Rene Stephenson wrote, in part: > I am now discovering how much our artist was keeping in his > head. Now, I know the idea of cataloging or browsing graphics > is really probably out of scope for any desktop publishing > application, but when you're dealing with graphic-intensive > books in FM, with so much content to manage...! We have > single-sourced about 75% of the projects, so the text part of > the FM files is in manageable condition, thanks to insets, > shared files, conditional text, variables, and the like. But > the graphics...! Egads! We really need to simplify and find a > way to quickly locate and identify the graphics files! > > I'm wondering whether we could use the source graphics rather > than the output files. The source files include CDR, AI, DWG, > DXF, and VSD files. All of those were being output to TIFF or > JPG for use in FM. I have heard that FM is supposed to import > CDR files, but using FM 7.2 I haven't had very good luck > (possibly my mistakes).
I'll let others address file structure, cataloging, etc. My experience is mainly with not-graphics-intensive books organized in dead simple ways. But I'll contribute two ideas: 1) FM itself will locate and identify all the referenced graphics for you quickly and easily. Just add an Index of References (IOR) to each book (Add > Index of > References) and put Imported Graphics in the Include list. (If you want a "master list," make a "master book" containing all the files for all books.) The generated IOR will list all the imported graphics in alphabetical order, like so (path is relative to book): graphics/button-1to1.png @ 100 dpi 42 graphics/button-dial.png @ 100 dpi 42 graphics/button-disc.png @ 100 dpi 42 graphics/button-end.png @ 100 dpi 41 Pretty user-friendly. If you selected Create Hyperlinks, the page numbers will take you to the imported graphic. Of course, if you want to automate _changing_ graphics locations, Martin's suggestion of a FrameScript solution is a good idea. The IOR lists might be useful in that process, too. 2) Don't try importing the source graphics files you mention. The way to do so is with File > Import > Object > Create from File. But this uses Windows' OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) process, which bloats your doc with humongous chunks of data from the application associated with the file (Visio, Corel, etc.) to enable you to edit the graphic "in place" in your FM file. OLE is OK for one or a few graphics (I used to use it for two or three Visio drawings), but it bogs down your system and is not to be trusted with many, many graphics. I wouldn't use TIFF or JPEG for vector graphics either (especially not JPEG). I suggest printing vector graphics to PDF and importing that. EPS is another decent option, but (a) you only see the low-res TIFF preview (don't forget to create it!) on screen, and (b) I believe the EPS export filters in both Visio and Corel Draw have been much maligned. (Illustrator's is OK. Don't know about AutoCAD.) HTH! Richard ------ Richard G. Combs Senior Technical Writer Polycom, Inc. richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom 303-223-5111 ------ rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom 303-777-0436 ------ _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send list messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.