Page 88 - Xara Designer Pro X17

88 Object Handling

If you scale a text area or text column using the SELECTOR TOOL, the text itself is not
scaled, only the dimensions of the area or column are changed. Use the TEXT TOOL font
size control to change the actual text size. However if the text is inside a Group, resizing
the group will scale the text.

Scaling text areas and columns
If you scale a text area or text column using the SELECTOR TOOL, the text itself is only
scaled if you use the corner control handles, if you use the other control handles the
dimensions of the area or column are changed.

Additionally you can use the TEXT TOOL font size control to change the actual text size.
However if the text is inside a Group, resizing the group will scale the text.

Scaling groups
If you scale a group using its side handles, an attempt is made to scale it smartly rather
than just squashing all members of the group - we call this SMART TRANSFORM. This is
commonly useful when attempting to make a narrower ‘mobile-friendly’ website variant of
a wider website – you need to make wide objects like headers and footers fit the smaller
page width.
Take this footer group as an example:

The result you get should look something like this:

The text has remained the same size and the rounded corners have been preserved.

This works better for some groups than others, depending on the design and complexity
of the group. If instead you want a simple ‘squashed’ result, where each member of the
group is simply scaled, all you need to do is hold down the Alt key while performing the
drag.