Page 175 - Xara Designer Pro X17

Drawing Lines and Shapes 175

3. A dialog box will appear - give your brush an appropriate name and then decide
whether it is to be a SCATTER or ART brush.
4. Click CREATE.

You can then draw with your new brush straight away. Your new brush appears as the
first entry in the brushes dropdown on the FREEHAND AND BRUSH TOOL InfoBar, and in the
first DOCUMENT BRUSHES folder in the Line Gallery (on page 171).

Brushes are stored in the document. If you want to re-use a brush in another document,
you have to load the document containing your custom brush first. Only the default
brushes are always available.

Important: Although you can edit a default brush, you cannot save the edits into this
brush for use beyond the current session. The default brushes are always restored when
the program is started. If you want to edit one of the default brushes, then you have to
save it as a new one, using the Save As buttons in the brush setting dialogs.

Guidelines for new brushes

If brushes are created from bitmaps, then the bitmap should be clipped to remove as
much empty space from the outside edges as possible. This means the brush will not
introduce redundant invisible parts to the strokes you draw with it, and it can also reduce
the chances of rendering problems. If there is invisible space at the ends of the brush
then lines won't terminate exactly at the points where you start and end the strokes. And
if there is empty space along the top and bottom edges then the line won't appear to be
of the correct width, it will appear narrower.

Brushes should be more or less horizontal. Otherwise strokes will tend to deviate from
the line you draw.

Brushes should ideally be defined from fully saturated colours. This ensures that when
you change the colors of brush strokes the stroke color achieved more closely matches
the chosen color, rather than just being a shade of it.

Coloring brush strokes
By default when you select a brush and draw with it, the line you draw has the same
color(s) as the brush. But you can change the color of your line by simply selecting it and
clicking a color on the color line (on page 190), or using the Color Editor (on page 193).
Any new lines you draw subsequently will use the same brush and line color. To draw
new lines that have the same characteristics as an existing line, just click on that line and
then the next line you draw will look the same.

Editing a Scatter brush
You will see a different dialog depending on whether you are editing a Scatter or Art
brush.To access advanced editing options for a Scatter brush: