Xara Xtreme

Xara is well known for its graphics programs, including tools such as Xara 3D that lets amateur web designers create buttons and logos with ease. Xara Xtreme is a vector and bitmap graphics package.

Users familiar with Xara’s X1 vector package will feel quite at home, though those who have used other tools might find that the Xara interface takes a little getting used to.

For example, to add a drop shadow, you don’t pick the angle of illumination as in other programs; you just click the drop shadow button and drag the shadow where you want it.

Other tools work in a similar way. It’s very easy, once you’ve worked out how they behave, but we did have to resort to the manual a few times and we’d still prefer flyout options for fills, for instance, instead of a button on the left, along with options at the top of the screen.

The package is speedy and it’s very easy to perform tasks such as wrap text along a line or merge objects in multiple steps.

New features include the ability to export as pdfs, alongside a wide range of other formats, and a Photo Editor that can be used standalone or from within Xtreme. Red-eye removal is also available and there’s support for Photoshop plug-ins.

There’s a wide range of galleries, with textures and fills downloadable over the Internet, which saves cluttering the disk with objects you might never use, and a good range of tutorial movies too. Adding simple regular shapes such as polygons or stars is extremely simple.

With the built-in photo editor, enough creative power even for advanced users and a very attractive price, Xara Xtreme provides just about everything you’ll need for creating and editing graphics, whether bitmap or vector.

System requirements:
Pentium processor
128MB of Ram
Windows 98 or later

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