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The Outsider's Featured Tutorials are selected from a variety of sources including the best tutorials from the impressive archive on The Xara Xone (created by Gary Priester), Guest Tutorials submitted by Xara enthusiasts and new material created by Xara.


Freehand Tool

You might think the Freehand tool is a simple 'draw lines as drag' tool, so it acts rather like a pencil. But there's more to it than that. Indeed, we think the Freehand tool is the most powerful of any drawing program. Here are 5 things you may not know about the Freehand tool.
  1. As you are drawing (mouse button held down) if you press "Shift" the pencil turns into an eraser and you can erase back along the line you've just drawn.

  2. Xara Xtreme is the only drawing program where you can adjust the accuracy or smoothness of the line after you've drawn it. This retro-active smoothing works on the last drawn line or section of line. Just drag the smoother control slider on the Infobar.

  3. The Freehand tool can edit any shape or line, just by re-drawing the required section. Select the shape (you may need to do a 'Convert to Editable Shapes' on things like rectangles, QuickShape or photos). Then just move over the line or edge of the shape (the mouse pointer changes to show a squiggle) and now just draw, ensuring you end over the edge as well. Your new drawn line or edge replaces the old.



    Tip: In the Freehand tool you can change your selection just by clicking the new object. No need to go into the Selector tool first.
  4. To draw straight line sections, just hold the "Alt" key down. To constrain this to be a vertical or horizontal line, hold the "Ctrl" and the "Alt" key down while drawing (remember the "Ctrl" key is a general 'constrain angle' key in Xara Xtreme).

  5. You can append a new section of line to any selected line. In the Freehand tool, just click on the line to select it, then just drag from one end or the other to extend the line. Easy.

    To join two separate lines, so they are one, you just need to ensure that both are selected before you draw between them. So, in the Freehand tool click on the first line to select it and "Shift" +click on the second. Now when you draw from the end of one line to an end of another - they will become a joined single line.

    Tip: closing a line, i.e. drawing so the start and end join, converts the line into a filled shape.