CORELXARA 1.2 README

INSTALLING THE PATCH 

1.     Copy the following files to C:\Corelxra directory (or the directory to 
which you have installed CorelXARA 1.1):
Patch.exe
Patch.rtp
Patch.rtd

 1.	Choose File, Run in Windows 3.1x or NT Program Manager or File 
Manager. If you are using Windows 95, click the Start button and 
choose Run.

 2.	Type c:\corelxra\patch

4.    Click OK 

NOTE:  When launching CorelXARA for the first time after installing the 
patch, choose to use Current settings when prompted with the 
following message:
Your Options settings were created by an older version of 
CorelXARA and may be incorrect. Would you like to use the 
Default settings or keep the Current settings?:

VERSION 1.2 RELEASE NOTES 

CorelXARA version 1.2 extends bitmap handling options. These new 
options are especially useful for creating graphics intended for 
publishing on the World Wide Web (WWW). Also included are some 
additional functions requested by users.

  NEW FEATURES OF THIS RELEASE:

		importing color palettes
		RGB colors can be specified as 0-100% or 0-255
		new Pixel measurement unit
		new optional default document 
		optimized palettes and bitmap dithering
		new "Convert to bitmap" menu option
		improvements to GIF import
		more options for exporting in GIF format (including animated 	
		GIFs)
		optional on-screen dithering
		changes to the keyboard shortcuts 
		new "print text as shapes" print option
		change to snapping


IMPORTING COLOR PALETTES 

Color palettes are files containing a series of color definitions. Importing 
a color palette is a quick way of adding colors into a document and so 
easily extending the range of predefined colors. 

The original version of CorelXARA imported CorelDRAW (.cpl & .pal) 
palette files. 

CorelXARA 1.2 can also import:
  Windows palettes (.pal files)  produced by a variety of 
programs.
  Adobe Color Tables (.act files)  used by Photoshop in 
paletted images. Saved using Color table on the Mode menu 
in Photoshop (select Indexed color on the Mode menu first).
  Adobe Color Swatches (.aco files)  used by Photoshop to 
store collections of colors for external use. Colors can be 
defined in RGB, CMYK or HSV  the other formats define RGB 
colors.
  Paint Shop Pro Palettes (.pal files)  these are created using 
Save Palette on the Colors menu in Paint Shop Pro.

To import a palette into the current document, drag-and-drop the file 
icon onto the document page or the gray page margins at the sides of 
the page. To import into a new, blank document, drag-and-drop onto 
any other part of the CorelXARA window. 

Colors in palette files are unnamed so CorelXARA allocates names 
based on color composition. For example, "R100%G50%B0%" is an 
RGB color comprising 100% red, 50% green and 0% blue. (If you have 
selected Decimal as the way to specify RGB colors, the color name 
would be "R255G128B0". For details on specifying RGB colors in 
decimal, see Specifying RGB colors.)


SPECIFYING RGB COLORS IN THE COLOR 
EDITOR

Many users like to specify RGB (Red-Green-Blue) colors as 0-255 
rather than 0-100%. CorelXARA 1.2 permits this. Default is 0-100%. To 
enter a value in the default units, just type in the number (for example, 
55). (You can change the default  see below.)

To enter a value in the other units follow the number by either % (75%) 
for a percentage value or d (205d) for 0-255.

Colors defined in the CMYK and HSV color models are always defined 
as 0-100%.

Changing the default for the current document
1.	Display the Units tab of the Options dialog box. (Options on 
the Utilities menu). 
2.	Click the appropriate radio button in the Color units section. 
3.	Click OK to close the dialog box.

Changing the default for all new documents
1.	Open a new document (New on the File menu). This will 
become the Template document so do not alter this document 
in any way. 
2.	Display the Units tab of the Options dialog box (Options on 
the Utilities menu). 
3.	Click the appropriate radio button in the Color units section.
4.	Click OK to close the dialog box.
5.	Save the document as the Template document (Save 
template on the File menu).

