Xara Webstyle 4

Webstyle 4 is designed to solve a persistent problem for people who want to create websites: coming up with good graphics. If you're not a designer or don't have access to one, coming up with something stylish that doesn't look like clipart can be a chore. Webstyle 4 helps you create buttons, bullets, menus, logos and other bits of page furniture, up to full-page templates or photo galleries.

You start by picking the element you want to create, then you're shown a selection of templates, some of which are downloaded from Xara's website. On-screen buttons offer customisation options, such as colours, text styles, backgrounds, size and menu links; just work down the column of buttons then click Save.

There are no menus, but once you get used to the program it becomes clearer. For example, if you work on a page template, you have to save each element you change, before you can return to the template itself and save that.

Webstyle 4 links to Microsoft Frontpage and Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, so you can click on generated graphics and change them easily. It can also produce HTML and image files to import into other design tools.

The photo album tool has basic image enhancements and a wide range of page templates, making it more flexible than many, but less so than Netobjects Fusion, for example.

This is a neat tool that will let you come up with good-looking designs, but the interface is a little peculiar.

Contact: Xara 01442 350 000
www.xara.com

System requirements:

• Windows 98 upwards
• Pentium II 233MHz or higher
• 64MB memory
• 100MB disk space