• Happy New Year to everyone! We’re starting the year on a positive note with our usual New Year Upgrade Offer, open to owners of all older versions of Web Designer, Web Designer Premium and Designer Pro. So if you haven’t upgraded to v8 yet, seize your chance to save 30% on the normal upgrade price before 31st January, more info below.

  • This month we’re starting a 3 part tutorial on photo editing. Before we leap into the tools, we start by throwing some light on the basics of photo editing – what are the different file formats, what do we mean by non-destructive editing etc.

  • And there’s more help and support in the Xara Xone, where Gary Bouton delves into the sometimes neglected Live Effects tool, including working examples of a couple of the bundled plugins. Also on the Xara Xone Frances Proctor shows you how to create a Valentine’s card, and there are 25 completely free icons to download. You can find more on all the tutorials and resources below.

  • And on the subject of icons don’t miss this month’s Inspirational Art which features some fabulous examples from two Xara artists.
Icons are an art form all of their own, the challenge being to fit into a very small space the necessary detail to make your icons both clear and characterful. Here are two Xara designers showing you how they do it. - Find out more
Visit the Xara graphics forums to discuss or find answers to your graphics needs.
Our pick of Top Talk this month:
  • There are some excellent scribbles in December, and you’ve still got a few days to add your contribution to the January scribble challenge. Rik has also provided a second silhouette challenge in the Trivial Question thread here, see if you can work out what it is.

  • Or for something less challenging, why not browse thru the 6400+ posts in the Xara Art Gallery. New work this month has included a great Dodge Viper illustration as a first post from 17 yr old Joseito, a classic plane image from Gray and new scenic stereograms from Gary Priester among many others.
Pro Competitor Upgrades
We have a massive upgrade offer this month for owners of all older versions of Designer (see opposite), but don’t forget you can also upgrade to Designer Pro from other competitor's products (maybe you have something on the shelf with 'Adobe' on it for example)! Simply click on the 'Other Competitor' option on the upgrade page.
The Upgrade Page
More Info

Xara Academic Licenses
Don't forget that we have great deals on all our titles for academic sites, and what's more if you already own a copy or a network license you can benefit from the current upgrade offer too, saving 30%!
See our academic prices
Contact sales for a custom quote on your upgrade

Outsider & Tutorials Index
Don't forget you can find all back issues of the Outsider on The Outsider Homepage, and another great support resource is our Resource Index, which lists all tutorials, movies etc from Xara and third parties.

Xara News, As It Happens
You can be first to receive Xara news by signing up to the RSS feed on our News page, or you can join more than 34,700 followers in our Facebook community, or follow our tweets at twitter.com/xaragroup.
"Easy to use website builder that offers plenty of features and flexibility for the price "

Xara Web Designer MX reviewed by PC Utilities
Free Plugins in V8

Gary Bouton's Xara Xone tutorial prompts us to remind you that there is a large collection of free plugins included in Photo & Graphic Designer and Pro. Select the Live Effects tool, click on New on the InfoBar and you'll see them all. And view Gary's movie to see him working with a couple of them.
Here's a Filter Forge plugin video tutorial from Frances Proctor (aka angelize in TalkGraphics) where she shows how the plugin can be used with Xara Designer Pro (or Photo & Graphic Designer). What’s more there’s a TalkGraphics thread to support it.



You are subscribed to the Xara Outsider newslist. To change this visit xara.com/news. Back issues at xara.com/outsider.


Let us know if you have any suggestions on how we can improve the Outsider Newsletter. Contact us.