The manual contains more information on:
the Color Editor  pages 120-125
color models  page 116
Options dialog box  pages 170-176; Units tab  page 24


PIXEL MEASUREMENT UNIT 

For graphics that will be displayed on a computer screen (such as 
WWW graphics), it's often easiest to enter and display measurements 
in screen pixels (96pixels=1 inch). CorelXARA 1.2 lets you do this using 
a new measurement unit of pixels (abbreviation pix). 

You can always enter dimensions in pixels by typing pix after the 
dimension (120pix).

Sometimes the edge of an exported bitmap shows a thin border. This 
happens when the size of the bitmap is not a round number of pixels. 
You can avoid this by using Snap to grid for positioning objects. Set the 
grid spacing to, for example, 10 pixels. Page 22 of the manual 
describes the on-screen grid; page 71 snapping.

Making Pixels the default for the current document
To show dimensions in Pixels in the current document, display the Units 
tab of the Options dialog box (Options on the Utilities menu). Set 
Page units to pixels. The current units are saved when you save the 
document. The next time you open the document, dimensions are 
shown in pixels.

Making Pixels the default for all new documents
1.	Open a new document (New on the File menu). This will 
become the Template document so do not alter this document 
in any way. 
2.	Display the Units tab of the Options dialog box (Options on 
the Utilities menu). 
3.	Set Page units to Pixels.
4.	Click OK to close the dialog box.
5.	Save the document as the Template document (Save 
template on the File menu). 

The manual contains more information on:
Options dialog box  pages 170-176; Units tab  page 24
on-screen grid  page 22
snapping  page 71


NEW TEMPLATE DOCUMENT 

Supplied with CorelXARA 1.2 is a new template document (WWW.xar) 
that includes colors identical to those used by both Netscape Navigator 
and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Netscape and Explorer display these 
colors without dithering which gives the best results on screen. 
(Intermediate colors in blends and graduated fills will not match palette 
colors and so will be dithered.) Also included are other features useful 
for creating WWW graphics such as a grid spacing in pixels. Using 
WWW.xar makes it easier to create top-quality graphics for use on the 
WWW. 

You can find WWW.xar in the same directory as the program 
(CORELXRA by default).

To create a document based on WWW.xar:
1.	Load WWW.xar.
2.	Create your document. Use only the colors provided on the 
Color Line or Color gallery. If you create your own colors they 
won't match and won't display so well.
	Tip: (Choosing Small icons in the Color gallery lets you 
display all the colors in a compact square. See page 28 of the 
manual for more information.)
3.	Make sure you save the new document using a different 
filename so you don't overwrite WWW.xar.

To replace the existing template document with WWW.xar:
1.	Load WWW.xar. Do not make any changes.
2.	Save it as the template document (Save template on the File 
menu). This new template document is then used for all new 
documents.
3.	Close WWW.xar. This avoids any chance of accidentally 
overwriting it.

Also in the CorelXARA directory is a palette file (WWW.pal) containing 
the Netscape/Explorer palette. Drop WWW.pal onto a document to load 
the colors.


OPTIMIZED PALETTES AND BITMAP DITHERING

These two export options provide you with a range of options for 
improving the appearance of exported bitmaps. 

The Bitmap export dialog box controls both the palette and dithering.	 
Click the radio buttons to select the options you require. Page 164 of 
the manual describes the Bitmap export dialog box.

Palette options
The Standard palette is good for showing the widest range of colors 
and it's the one used on screen by CorelXARA. However, as most 
images use only a limited range of colors, it's possible to create an 
Optimized palette. (Optimized palettes contain a selection of colors best 
suited for the image.) Combined with our advanced diffusion dithering 
it's possible, in nearly all cases, to get near perfect quality images  
practically indistinguishable from real 24-bit images.

Not all programs make use of optimized palettes. However, optimized 
palettes display well in programs such as CorelXARA, Netscape, 
Internet Explorer, Adobe Photoshop and Corel PhotoPaint.

Dithering options
It's possible to create the illusion of a bitmap containing more colors 
than it actually does by dithering between two colors. Ordered and 
Diffusion dithering are different ways of dithering between colors. 
Diffusion (error diffusion) gives better results and the dither pattern is 
less noticeable. The drawback is that the exported GIF files may be 
larger.

