Re: best use of graphics in FM

[Ken Poshedly]

Well, as the final nail on the coffin on this matter (my FrameMaker-challenged 
coworker hacking his way through to produce down-and-ridiculously-dirty files), 
I've given up because following a conversation that got VERY heated and loud in 
the office, it is now apparent that he thrives far more than I had thought, 
loves an outright confrontation and will do only what he wants to do. (He 
almost 
got into a physical fight with another guy a few months ago and bragged to me 
that he won't take any s__t from anybody.) He's in his mid-50s, is fiercely 
independent, long-divorced and would rather be terminated and find a job 
somewhere else than be forced to do things he doesn't like.

While we "work" well together, I mean that we do joke with each other and both 
strive to complete our projects quickly, except that he hacks his way through 
while I take perhaps a little longer (really not by much) doing it correctly,  
as you here have confirmed. Otherwise, we are far more apart than I ever 
thought. When I showed him how to complete a purchase request for printing 
manuals, he found someone else to do it, saying it's not his job to do that. He 
almost tried to order me to not do a file transfer to a local printer after the 
printing order was confirmed, saying again that that task is for the 
"purchasing 
department to do." I disagree and proceeded with my job.

He keeps throwing out that he was tech pubs manager at his previous (very large 
and nationally known) company. Except that I can now tell that nobody 
knowledgeable there really kept tabs on him, or else what he does here would 
not 
have been allowed.

Even though we both now agree that the heat is now slightly off for us to rush 
through projects, he refuses to even consider saving those images he has 
screen-grabbed, so that if his FM file crashes we can speed up the rebuild 
process. His reply was "Tough." I told him I had consulted with other tech 
writers (you guys) and what the consensus was (save the image files before 
referencing/embedding). He came back with he knows that "as a manager" and 
having talked with other managers that all they care about is speed, get it 
done, no matter what it takes. And he told me that I refuse to compromise.

And no, he doesn't subscribe to this (or any list) and is far less computer 
literate than I thought.

That song by the Animals of the British music invasion days of the 1960s "We 
gotta Get Out of This Place" was never so true. I gotta get outta here.

All future comments to me about this should now be off-list and I will respond 
as such.

Sorry for the negativity, but it's just boiling over.

-- Ken, in hell





From: Ken Poshedly 
To: Shlomo Perets 
Cc: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Thu, March 22, 2012 11:40:07 AM
Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM


First, thanks to all who have written to me both on-list and off-list. It’s 
certainly good to have a support group of those likewise addicted to this 
software. (Maybe at an FM conference we can go around the room for 
introductions 
like at an AA meeting, “I’m Ken and I’m a FrameMaker user.”)

Second, I’m still checking possible solutions to see if I cold convince my 
coworker to add graphics to FM docs correctly, but it seems like a lost cause 
because he simply doesn’t see the need to do anything other than copy and 
paste. 
For new images, he simply opens the folder with photos taken of a new machine, 
copies a photo and directly pastes it into an anchored frame in his FM document.

(remainder snipped)
___


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best use of graphics in FM

[Ken Poshedly]

Well, as the final nail on the coffin on this matter (my FrameMaker-challenged 
coworker hacking his way through to produce down-and-ridiculously-dirty files), 
I've given up because following a conversation that got VERY heated and loud in 
the office, it is now apparent that he thrives far more than I had thought, 
loves an outright confrontation and will do only what he wants to do. (He 
almost 
got into a physical fight with another guy a few months ago and bragged to me 
that he won't take any s__t from anybody.) He's in his mid-50s, is fiercely 
independent, long-divorced and would rather be terminated and find a job 
somewhere else than be forced to do things he doesn't like.

While we "work" well together, I mean that we do joke with each other and both 
strive to complete our projects quickly, except that he hacks his way through 
while I take perhaps a little longer (really not by much) doing it correctly,  
as you here have confirmed. Otherwise, we are far more apart than I ever 
thought. When I showed him how to complete a purchase request for printing 
manuals, he found someone else to do it, saying it's not his job to do that. He 
almost tried to order me to not do a file transfer to a local printer after the 
printing order was confirmed, saying again that that task is for the 
"purchasing 
department to do." I disagree and proceeded with my job.

