Page 628 - Xara Designer Pro X17

628 Customizing Designer Pro

Legacy web browser compatible line lengths
Older web browsers were not able to render text very accurately. When you asked for a
certain font size they rounded it up or down, often displaying the wrong size and width
(compared to the original font design, and how Designer Pro, Word, PDF and all modern
DTP programs would display it).

Older versions of Designer Pro attempted to compensate for these inaccuracies, by
providing a LEGACY WEB BROWSER LINE LENGTH COMPATIBILITY option which meant the
text was slightly differently formatted - line lengths would be different compared to normal
print documents, or the same text in Word, or PDF documents.

Most modern web browsers are getting better at rendering text accurately - you can now
specify any px or pt font size, even fractional sizes, and the text will for the most part, be
rendered accurately*. The text formatting should be the same as in print documents,
PDF, and page layout documents. This includes auto-kerning, manual kerning and
tracking (letter spacing).
If you load an older Designer Pro web document, a dialog will appear prompting you to
update the text formatting. This in effect prepares your web document so that it will
display accurately on most modern web browsers.

A consequence of updating the formatting to support the more modern browsers is that
text may re-flow because of slightly different line lengths, causing text columns to be
slightly longer or shorter than before. Once you update formatting the document will
remain like this and you will not be asked again.
To turn formatting back to the old style use the GENERAL TAB of "UTILITIES" > "OPTIONS"
dialog and make sure that the LEGACY WEB BROWSER LINE LENGTH COMPATIBILITY option
is checked. Or if you are loading an older document into Designer Pro just choose the
KEEP ORIGINAL FORMATTING option.

*As of writing the Apple Safari and Chrome browsers when used on mobile devices such
as phones and tablets still round font sizes to the nearest whole pixel size.

Document type
This determines the type of document, as indicated by the icon in the document’s tab.