Note: Ordered dithering is dimmed when Optimized palette is selected 
as the two options are incompatible. 

Our recommendations:
When exporting GIF images for the WWW, our general 
recommendation is to use Diffusion dithering and an Optimized palette. 
If the web pages are likely to be viewed in a 256-color mode only, you 
sometimes get better results with Diffusion dithering and a Standard 
palette.


GIF IMPORT

Version 1.1 users:
Previously transparent GIFs appeared in the Bitmap gallery as two 
separate bitmaps: the GIF and a transparency mask. CorelXARA 1.2 
now creates only one bitmap. This makes handling them in documents 
easier.


GIF EXPORT 

Pages 165-166 of the manual have more information on GIF export.

The original version of CorelXARA could export GIFs as 16-colour (4-
bit) without GIF transparency or 256-color (8-bit) with transparency. 
CorelXARA 1.2 can also export GIFs as 2-color (1-bit) with optional 
transparency and 16-color (4-bit) with optional transparency and 
optimized palette. The greater the number of colors used, the larger the 
file size. This is important when creating graphics for the WWW as 
small files take less time to download.

Transparency in a GIF bitmap means you can see through parts of the 
image to the background. If you export just a selection, then only the 
selected objects appear  all other areas are transparent. Note that GIF 
supports only a simple on-off transparency mask and not the more 
advanced graduated transparency that CorelXARA offers. Therefore 
semitransparent objects are not possible in GIF files. GIF transparency 
is really suitable only for masking around the outside of objects.

2-color GIF export
With Standard palette selected, the two colors are pure black and white 
(Transparency off) or pure black and transparent (Transparency on).

With Optimized palette selected, CorelXARA scans the colors used and 
selects the most common or 'dominant' color. The second color is either 
the background color (Transparency off) or transparent (Transparency 
on).
	Export options:	Colors
	standard palette, no transparency	black/white
	standard palette, with transparency	black/transparency
	optimized palette, no transparency	dominant color/background 
color 
	optimized palette, with transparency	dominant color 
/transparency

With all options you can choose No dithering, Ordered dithering or Error 
diffusion. These are described in Bitmap dithering. For 2-color GIFs, 
selecting both Transparency and Ordered dithering/Error diffusion 
causes dithering between the color and transparent. This may give 
strange results with some images.

16-color GIF export
With Standard palette selected, a fixed 16-color (or 15+transparency) 
palette is used. This palette includes all the primary colors.

With Optimized palette selected, an optimized 15 or 16-color palette is 
used.

With either palette you can choose No dithering, Ordered dithering or 
Error diffusion. These are described in Bitmap dithering. 

Version 1.1 users:
Older versions of CorelXARA exported with a standard palette and 
ordered dither.
Note that transparent GIFs contained in CorelXARA 1.2 documents will 
not load into CorelXARA 1.1.


"CREATE BITMAP COPY" MENU OPTION

This option (on the Arrange menu) saves the current selection as a 
bitmap to the Bitmap gallery.  Its main use is for creating animated GIFs 
(see below). But you can also use it, for example, to create custom 
bitmap fills or make grouped objects transparent.

Selecting this option opens a create dialog box similar to the Bitmap 
export dialog box described on page 164 of the manual. (The Palette 
and Dithering options are described in these Release Notes. These 
options are dimmed if you select 24 bits per pixel.)

The only extra control is the Transparent button. (Dimmed if you select 
24 bits per pixel.) 

With Transparent selected, the bitmap shows:
  all selected objects
  and those parts of unselected objects that overlap selected 
objects.
Other areas are transparent.

With Transparent unselected, the bitmap shows all objects, selected 
and unselected, within the area containing the selected objects.

Clicking Create puts the bitmap in the Bitmap gallery and also places a 
copy of the bitmap in the center of the window.

SHIFT-clicking on Create puts the bitmap in the Bitmap gallery and also 
places the copy exactly on top of the original objects. Note that, 
because the bitmap is exactly on top of the objects, it may appear 
nothing has happened.

