OLE Overview

OLE provides a convenient way of incorporating Xara LX drawings into suitable, OLE-compliant applications such as Microsoft Word. Another advantage of OLE is when you want to edit an embedded drawing. All you need do is double-click on the drawing in the Microsoft Word window. This loads the drawing into Xara LX ready for you to edit it. When you finish, Xara LX copies the drawing back to Microsoft Word keeping any custom values such as scaling. You can embed Xara LX drawings into any OLE-compliant application.

To embed a drawing into an application

This describes how to embed a drawing into Microsoft Word (other applications will be similar).

In Xara LX copy part or all of the drawing to the clipboard. Then embed it into Microsoft Word using Paste Special on Word's Edit menu.

Create the drawing in the usual way and save it to disk. You can then insert it into Microsoft Word by choosing Object on Word's Insert menu. Select the Create from File tab and select the name of the file.

Create a new drawing from within Microsoft Word. Choose Object on Microsoft Word's Insert menu. Select the Create New tab. Click Xara LX Document. This opens a new Xara LX window ready for you to create your drawing. When you finish the drawing, choose Exit and Return to Word on the File menu in Xara LX. This inserts the drawing into the Word document.

Tip

When you embed a Xara LX document or Xara LX objects in another program, the objects will look best when displayed at 100%. For example, if you embed some objects in a Microsoft Word document and then change the magnification in Word to 200%, the document will not look quite as good.

To edit an embedded Xara LX drawing

Just double-click on the drawing in the application. This loads the drawing into Xara LX ready for editing. When you finish editing, choose either Close and Return to (application) or Exit and Return to (application) on the File menu in Xara LX.

Xara LX menus and OLE

The File menu changes slightly when you are viewing an embedded drawing:

Save becomes Update. (The embedded drawing is automatically updated every 10-20 seconds. Update lets you update sooner if desired.)

Save as becomes Save Copy As. You can use this option to save a copy of the document.

Exit becomes Exit And Return To (Application). Choosing this updates the embedded document in the application and closes Xara LX

Close is either dimmed (if the embedded document is the only document) or becomes Close And Return To (Application). Choosing this updates the embedded document in the application (Xara LX remains loaded in memory).