The Transparency tool can be used to make normally opaque objects see-through. The ease of use and flexibility of the transparency tool is one of the strengths of Xara Xtreme. You can alter the transparency of objects on screen in real time without having to open new dialogs or menus.

To make an object transparent simply select the Transparency tool, click on the object you want to make transparent and then just move the transparency slider on the transparency infobar.

You'll see the selected object becoming more and more transparent with the objects beneath gradually showing through. Notice how the transparency changes interactively as you move the slider.

It's just as easy to apply graduated transparency to an object, in a wide variety of different transparency shapes. With the transparency tool selected you can chose the transparency shape from this drop down menu.

So for example selecting linear and then simply clicking and dragging across the object, applies a linear graduated transparency.

The rate and angle of fade can be adjusted by simply re-positioning the start and end points - just click on either end of the arrow and drag it to the new position.

There are ten other graduated transparency shapes, such as conical, circular and fractal:

We recommend you experiment with all the different transparency shapes to see the huge variety of effects that you can easily create. Note: you can achieve some very subtle and unusal effects by putting transparent layers on top of each other and of course they can be different colors so that they act like filters.

You can also alter the way the transparency 'tiles' across an object. So for example if you select 'Circular' as the transparency type and 'Repeating' you'll get this effect: