Davey, you have made some excellent recommendations. Though my 'secret
squirrel' sensitive data is not always points, lines and polygons which can
be so easily queried out. What about imagery (other than ECWs and ALGs which
can sometimes be cropped using MBX applications) such as TIFs?
Cheers
Amanda
ps *hint* I think you are crazy trying to use a word processor for making
posters...if you have the funds - investing in the Corel Draw suite it is an
excellent investment for around AUD$600 :)
-----Original Message-----
From: davey [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2000 1:45 PM
To: Horner, Amanda
Cc: 'Tim Warman'; 'MapInfo-L'
Subject: RE: MI-L PDF File Sum
A couple of additional comments:
1. regarding Amanda's query ...
> I find PDFs have a great limitation when it comes to masking data ie you
> have a sensitive table of information and you only want to publish to PDF
> one part, so instead of cutting out sections of this table (disadvantages
of
> time and additional files to mess with) you apply a polygon with a hole to
> show only what you want others to see. - Works well with printed maps,
> however when it has been zapped into PDF the map refreshes (slower with
> imagery) showing each layer at a time giving the viewer an eyeful of your
> private data before covering it with the mask. A big problem for some of
us
You can avoid this problem, and reduce the final pdf filesize as well,
if you eliminate from within the source mapper ALL data which is
concealed by upper layers (either by layer "remove" or layer set not
visible, or substituting query layer in place of entire table).
For Amanda's particular problem, the solution is to query her source
table. Select from the source table those objects which are within or
overlap with the mask, or use any other SQL selection logic
appropriate to the structure of the table (i.e. whatever discriminates
between the data you want to show and the data you don't). Then
replace the source table with the query in the mapper. If you have
already gone to the trouble of complicated labelling or display
overrides, you can use a text editor in the main and a temporary
workspace to transfer the settings.
2. In Tim's sum he mentioned:
> Use zip instead of jpeg to preserve quality of images (at expense of
> pdf
> size) - I didn't quite understand this point.
Even if Amanda's sensitive data is not a concern, it is always
desirable to take every available step to minimise resultant pdf
filesize, because it significantly affects the speed with which the
file will open and draw on screen, and will often affect how easily
you can email it or let people download it on the web. [The reason to
favour zip over jpeg is that the latter is a lossy format unless
uncompressed.]
3. Hatch patterns & colour fills
As well as the problems Tim reports, I find in any case you will
usually get much better results (either direct to paper or via pdf)
with the Exa-Min GeoBaseMap vector fills. It takes a while to get used
to (particularly controlling pattern scale for differently scaled
layouts), but does not suffer from any of these colour reproduction
limitations.
4. Scaling prints on demand
Another advantage of the pdf format that doesn't seem to have been
mentioned, and which I find extremely useful, is the "fit to page"
option (I use Adobe Acrobat 4.0 - the full authoring package; I cannot
be sure if this is available in the free Acrobat Reader).
I often have a finished layout (e.g. to print to an A2 sheet) which I
would like to proof to (say) A4, or for which it would be handy to
have a reduced A3 or A4 version for working in the field. Or sometimes
I want to see what the layout will look like when photocopied, so
printing to a B&W laser printer (rather than my standard colour
bubblejet) would be handy, but of course it doesn't support large page
sizes at all (remember I am talking about the entire layout on a
single sheet - not tiled onto several sheets). And photo-reducing a
sheet >A3 on our photocopier is both very cumbersome and usually has
to be done in sections and then reassembled!
By creating multiple layouts it is of course perfectly possible to
have similar maps printed out at different scales on different page
sizes, but (a) it takes time and effort to create the additional
layouts; (b) it becomes a nightmare to keep them all up-to-date if you
are in the middle of getting the design and formatting right; and (c)
if the source mapper is very complex, you burn amazing amounts of time
in screen redraws every time you change the page setup anyway. So I
find the pdf "fit to page" method very handy as an alternative to
creating multiple cloned layouts at different scales.
All you have to do is check the "fit to page" option (for a pdf
generated at any original page size), and Acrobat will scale it UP OR
DOWN to fit whatever page size you want to print it to (assuming your
printer supports it). So you can enlarge a pdf which was originally A4
to at least A2 without any significant degradation of print quality
(as long as you know what you are doing!), and you can go the other
way just as easily. It also means that someone who only has a printer
capable of handling A4 or letter-sized paper can still print off a pdf
of any virtual page size (subject to readability if the reduction
ratio is too great!).
There are some surprising uses for the capacity of the Acrobat
software to zoom the pdf UP or down. The Microsoft Office suite has
DREADFUL support for large paper sizes. [I have been known to resort
to using a Mapinfo layout to produce the kind of simple poster one
might reasonably expect to be able to do as a simple one-page Word
doc.] A document simply cannot be generated in Powerpoint or Word [97]
to use all of an A2 sheet (it exceeds the largest allowable custom
size, even when the A2 printer is set as the default). But the same
ppt or doc designed at A4 or A3 and printed to pdf zooms up quite well
to A2 when printed from Acrobat!
One additional word of advice is that whenever you are printing
MULTIPLE COPIES of a large and complex layout, EVEN from Acrobat, it
is often FAR quicker to print the first one to file (*.prn) and
thereafter generate as many prints as you need by running a command
line or dos box which executes "copy /b printfile.prn lpt1:" or
similar. This bypasses the often VERY lengthy creation of the print
spool each time.
_____________________________________________________________________
ADRIAN DAVEY
Senior Lecturer in Environment Policy & Resource Management
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: +61 (0)2 6201 2517
Applied Ecology Research Group Fax: +61 (0)2 6201 5305
http://aerg.canberra.edu.au/~davey
Convenor, Ecology & Environmental Science
School of Resource, Environmental & Heritage Sciences
UNIVERSITY OF CANBERRA, ACT, 2601, AUSTRALIA
UC - 30 years making the difference!
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