Caution:
Bitmaps are saved with the document only if they appear on the page of 
the document. Bitmaps in the gallery that are not used in any document 
are automatically discarded when you close the document.

Creating a bitmap using Create bitmap copy automatically copies the 
bitmap into the document. However, if you delete that copy and don't 
use the bitmap elsewhere, it is unused and will be deleted when you 
close the document.

To keep a copy, you can move the bitmap to the gray page margin that 
surrounds the page area. Anything on the page margin is saved with 
the document.

Note also that the Delete button in the Bitmap gallery deletes all 
unused bitmaps. Normally you dont need to manually delete bitmaps 
from the gallery because of the automatic deletion when you close a 
document.



ANIMATED GIFS

Animated GIFs are becoming increasingly popular in Web browsers 
such as Netscape Navigator (version 2 onwards) and Microsoft Internet 
Explorer (version 3 onwards). They are a quick and easy way to show 
simple animated sequences. An animated GIF is just a GIF file that 
contains a sequence of bitmap images, rather than just a single image. 
Programs such as Netscape display the sequence of images one after 
another, much like frames in a movie. CorelXARA supports the creation 
of animated GIFs by providing an easy way to convert illustrations to 
bitmaps, and by allowing a sequence of bitmaps in the Bitmap gallery to 
be saved as a single animated GIF.

The Bitmap gallery is an ideal tool for managing animated GIFs 
because it shows all the separate images or frames that make up the 
animation as individual bitmaps. You can rearrange and reorder the 
images in the gallery to rearrange the animation sequence, and select 
exactly which images are used to make up the animated GIF. (You can 
rearrange images by simply dragging them to the required place in the 
gallery.)

The usual sequence to create the frames is:
1.	Draw what you want as the first frame.
2.	Select just the drawing.
3.	Select Create bitmap copy on the Arrange menu to save the 
drawing as a bitmap in the Bitmap gallery.
	(Or right-click on the drawing and choose Create bitmap copy 
from the pop-up menu.)
4.	Edit the drawing as appropriate for the next frame in the 
animation.
5.	Create bitmap copy in the same way. 
6.	Repeat steps 4 & 5 until you have built up the sequence of 
frames in the Bitmap gallery. 

See Caution: in the section on Create bitmap copy for important 
information of saving bitmaps that appear in the Bitmap gallery but not 
in the document.

Animated GIF files tend to be much larger than single-image GIFs and 
so your animation sequence should normally use small drawings or 
only a few frames.

To create the animated GIF:
1. Select all the bitmaps you want in the animation. To select a 
block of bitmaps, click on the first then SHIFT-click on the last. 
To select or deselect individual bitmaps, CTRL-click.
2.  Click Save in the Bitmap gallery. This opens a dialog box 
similar to the Export dialog box described on page 162 of the 
manual.
3.  	When you have entered the filename and destination, click 
Save. This opens a dialog box similar to the GIF Bitmap Export 
dialog box described on pages 164-165 of the manual. (The 
Palette and Dithering options are described in these Release 
Notes.) 
 GIFs do not include resolution information and so there is no 
control over this. (GIFs are normally displayed at the screen 
resolution of the viewing program.)
	The Width and Height fields apply to all the bitmaps in the 
animation. If necessary, bitmaps in the Gallery are scaled to 
match these parameters. Similarly, the color depth of individual 
bitmaps is changed to match the value set in the dialog box.

	Delay: lets you specify a delay (in 1/100ths of a second) 
between successive frames. This lets you control the 
animation speed. Note that for short delays, speed is usually 
limited by how quickly frames can be loaded by the viewing 
program.
	
	Restore: tells the viewing program what action to take after 
completing the display of the GIF.
Nothing: action is determined by the viewing program.
Leave as is: continue to display the last frame of the 
animation.
Background: remove the frame from screen and redisplay 
the background.
Previous image: restore the image displayed before 
animation began.
	
	Loop: the number of times to repeat the animation loop. Enter 
0 for continuous play.
	
