Xara

Using the Selector Tool in Xara Designer Pro: A Beginner's Guide

Cristi Cotovan

Cristi Cotovan

— 2 min read
Using the Selector Tool in Xara Designer Pro: A Beginner's Guide

The Selector Tool is the most fundamental tool in Xara Designer Pro X — it is how you select, move, resize, and rotate objects. This beginner's guide covers everything from basic selection to precise dimensioning and rotation.

Watch the full tutorial:

Selecting and Resizing Objects

Click any object to select it. Eight handles appear around the object: corner handles resize proportionally, side handles stretch or squash in one direction. Hold Shift while dragging to resize from the centre of the object rather than from the opposite corner.

Precise Resizing with the Info Bar

The info bar at the top changes for each tool. With the Selector tool, it shows the object's position (X, Y), dimensions (W, H), and scale (%). You can type exact values — for example, typing "1920px" in the width field works even if the document uses centimetres. The lock icon between W and H maintains the aspect ratio.

Selector tool resize handles and info bar in Xara
A selected object shows resize handles — the info bar displays exact dimensions in the chosen unit

Changing Document Units

Go to Utilities → Options → Units to change the default measurement unit for the document. Options include Millimetres, Centimetres, Points, Picas, Inches, and Pixels. Switching to Pixels is useful when designing for screen (YouTube thumbnails, web graphics, etc.).

Units options dialog in Xara Designer
The Options dialog lets you change document units — switch from centimetres to pixels for screen-based designs

Rotating and Skewing Objects

Click a selected object a second time and the handles change from squares to curved arrows — these are rotation handles. Drag a corner handle to rotate, or drag a side handle to skew (shear) the object. The small crosshair in the centre is the rotation origin — drag it to change the point around which the object rotates.

Rotation handles on selected objects in Xara
Click a second time to switch from resize to rotation handles — the curved arrows let you rotate the selection

Grouping and Arranging Objects

Select multiple objects with Shift+click or by dragging a selection box. Ctrl+G groups them — they move and resize as one unit. Ctrl+U ungroups. Use Arrange → Bring to Front or Send to Back (or their shortcuts Ctrl+F / Ctrl+B) to change the stacking order of objects.

Tips

  • Always re-enable the aspect ratio lock after manually typing custom dimensions
  • Resizing a text object resizes the container, not the text — use the Text tool to change font size
  • You can resize by percentage in the info bar by changing the W/H values to %

Read more