He keeps throwing out that he was tech pubs manager at his previous (very large 
and nationally known) company. Except that I can now tell that nobody 
knowledgeable there really kept tabs on him, or else what he does here would 
not 
have been allowed.

Even though we both now agree that the heat is now slightly off for us to rush 
through projects, he refuses to even consider saving those images he has 
screen-grabbed, so that if his FM file crashes we can speed up the rebuild 
process. His reply was "Tough." I told him I had consulted with other tech 
writers (you guys) and what the consensus was (save the image files before 
referencing/embedding). He came back with he knows that "as a manager" and 
having talked with other managers that all they care about is speed, get it 
done, no matter what it takes. And he told me that I refuse to compromise.

And no, he doesn't subscribe to this (or any list) and is far less computer 
literate than I thought.

That song by the Animals of the British music invasion days of the 1960s "We 
gotta Get Out of This Place" was never so true. I gotta get outta here.

All future comments to me about this should now be off-list and I will respond 
as such.

Sorry for the negativity, but it's just boiling over.

-- Ken, in hell





From: Ken Poshedly 
To: Shlomo Perets 
Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Thu, March 22, 2012 11:40:07 AM
Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM


First, thanks to all who have written to me both on-list and off-list. It?s 
certainly good to have a support group of those likewise addicted to this 
software. (Maybe at an FM conference we can go around the room for 
introductions 
like at an AA meeting, ?I?m Ken and I?m a FrameMaker user.?)

Second, I?m still checking possible solutions to see if I cold convince my 
coworker to add graphics to FM docs correctly, but it seems like a lost cause 
because he simply doesn?t see the need to do anything other than copy and 
paste. 
For new images, he simply opens the folder with photos taken of a new machine, 
copies a photo and directly pastes it into an anchored frame in his FM document.

(remainder snipped)
-- next part --
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URL: 
<http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers/attachments/20120325/f704630c/attachment.html>

best use of graphics in FM

[rebecca officer]

Hi Ken

There're certainly a lot of better options than your flow!

Working from PDFs, my I'm-in-a-hurry flow would be:

1. Open PDF at 100%
2. Open SnagIt.
3. Set snagit to automatically save files as PNGs with incrementing
numbers in filenames.
4. Set snagit to capture a Region, which lets you drag the mouse to
select exactly what you want.
5. Take the snapshots for the whole book. It takes a few seconds to
capture each - definitely under 10 seconds, probably well under once
you're on a roll.
6. Open the FM document.
7. At each point where I wanted a screen snapshot, use File > Import to
import it at 96 dpi. That automatically inserts it in an anchored frame,
centered, at the size it was in the original PDF. Only takes a couple of
seconds per file.

If you can't live with centred figures, I'm pretty sure there was a
plugin that let control that across a document.

If your manuals are being printed, 96dpi isn't good enough so you may
need to experiment. But I'll bet your workmate's flow gets the content
in at screen resolution.

Cheers
Rebecca


>>> Ken Poshedly  03/23/12 11:02 AM >>>
First, thanks to all who have written to me both on-list and off-list.
It?s 
certainly good to have a support group of those likewise addicted to
this 
software. (Maybe at an FM conference we can go around the room for
introductions 
like at an AA meeting, ?I?m Ken and I?m a FrameMaker user.?)

Second, I?m still checking possible solutions to see if I cold convince
my 
coworker to add graphics to FM docs correctly, but it seems like a lost
cause 
because he simply doesn?t see the need to do anything other than copy
and paste. 
For new images, he simply opens the folder with photos taken of a new
machine, 
copies a photo and directly pastes it into an anchored frame in his FM
document.

He?s asked me to come up with a better way, but I already know that to
him, only 
speed counts, and he takes literally no longer than 20 seconds or so to
do it 
his way:
* Have pdf document open and anchored frame in FM document
already in place.
* Screen-shot the art (using PrintScreen32 which allows cropping
before doing 
the capture).
* Paste it into anchored frame and size it as-needed.
My clumsy, more complicated, admittedly longer but correct method (using
an 
existing pdf file with required images) is to: 

* Have pdf document open and anchored frame in FM document
already in place.
* Extract single page with a required image from a multi-page
pdf file.
* Open the pdf page (or photo) in art software and crop away
unneeded material 
to leave only the image.
* Assign an art control number (from our existing acn excel
file).
* Save the cropped pdf in the existing art control number file
folder.
* Import the saved PDF image from the ACN folder into anchored
frame in 
FrameMaker and re-size it as-needed
* Type the art control number inside a text box and place it
inside the lower 
right corner of the anchored frame.
Third, thanks to Shlomo Perets for his suggestion for me to uncheck the
box for 
?Generate Tagged PDF? as a fix to see if I could properly generate a pdf
file on 
Wednesday afternoon. It worked. (Specifically, I unchecked the box for
?Generate 
Acrobat Data?.)

