Page 89 - Xara Designer Pro X17

Object Handling 89

As you can see the text has been squashed and the rounded corners are no longer
round. But this can be useful for some groups, typically graphics that don’t include any
text or rounded corners.

Turn SMART TRANSFORM on or off by right-clicking on the LOCK ASPECT RATIO (on page
86) padlock button and selecting or de-selecting the option. It is on by default and holding
down the Alt key during the drag will toggle the selected option.

Perimeter & Area
The 2 controls on the right of the Selector tool InfoBar show the
perimeter and area of the current selected shape(s). Perimeter is

shown in the current units for the document and area is shown in the
current units squared. These fields are not editable.

Stretching and squashing objects

This is similar to scaling objects except that the object is scaled in one direction only.
Stretching and squashing are basically the same action — stretching makes the object
larger, squashing makes it smaller.

Stretching/Squashing using the mouse
Make sure you you have the SELECTION BOUNDS handles selected - click the button on
the SELECTOR TOOL (on page 123) infobar to display the handles.

Also make sure that the SMART TRANSFORM option on the LOCK ASPECT RATIO button is
unchecked (right-click on the button to display the context menu and uncheck the option).

Use the side, top and bottom handles, instead of the corner handles, to stretch or squash
a shape in one dimension only.

Drag one of the side handles. The
object scales as you move the
pointer in the appropriate direction.
The InfoBar shows the current
scaling.

The LOCK ASPECT button is ignored.