Scaling objects by dragging
This is an easy way of scaling objects as you can see the results as you drag.
To scale objects
by dragging
1. Select the objects to be scaled (see Selecting objects).
2. Ensure selection handles are in Scale Mode (see Switching selection handle mode).
3. Either
drag a corner selection
handle to scale away from the opposite corner,
or Shift-drag a corner selection
handle to scale around the center,
or drag a side selection
handle to stretch in one direction,
or Shift-drag a side selection
handle to stretch in both directions.
Solid drag
You will see the entire object resize in real time, to allow for easy placement of items in your document. If you wish to just seen an outline of an object as you move it (which may be quicker, if the object is complex) press the tab key whilst dragging. You can press the tab key again to go back to solid drag.
You can see the solid drag status in the bottom right of the Xara LX window:
indicates that solid drag is currently turned
on.
indicates that solid drag is currently turned off.
You can also double click this icon to turn solid drag on or off accordingly.
Note: If Xara LX detects that your system is too slow to perform a solid drag, it will automatically switch over to outline drag if necessary—ensuring you can continue to work with ease and speed.
Tips
If you select the Aspect
Ratio Lock button on the Selector Tool Infobar,
the aspect ratio
of the selected object is locked when you scale using the corner handles.
To leave copies of the object as
you scale it, drag as normal, but click the right mouse button where you
want each copy (or press ' +' on the numeric keypad).
To force line thicknesses in the
selection to increase/decrease with the scaling click the Scale
Line Width Button on the Infobar.
To scale the object but not any
fill applied to it, press and release ' - ' on the numeric keypad during
the drag. This is useful if you want to scale an object with a bitmap
fill and not scale the bitmap.
If you stretch an object containing
a circular fill, the fill changes to an elliptical fill. Undo does not
revert this change - the fill remains elliptical.
When you resize a bitmap, Xara LX
smooths (interpolates) between the individual pixels to give a smooth
look to the bitmap. Usually this gives the best result. However you might
not want this effect - in this case you can turn off smoothing for either
all bitmaps in the document
or a single bitmap. The difference between smoothed and unsmoothed.
Note:
The size of feathering
does not change when you scale objects.
Movie—click below (not working in this version)