Version 18.0 Release

Date: March 2021

We've just released an update for Designer Pro, Photo and Graphic Designer, Web Designer Premium and Web Designer, bringing it up to version 18.0

Release notes:

http://releasenotes.xara.hosting/designer-pro-x18/

http://releasenotes.xara.hosting/web-designer-18/

http://releasenotes.xara.hosting/photo-graphic-designer-18/

All updates are free if your update service is active. Xara should ask you to update on startup, if not you can manually check by going to Help > Check for Updates.

What's New

High DPI Support

Get the most from your screens with the new high DPI support. Pin sharp resolution for 4K monitors and devices like Surface Pro tablets, but a bonus even for lower resolution screens.

New Content Type: Headers (Designer Pro & Web Designer only)

We've added 10 professional new header designs to the Online Content Catalog, ideal for presentations and the perfect place to get started with a blank document. They're set to 'repeating' by default and automatically size and position themselves at the top of the page on insertion. A great time saver!

Smart Duplication

A quick and easy way to create multiple copies of objects or components, horizontally or vertically, with a single click-drag, and a really simple way to handle object spacing. 

The new Smart Duplicate feature will help you cut down tedious repetition in your design work, and make experimentation easy!

New & Improved Handles

We've continued the work to modernize and simplify the handles, to give a cleaner and more productive workspace for both the Shape Tool and Quickshapes.

Enhanced PDF Editing (Designer Pro and Photo & Graphic Designer only)

We've made a significant improvement to the way that missing fonts are handled in imported PDF documents, plus a host of more minor accuracy improvements. It's another step up in Designer Pro's already great PDF editing capability!

Updated CMYK Color Profile

A much requested improvement to the display of CMYK colors on screen, and in any export formats that require the conversion of CMYK to RGB. A change to the default color profile means you will see a more accurate representation of CMYK colors on screen.

New Content

There's a bumper addition to the Online Content Catalog (available if you have an active subscription to Xara Cloud+ or an active Update Service :

• 10 new presentation templates in Presentations > Presentation Themes (Designer Pro and Web Designer only)
• 6 new diagrams in Components > Print & Web Components (*New category)
• 9 new header designs in Components > Print & Web Components (*New category) (Designer Pro and Web Designer only)
• 4 new text panels in Components > Print & Web Components
• 5 new tables in Components > Print & Web Components
• 3 new photo frames & Photo Panels in Components > Image Resources
• 30 new Facebook templates in the Social Media category
• 30 new Instagram templates in the Social Media category

Enhanced Web Export Options (Designer Pro and Web Designer only)

The Web Export options have been moved into the Web Properties dialog, alongside all other web settings  - a more logical arrangement that will improve your workflow - and we've added some new controls:

• Firstly you now have a finer level of control over transition effects, with separate controls for transition effect and transition direction, giving you scope for all sorts of new and interesting transition effects.
• We've also added greater control over the new features introduced to presentations and web documents in the past few releases, so you can choose separately whether you want to display the PDF download option, page navigation panel and Xara logo next to your presentations or web documents.
• When you preview a website it now opens in your default local browser instead of the internal preview window, for a faster and more reliable preview.

Other Improvements

• New typographic options with 44 additional Google Fonts - there are now more than 900 Google fonts to choose from
• As with every release, we've introduced improvements to import and export formats like SVG, Word, Powerpoint (Designer Pro and Web Designer only) and inDesign (Designer Pro only).