Xara Webster - Changing the Color of Clipart

Many of the items of Clipart on the Xara web site you can download using the Web Clipart button in the Clipart Gallery use 'connected colors'. This means all the different shades of a color are connected together so changing one of them changes them all. This means you can load a piece of clipart and easily change its color with a few mouse clicks. The three banner bitmaps here were all created using Xara Webster from a single piece of clipart (to find out how to make bitmaps like these yourself using Xara Webster, see Creating a Button Bitmap).

This page describes buttons but also applies to most of the bullets and page dividers.

To edit the color of one button

  1. Import or load the button from the Clipart Gallery.
  2. Open the Color Gallery. This displays the colors used in the button. Button Color is the main color used; Black is the color of the shadow.
  3. Click on the color you want change.
  4. Click Edit to load that color into the Color Editor.
  5. Make the required changes.

To change the color of several buttons

  1. Import the buttons from the Clipart Gallery.
  2. Open the Color Gallery. If buttons use the same color (for example, they are all red), you can edit Button Color to change them all. If they are different (for example, some are red and others blue), the Gallery shows Button Color and Button Color 2.
  3. Click on the color you want change.
  4. Click Edit to load that color into the Color Editor.
  5. Make the required changes.

To change the color of some, but not all, buttons

For example if you want to change some buttons from red to blue but leave others still red.

  1. Import the buttons you want to change.
  2. Import the other buttons into another document.
  3. Change their color to blue (described above).
  4. Select the buttons and cut them to the clipboard. (Use Cut Group on the Edit menu.)
  5. Paste them into the original document. (Use Paste Group on the Edit menu.) Webster detects that, although they all use Button Color, the actual colors are different and so creates Button Color 2 which is blue.

Alternatively if the buttons already exist in the document:

  1. Select the buttons you want to remain red.
  2. Cut them to the clipboard. (Use Cut Group on the Edit menu.)
  3. Change Button Color to Blue.
  4. Paste the red buttons back in their original positions using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+V (Paste at same position). This creates Button Color 2 which is red.

Important: do not cut or copy anything to the clipboard until you have pasted the buttons back (step 4). Otherwise you will overwrite the red buttons.

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© Copyright Xara Ltd: page last updated 14 February 1997
For more information, contact webmaster@xara.com.