settings....................................................... 5 Text & Layout............................................................ 5 Improved tables............................................................ 5 Google Fonts Update................................................. 5 Web Design.................................................................. 5 Image Import Resolution........................................ 5 Content Update..................................................... 5 Final Notes.................................................................... 6

Workflow Improvements

New handle controls for various tools

Selector Tool

The selection handles in the Selector Tool have been updated. These are shown on all types of object that don’t have their own smart handles, and on all multi-selections as in the example below. Multi-selection with new Selector Tool handles When you are zoomed out, or have very small objects in your design, the selected object may be very small on screen so there is very little space for Designer to show the selection box with its handles. In such cases you will notice that Designer shows a larger selection box around the object, so it’s easier to work on it without having to zoom in.
Large object on screen - selection box is  tight to the object Small object on screen - selection box is  bigger than the object Page 3

SmartShapes

The handles on SmartShapes (tables, charts, shapes, text panels, etc.) have been improved, made more consistent and now match the handles used in Xara Cloud. Example SmartShapes with new handles Furthermore the workflow for inserting a SmartShape has been improved. Whenever a SmartShape is inserted into a document, the QuickShape Tool used to be selected, so that the object’s smart handles would be visible. However since we now have the option to show smart handles in the Selector Tool we select this tool instead when smart handles are on, as they are by default.

QuickShape Tool

QuickShape Tool selection handles have been updated to match the new Selector Tool handle style. QuickShape editing handles
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Keep your settings

Users are no longer prompted about settings when starting an updated version of Designer. Designer will use the user’s current settings.

Text & Layout

Improved tables

You can now press the Tab key to move from one table cell to the next, or Shift+Tab to move backwards. If you press tab with the text caret in the last cell of the table, a new row is added. [Note: This tables update includes internal changes that make them incompatible with tables in previous versions of Designer. Tables are converted on document open. After this conversion if the document is saved and then opened in an older version of Designer the tables will look correct but will not be editable - they will be shown as inactive when selected. Text, photos, etc. within the table cells is still editable. ]

Google Fonts Update

40 new fonts have been added to Designer Pro: Alata, Alatsi, Baskervville, Bebas Neue, Bellota, Bellota Text, Caladea, Calistoga, Comic Neue, Courier Prime, DM Mono, Epilogue, Gelasio, Girassol, Gotu, Grenze Gotisch, Gupter, Ibarra Real Nova, Inria Sans, Inria Serif, Inter, Jomolhari, Jost, Kulim Park, Manrope, MuseoModerno, Odibee Sans, Oxanium, Public Sans, Recursive, Red Rose, Rowdies, Sen, Solway, Sora, Spartan, Sulphur Point, Tomorrow, Varta, Viaoda Libre.

Web Design

Image Import Resolution

In earlier versions of Designer large images imported into web documents were always automatically reduced in size to Full HD resolution. Designer now prompts about this so the user can choose to import either the original image or a reduced image, as when importing into print documents.

Content Update

As usual we have some great new additions to the Online Content Catalog (provided as part of the Update
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Service). 6 new Text panels in Components > Print & Web Components 5 new tables in Components > Print & Web Components (Premium only) 9 new diagrams in Components > Print & Web Components (*New category) (Premium only) 5 new photo frames & Photo Panels in Components > Image Resources 38 new Facebook templates in the Social Media category (Premium only) 40 new Instagram templates in the Social Media category (Premium only) 2 multi-page websites (Jewelry Online Shop & Creative Portfolio) in Websites > Modern Business Websites (Premium only) 10 new presentation templates in Presentations > Presentation Themes (Premium only)

Final Notes

As with every release we also implemented a large amount of fixes including improvements to import and export formats like PDF, Word, PowerPoint and SVG.