Is Xara P&GD better than, well, EVERYTHING?

[Jon123Jon]

Question -- does Xara P&GD have ALL the same NON-web features as Xara Designer Pro? Besides vector and raster graphics, does P&GD have the same text handing abilities, PDF generation, etc, etc?

If so, then for less than US$100, we have a miracle product... replacing, for 95% of what we do, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Microsoft's Word and Powerpoint. True that?

(Maybe not PowerPoint. God help us, you have to know PPT in business)

[gwpriester]

I'm pretty sure that is correct.

[handrawn]

https://www.xara.com/us/designer-pro/compare/

that is for the + products, but not too far out for the 20 perpetual I would think....

[Jon123Jon]

Thanks -- just took a good look at that features comparison chart. P&GD is all you need for creating graphics.
But you need to buy Design Pro to get the desktop publishing features that are sold with P&LD... which doesn't have all the graphic art features. So -- P&GD if you are just doing art... and Designer Pro if you are creating publications as well as doing art. Which is me, every now and then. Got it!

Which gets us back to price. Is Designer Pro desktop, at less than US$150, a better buy than Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Word, and PowerPoint combined? Like, once every two or three years? (Confession -- I've used Xara for years to make full-size graphics that I put into PowerPoint to be each slide, shoot me). Anyway, a better buy? Of course. Should be a mandatory purchase for every UK government agency, save buckets of money. But I'm preaching to the crowd here, right?

[gwpriester]

If so, then for less than US$100, we have a miracle product... replacing, for 95% of what we do, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Microsoft's Word and Powerpoint. True that?

Well, to be honest not really. Photoshop, some, Illustrator, a lot, InDesign, very little, Word, you could use it as a word processor so some, and PowerPoint, a great deal.

[Jon123Jon]

Thanks, GW. Might be best to just stick with P&GD anyway.
Because today I tried to download Designer Pro+... since I'm subscribed thru 2024... and it won't download!
https://xpsupdater.xara.com/Installer/XPSSetup.exe
Oh my. Fourth day of Christmas, and no joy in Tombstone...
EDIT EDIT EDIT
No, the download worked! I had tried 8 times, with seemingly no results... then went to check my Win 11 file manager one last time and they were all downloading away! 8 Designer Pro Pluses! Turned off all but one, it finished, found that my (very) old Ctrl+Shift+Alt+S trick still worked to get the (very) old gray background. So there IS joy in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, and I have put away my old Colt revolver, rather than blowing a hole in my notebook screen.

[handrawn]

that link works for me jon

[Jon123Jon]

Yes, it came and is running fine.
One minor problem --I used the old Ctrl-Alt-Shift-S trick to change the controls background to gray. But that disables the Table button. Is there a better way on this new 23.5 version to change the control background color from black to anything else?

[handrawn]

there are quite a few things you will find wrong with the UI if you use that switch - for example some things are unreadable in the page and layer gallery due to colours being to similar if not the same for different things

there has been discussion about the UI colour here, but I think the upshot is no, not without a major hack

[bwood]

Question -- does Xara P&GD have ALL the same NON-web features as Xara Designer Pro? Besides vector and raster graphics, does P&GD have the same text handing abilities, PDF generation, etc, etc?

If so, then for less than US$100, we have a miracle product... replacing, for 95% of what we do, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Microsoft's Word and Powerpoint. True that?

(Maybe not PowerPoint. God help us, you have to know PPT in business)

Jon, I wouldn’t say everything. There’s far deeper controls in Photoshop and InDesign. It depends upon the user. I find Xara Pro working with RAW picture files is a little ungamely and I think upon import of RAW files it may change to jpeg. InDesign is very capable at making books. That being said Pro+ is a very powerful solution for most of the work I do.
You may be interested in something in between like the Affinity suite for Photos and Desktop. Power users of Xara will sometimes look at another program for a feature or three.

Myself, I always return to Xara, partially because I know it, and the interchangeability between docs. I can use elements in a poster or newsletter, and make them into a website. All in one platform.