Thanks, John. Your solution looks straightforward. Yes, my purchase was through Magic and I'm using Web Designer (as part of the Magic/Xara Designer ProX license.) I'm not sure of part of your language. When you say, "Load the existing website project into Web Designer..." well, my project is already on my hard drive and resides inside the Designer Pro application. So, once I am published and live...and then I want to do an update adding pages or correcting errors, are you saying I need to remove the live website from the host server and download it onto my hard drive? Or do I upgrade my hard drive copy and upload it to the host? Also, when I create a new version number, does that interfere with the search engine spider crawling my site and recognizing it is the same? I take it I'm only creating a version number on my files and not modifying the URL/domain name in any way? Also, one last question, if you will - Xara/Magic has little training information (videos) that are current. Although they have added many features over the years the videos are nine to twelve years old. Do you know if the manual available to Web Designer licensees are more detailed than the little bit of web creation material in the Xara Designer Pro X manual? If so, do I have to buy a Web Designer license to get the more thorough manual provided "Web Designer Premium" users? Again, thanks, your solution looks straightforward.

@Larry-Maloney

Hi,

Xara Designer Pro X (XDPX) is the combination of the 3 Xara programs - Photo & Graphics Design, Web Designer Premium and Page & Layout Designer. If you have Xara Designer Pro X, that is all you need. Getting a separate Web Designer Pro would be redundant.

It is still not clear what you are using - XDPX or Web Designer Premium, or both.

When John EB mentioned to load your project into Web Designer, when you save your project as a XAR (or WEB) file, that is the project. You can close it in Xara and reopen it at any time. If you don't close it, then it will be opened automatically the next time that you load Xara. Obviously, if it's already loaded, you don't need to load it again. But, be sure to have saved the project.

I suggest that you study the manual. Your initial question is answered in the manual under the subject mentioned by John EB, Fast Publish.

Look at the part about publishing to Xara.Hosting. You should already be doing this to make sure that your site actually looks like you want it to before you go live elsewhere. It's a good place to practice.

There is a forum dedicated to Xara products called TalkGraphics. I suggest that you join. There is plenty of information there and links to tutorials.

John CB

BrownJ2,

Agreed, buying "Web Designer Pro" would be redundant, but if it has a better manual I would spend fifty-plus dollars just to get the manual dedicated to web development only. I still want to know if the Web Designer manual has more content than the web designer instructions mentioned in the Designer Pro manuals. Talk about redundant, I purchased a copy of Xara + and then purchased Magic x because both companies kept reminding me to renew or upgrade. Hmmm, never did get a refund!

You say it's not clear which license I have. I'm the only one who knows because Magic and Xara ignore my please to stop co-mingling information and stop sending popups to renew the service contract for "Xara Designer Pro +." You see, I am licensed for "Xara Designer Pro X 18.5.0.62892  DL x64 Aug 11 2021" and by all accounts, it's the latest version, that is, except for the Xara popups suggesting I upgrade to "Xara Designer Pro - version 21***". I did that once and ended up paying for two licenses, "Pro X" and "Pro+." I was even licensed for one of the Web Designer Premium applications, too. It's odd that Magic sells their application as "Xara Designer Pro X. on some web pages it's called Premium. On others, it's called Xara Designer Pro 365. Even today I don't know which Pro product, (X or +) is the latest rendition. Is the bigger number the newest, or is the latest release the newest? Or are different code writers making a slightly different product? Reading their web pages is even more confusing. When I search "Magic" I get the Magic webpage with lots of references to Xara and Xara products. Likewise visiting Xara's website. Sometimes both versions (x and +) are mentioned in the same paragraph. And when I use the Magic website to contact "technical support" I get an answer but the "tech" adds, "you should contact Magic tech support for your answer." Make no mistake, I am licensed for " Xara Designer Pro X 18.5.0.62892  DL x64 Aug 11 2021," and I've told Xara many times - but I still get those Xara popups when I open my Magic version, and apparently it's Xara suggesting I "upgrade" or "renew" my license because when I click my Magic version to upgrade I'm messaged. "There are no upgrades." Maybe Magic & Xara share too much and should communicate with each other better? Me knowing (finally) which version I own and which company supposedly supports it means nothing if both companies don't honor that fact. Great software, pitiful management.

Searching “Fast Publish” as you suggest, returns one sentence in the “manual” included with my “Pro X.” version   Not much there! and I never see the "manual" updated with new releases.

And when I read “Publishing to Xara Hosting (Xara-Online), as you suggest, that’s clear as mud, too. It tells me I can publish to Xara Hosting or Magic Online World (MOW) if I’m an old subscriber but not if I am new. Then I cannot use Magic’s service. Again, since I am using Pro X, why muddle the instructions for software I do not have? It’s like reading a cheap car repair manual that says do this if you drive model A and do that if you drive model B. At least the car manuals separate chapters based on models. The Xara/Magic co-dependence is the biggest obstacle to learning to use Pro X.  Imagine a college-level course this wishy-washy!

I program in two languages but don’t want to learn HTML, CSS, or Java. Nor do I want to guess at every decision-making point while using Pro X. Instruction-wise these two companies are joined too tightly in too many ways.  If they cannot clean up their manuals and cannot produce current instruction videos (they are often nine to twelve years old,) is that a sign they are financially stretched? Or does management have poor judgment? And someone please explain the equivalency of the two versions. Why two? I can understand marketing the identical product and using two completely different names for brand identity. But how do Magic and Xara explain two different versions with almost identical names? Can you make sense of that? Clearly, these are not separate companies. My goal is to use the latest software version and when Xara’s Pro + has two recent updates but Magic has no indication of an update, what does that say? Is Xara catching up? Or is Magic behind? Xara is the original company, I believe. That suggests they should have the latest version, but I was told Magic did. For that reason, I canceled Xara’s version and purchased Magics'. China is full of cars I know nothing about. Likewise, I don’t need to constantly hear about both Xara and Magic’s rendition of “Designer Pro.” Even here you don’t distinguish; you say "Designer Pro." There is a difference.

Thanks for the input. I’ll check out “Talk Graphics”, but as you point out it’s for “Xara products.” Mine is a Magic product.