-- Ken in Atlanta





From: Shlomo Perets 
To: Ken Poshedly 
Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Thu, March 22, 2012 6:49:03 AM
Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM

Ken,

You wrote:

>First, I very much appreciate the various on-list and off-list replies.

>I'll try a few things myself this evening after getting home (61 miles 
>each way) regarding the graphics to see what I can do as a speed test.
>
>Second, I just did some minor edits to a series of FM files created by
my 
>coworker and tried to create a pdf of the book. And yep, a big glitch 
>occurred right near th
e beginning during distilling. Here's the text
from 
>the log file created by distiller:
>
>%%[ ProductName: Distiller ]%%
>%%[Page: 1]%%
>%%[Page: 2]%%
>%%[ Error: typecheck; OffendingCommand: pdfmark; ErrorInfo: StOBJ 
>--nostringval-- ]%%
>
>Stack:
>/StOBJ
>{/StOBJ}
>/Obj
>-dict-
>
>
>%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
>%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%
>
>*
>
>Notice that distiller gave up the ghost at or after page 2 of the file 
>during the book printing which should have resulted in a 254-page
manual. 
>I've done a visual check of pages 2 and 3 (the copyright page would be
pdf 
>page 2 and page 1 of the comprehensive TOC would be pdf page 3) and
either 
>there's nothing obviously wrong or I'm blind.
>
>Could someone explain the cryptography from the log file, specifically 
>line 4 (Error: typecheck . . .) and what follow

Re: best use of graphics in FM

[rebecca officer]

Hi Ken

There're certainly a lot of better options than your flow!

Working from PDFs, my I'm-in-a-hurry flow would be:

1. Open PDF at 100%
2. Open SnagIt.
3. Set snagit to automatically save files as PNGs with incrementing
numbers in filenames.
4. Set snagit to capture a Region, which lets you drag the mouse to
select exactly what you want.
5. Take the snapshots for the whole book. It takes a few seconds to
capture each - definitely under 10 seconds, probably well under once
you're on a roll.
6. Open the FM document.
7. At each point where I wanted a screen snapshot, use File > Import to
import it at 96 dpi. That automatically inserts it in an anchored frame,
centered, at the size it was in the original PDF. Only takes a couple of
seconds per file.

If you can't live with centred figures, I'm pretty sure there was a
plugin that let control that across a document.

If your manuals are being printed, 96dpi isn't good enough so you may
need to experiment. But I'll bet your workmate's flow gets the content
in at screen resolution.

Cheers
Rebecca


>>> Ken Poshedly  03/23/12 11:02 AM >>>
First, thanks to all who have written to me both on-list and off-list.
It’s 
certainly good to have a support group of those likewise addicted to
this 
software. (Maybe at an FM conference we can go around the room for
introductions 
like at an AA meeting, “I’m Ken and I’m a FrameMaker user.”)

Second, I’m still checking possible solutions to see if I cold convince
my 
coworker to add graphics to FM docs correctly, but it seems like a lost
cause 
because he simply doesn’t see the need to do anything other than copy
and paste. 
For new images, he simply opens the folder with photos taken of a new
machine, 
copies a photo and directly pastes it into an anchored frame in his FM
document.