	Note that Delay, Restore and Loop insert commands into the 
GIF. The implementation of these commands is controlled by 
the viewing program and so is beyond the control of 
CorelXARA. For example, Netscape 2 ignores all loop values 
except 1; other values give continuous play.

4.	Click Export to create the animated GIF.

The easiest way to preview an animation is to drop the saved GIF file 
directly onto the Internet Explorer or Navigator window. (But note that 
Navigator 2 flickers badly between runs - this doesn't normally happen 
when the GIF is part of an HTML page. Also it has the habit of flickering 
the Stop button when displaying animated GIFs. It is expected these 
quirks will be addressed in later Navigator versions.)

Not all Web browsers can display animated GIFs. Those that don't 
usually just display the first or last frame of the animated sequence.

Loading animated GIFs into CorelXARA
Load these in the same way as other types of bitmap. That is, you can 
Import them into the current document or Load them into a new 
document. 

The bitmaps appear in the document stack on top of each other. You 
can then move them around the page, change the stacking order, edit 
them, as you wish.

The bitmaps are loaded into the Bitmap Gallery in their animation 
sequence. (First bitmap in the animation is highest in the Bitmap 
gallery.)


ON-SCREEN DITHERING 

On-screen dithering is useful in 256 color screen modes because it 
gives the illusion of many more colors on the monitor screen. It has no 
advantage for deep-color screen modes (more than 256 colors). The 
disadvantage is that dithering can slow down screen redraw times. (It 
takes longer to display objects on the screen.)

Options provided by CorelXARA are:
  No dithering. This is gives the fastest screen redraw times but 
poorest display quality. No dither is only really useful to see 
how exported 8-bit bitmaps will look with no dither.
  Ordered. This is the normal setting. It gives good results and is 
as fast as No dithering
  Error diffused  gives the best results but, because more 
processing is required, slowest redraw. The actual redraw time 
depends on the hardware in your computer. 

On-screen dithering is a user option controlled from the View tab of the 
Options dialog box (Options on the Utilities menu). 

The manual contains more information on:
Options dialog box  pages 170-176; View tab  page 175


KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 

The original version of CorelXARA used a few CTRL+ALT combinations 
for keyboard short cuts. These gave problems with some  languages 
such as Polish. CorelXARA 1.2 now uses: 
CTRL+SHIFT+A	Paste attributes (was CTRL+ALT+V)
CTRL+SHIFT+C	Create bitmap copy  new option, described 
above
CTRL+SHIFT+D	Move object to layer behind (D for Down) (was 
CTRL+ALT+B)
  CTRL+SHIFT+U	Move object to layer in 
front (U for Up) (was CTRL+ALT+F)
CTRL+SHIFT+Z	Zoom to selection (was CTRL+SHIFT+D)
There's a full list of keyboard short cuts on pages 188-190 of the 
manual.


PRINT OPTIONS DIALOG BOX

Some printers cannot print colored text. This is a printer problem and 
not a fault with CorelXARA.

The Output tab of the Options dialog box now lets you print text as 
shapes. This gets round the colored text not printing problem but 
increases printing time. We recommend setting this option only if you 
have problems with colored text not printing.
		
This option prints all text as shapes. There's a similar option on the text 
pop-up menu that lets you print individual text objects as shapes. 

The manual contains more information on:
Options dialog box  pages 170-176; Output tab  page 154-155
Text pop-up menu  page 106


CHANGE TO SNAPPING

  This change affects how objects with thick lines snap to the grid and 
to other objects. The original version of CorelXARA snapped to the 
outside of lines. CorelXARA 1.2 snaps to the center of lines. See 
page 71 of the manual for more information on snapping.




These Release Notes ©1996 Xara Ltd.
Version 1.0.
Trademarks:
CorelXARA is a trademark of Corel Corporation & Xara Ltd.
CorelDRAW & Corel are trademarks of Corel Corporation
Netscape is a trademark of Netscape Communications Corporation
Microsoft Internet Explorer. Is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation
Photoshop is a trademark of Adobe Systems Inc.
Paint Shop Pro is a trademark of JASC Inc.
All other trademarks acknowledged.
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