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Serif (Europe) Ltd, the UK’s leading independent desktop publishing, design and graphics software developer, today announced the launch of DrawPlus X2.

DrawPlus X2 (List Price £79.99; upgrade prices available*) is the latest, Microsoft® Windows Vista™ certified, version of Serif’s popular vector drawing software, which offers powerful and intuitive graphical tools to every PC user, regardless of their previous design experience. Helping users create everything from natural-looking painted artwork and vector drawn logos to screensavers, Flash™ animations and multi-page documents, DrawPlus X2 represents incredible flexibility and value for money.

In the frame with powerful animation and Flash™ export DrawPlus now features intuitive keyframes, for the easy creation of animations. With the highly intuitive Storyboard tab, users simply draw objects and alter position and attributes on subsequent frames. DrawPlus will then automatically perform the ‘tweening’ between frames, even along nonlinear paths. The new Camera tool gives the impression of panning and zooming around scenes for even more professional results. Users can now export their animations to a range of movie file formats, including MPEG, AVI, WMA and QuickTime, as well as Adobe® Shockwave® Flash™ for more efficient upload and viewing on the web. The Flash Lite option even allows users to export their Flash animations for viewing on mobile phones.

Drawing made easy

Powerful new drawing tools give users greater control over the creation and manipulation of vector shapes. The Freeform Paint tool enables shapes to be easily added to, while the Erase tool is perfect for re-defining object boundaries and ‘cutting out’ areas of shapes. Plus, users no longer have to close shapes in order to fill them as DrawPlus will do this automatically. Objects and text can be ‘cut through’, leaving them in multiple vector parts, with the new Knife tool. Enhancing workflow even further, new dynamic labels show the dimensions and angles of objects as they’re being created, for greater speed and accuracy. A more customisable Blend tool allows users to apply multiple blends with variable attributes, plus new 3D transforms and Shadows can be applied inplace saving time and effort. Pseudo-3D drawing grids can also be created with a choice of projections, including isometric and oblique. Furthermore DrawPlus X2’s ability to rotate the canvas just like traditional sketching, will make graphical design and illustration easier than ever for designers of all abilities.

High performance design

Multiple designs can be opened and easily accessed via the tabbed interface, while sliding tabs provide quick access to tools and help, leaving an uncluttered workspace to design in. The new zoom slider works relative to selected objects, making it easy to edit specific sections of the design, allowing users to zoom around the screen and edit objects even while DrawPlus X2 is re-drawing the on-screen view of the design. To work even more efficiently on highly complex designs, users can also freeze layers and individual objects at a resolution of their choice, so that DrawPlus X2 doesn’t have to redraw them each time. Layers and objects can be easily un-frozen again for editing. Users can change the screen’s View Quality from Normal to Wireframe, to display brush strokes as single pixel lines for more precise editing, or to Draft mode for increased drawing performance. Helping to make the design process fluid and straightforward, the new context sensitive ‘How To’ tab automatically displays easy to follow, illustrated instructions on using the selected tool, with hyperlinks to related subjects and the full topic in the Help file.

With its streamlined interface, new drawing tools, enhanced text features and improved animation capabilities, combined with the accessible How To tab and popular features from previous versions, DrawPlus X2 offers a powerful, value-for-money graphics solution for designers of all abilities.

“DrawPlus has always been enormously popular and our latest, Vista-certified version, DrawPlus X2 combines unrivalled ease-of-use with ground breaking new features”, said Gary Bates, Serif’s Managing Director. “As well as adding to our customers favourite drawing and design tools, the fantastic new keyframe animation capabilities and Flash™ export will enable our customers’ to take their designs to an exciting new level.”

* Existing users of Serif software should contact Serif on 0800 376 7070 for upgrade prices.

For further information please contact:

Please contact: Sarah Connelly, Tel: 0115 9149104 or Email: pr@serif.com

Serif is the publisher of the award-winning software range that includes PagePlus, PhotoPlus, DrawPlus, WebPlus, ImpactPlus, AlbumPlus, MoviePlus and more. Founded in 1987 with the aim to develop low-cost alternatives to high-end publishing and graphics packages, Serif has been repeatedly praised for its powerful yet easy-to-use software which has put professional effects and demanding publishing tasks within the reach of ordinary PC users around the world. Now with over 2 million customers worldwide, Serif has around 250 employees at its head office, development and European sales centre in Nottingham, UK and its North American sales operation in New Hampshire, US.

Serif Sales Hotline: 0800 376 7070

Serif Online: www.serif.com

Serif Multi-User Site Licences: 0800 376 6868

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