He’s asked me to come up with a better way, but I already know that to
him, only 
speed counts, and he takes literally no longer than 20 seconds or so to
do it 
his way:
* Have pdf document open and anchored frame in FM document
already in place.
* Screen-shot the art (using PrintScreen32 which allows cropping
before doing 
the capture).
* Paste it into anchored frame and size it as-needed.
My clumsy, more complicated, admittedly longer but correct method (using
an 
existing pdf file with required images) is to: 

* Have pdf document open and anchored frame in FM document
already in place.
* Extract single page with a required image from a multi-page
pdf file.
* Open the pdf page (or photo) in art software and crop away
unneeded material 
to leave only the image.
* Assign an art control number (from our existing acn excel
file).
* Save the cropped pdf in the existing art control number file
folder.
* Import the saved PDF image from the ACN folder into anchored
frame in 
FrameMaker and re-size it as-needed
* Type the art control number inside a text box and place it
inside the lower 
right corner of the anchored frame.
Third, thanks to Shlomo Perets for his suggestion for me to uncheck the
box for 
“Generate Tagged PDF” as a fix to see if I could properly generate a pdf
file on 
Wednesday afternoon. It worked. (Specifically, I unchecked the box for
“Generate 
Acrobat Data”.)

-- Ken in Atlanta





From: Shlomo Perets 
To: Ken Poshedly 
Cc: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Thu, March 22, 2012 6:49:03 AM
Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM

Ken,

You wrote:

>First, I very much appreciate the various on-list and off-list replies.

>I'll try a few things myself this evening after getting home (61 miles 
>each way) regarding the graphics to see what I can do as a speed test.
>
>Second, I just did some minor edits to a series of FM files created by
my 
>coworker and tried to create a pdf of the book. And yep, a big glitch 
>occurred right near th
e beginning during distilling. Here's the text
from 
>the log file created by distiller:
>
>%%[ ProductName: Distiller ]%%
>%%[Page: 1]%%
>%%[Page: 2]%%
>%%[ Error: typecheck; OffendingCommand: pdfmark; ErrorInfo: StOBJ 
>--nostringval-- ]%%
>
>Stack:
>/StOBJ
>{/StOBJ}
>/Obj
>-dict-
>
>
>%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
>%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%
>
>*
>
>Notice that distiller gave up the ghost at or after page 2 of the file 
>during the book printing which should have resulted in a 254-page
manual. 
>I've done a visual check of pages 2 and 3 (the copyright page would be
pdf 
>page 2 and page 1 of the comprehensive TOC would be pdf page 3) and
either 
>there's nothing obviously wrong or I'm blind.
>
>Could someone explain the cryptography from the log file, specifically 
>line 4 (Error: typecheck . . .) and what follows it?

best use of graphics in FM (was: framers Digest, Vol 77, Issue 17)

[Rick Quatro]

Keith,



Your signature contains a definition of a racist. I wonder what you call
someone who makes blanket statements about unions, "big business", and
"republicans". I will be kind and call it stereotyping. It takes some effort
and intelligence to research issues and discuss them on their merits instead
of categorizing things according to labels, political talking points, and
sound bites. But of course, this requires that we think, which is more work
than many people are willing to do.



Respectfully (your Republican friend),

Rick



Rick Quatro

Carmen Publishing Inc.

*** 585-283-5045 *** NEW NUMBER

rick at frameexpert.com

http://www.frameexpert.com



  _  

Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:21:53 -0700
From: keith.sm...@att.net
Subject: Re: framers Digest, Vol 77, Issue 17
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com

Ken, it might be a good idea to inform you MANAGER of the Third Tort Law.

You need to protect yourself by getting written instructions on what to
include, and not include in the document. I saw this happen to an individual
I was working with. Fortunately, he had signed instructions from the Product
Manager to not include some safety instructions, as it would "upset the
customer". So when a customer got burned badly, the customer went after the
company, the company went after the writer, and the writer offered up the
program manager, who got fired, and sued. Yeah, CYA.

Tort's Third Law
It is a good idea to be versed in Tort Law, specifically Tort's Third Law.
The emphasis of the Tort Law is consumer protection.  Tort Law did for the
consumer what the unions did for the worker.  According to the Third Law, "A
product is defective when, at the time of sale or distribution, it contains
a manufacturing defect, is defective in design or is defective because of
INADEQUATE INSTRUCTIONS OR WARNINGS."

This is important to any of us in the technical writing domain, as it puts
the onus on us to provide adequate (and standard) instructions, which
includes warnings in the instructions (and on labels if that is a part of
our job). Most writers are completely oblivious to their responsibility
under the Tort Law and many companies are equally oblivious (or choose to
ignore).
As such, they are also ignorant to the fact that they can be sued in a
liability action, as a company and as individuals, for their failure to
provide adequate instructions and warnings.

