Make a color transparent (bitmap export)

(GIF, & PNG up to 256 colors only)

These formats can have transparent areas in the bitmap. This is done by making one of the entries in the color palette a special "transparent" color. (So a 16-color GIF or PNG with transparency contains 15 colors plus transparency.)

To make a color transparent

1. The Bitmap Export dialog box displays the color palette of the bitmap. (Color Depths up to 256-color only.) Click on a color in the palette to select it.

2. Click the Make transparent button. A small square appears in the top left of the color to tell you it is transparent. Any parts of the bitmap that use this color become transparent.

Notes:

A separate button (make background transparent) makes the background transparent. (The background is any areas not covered by the selected objects.) This is the usual type of transparency but the Make transparent option gives you full control. You could for example use it to create cut-outs in the exported bitmap.

In Xara LX you can make multiple palette entries transparent. However PNG & GIF files can have only one transparent palette entry so Xara LX merges together all transparent entries when exporting the file. Thus, if the palette in this dialog box contains five colors and three transparent entries, the exported bitmap palette contains six entries: the same five colors and one transparent entry.

PNG (true-color) has a more advanced type of graduated transparency called "alpha-channel" rather than this simple on-off transparency. True-color with alpha-channel transparency is an option on the Color depth list on the Bitmap Export dialog box.

For more information on the Bitmap Export dialog box click the Help button on this dialog box.

You can also select a color using the Color Selector (the "eye-dropper"). Click on the required color in the Preview window.

_____________

Related Topics

Editing colors (bitmap export)