To make matters even more complicated, it's a double-edged sword for a
writer.   Business loves to hate the Tort Law and tends to kill the
messenger.  If you, as the writer, are doing a proper job, you are the
messenger.

There are also very few places that teach you this stuff - even the
university tech writing courses overlook it.
If you muck around without knowing the standards and the law, you could get
yourself and your clients sued.

BTW, The Big B (big business) is currently throwing a lot of money at our
political types to try and weaken the Tort Law and relieve themselves of the
burden of liability (recalling those bloody toys that kill or maim kids is
such a blessed nuisance and just munches away at the bottom line).

In addition, any politicians who do not play ball will find themselves up
against some pretty big bucks intent on running them out on a rail. The
republicans in particular are fond of coming to the aid of Big B and can be
counted on to slam dunk your protection under the current law.



--
Keith L. Smyth
President
Smyth Consulting

-
Voting for someone because they are black is as racist
as voting against someone because they are black.

Beware an intrusive  government.

GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES


-
Technical Documentation Consultant



-- next part --
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: 

Re: best use of graphics in FM

[Ken Poshedly]

First, thanks to all who have written to me both on-list and off-list. It’s 
certainly good to have a support group of those likewise addicted to this 
software. (Maybe at an FM conference we can go around the room for 
introductions 
like at an AA meeting, “I’m Ken and I’m a FrameMaker user.”)

Second, I’m still checking possible solutions to see if I cold convince my 
coworker to add graphics to FM docs correctly, but it seems like a lost cause 
because he simply doesn’t see the need to do anything other than copy and 
paste. 
For new images, he simply opens the folder with photos taken of a new machine, 
copies a photo and directly pastes it into an anchored frame in his FM document.

He’s asked me to come up with a better way, but I already know that to him, 
only 
speed counts, and he takes literally no longer than 20 seconds or so to do it 
his way:
* Have pdf document open and anchored frame in FM document already in 
place.
* Screen-shot the art (using PrintScreen32 which allows cropping before 
doing 
the capture).
* Paste it into anchored frame and size it as-needed.
My clumsy, more complicated, admittedly longer but correct method (using an 
existing pdf file with required images) is to: 

* Have pdf document open and anchored frame in FM document already in 
place.
* Extract single page with a required image from a multi-page pdf file.
* Open the pdf page (or photo) in art software and crop away unneeded 
material 
to leave only the image.
* Assign an art control number (from our existing acn excel file).
* Save the cropped pdf in the existing art control number file folder.
* Import the saved PDF image from the ACN folder into anchored frame in 
FrameMaker and re-size it as-needed
* Type the art control number inside a text box and place it inside the 
lower 
right corner of the anchored frame.
Third, thanks to Shlomo Perets for his suggestion for me to uncheck the box for 
“Generate Tagged PDF” as a fix to see if I could properly generate a pdf file 
on 
Wednesday afternoon. It worked. (Specifically, I unchecked the box for 
“Generate 
Acrobat Data”.)

-- Ken in Atlanta





From: Shlomo Perets 
To: Ken Poshedly 
Cc: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Thu, March 22, 2012 6:49:03 AM
Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM

Ken,

You wrote:

>First, I very much appreciate the various on-list and off-list replies. 
>I'll try a few things myself this evening after getting home (61 miles 
>each way) regarding the graphics to see what I can do as a speed test.
>
>Second, I just did some minor edits to a series of FM files created by my 
>coworker and tried to create a pdf of the book. And yep, a big glitch 
>occurred right near the beginning during distilling. Here's the text from 
>the log file created by distiller:
>
>%%[ ProductName: Distiller ]%%
>%%[Page: 1]%%
>%%[Page: 2]%%
>%%[ Error: typecheck; OffendingCommand: pdfmark; ErrorInfo: StOBJ 
>--nostringval-- ]%%
>
>Stack:
>/StOBJ
>{/StOBJ}
>/Obj
>-dict-
>
>
>%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
>%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%
>
>*
>
>Notice that distiller gave up the ghost at or after page 2 of the file 
>during the book printing which should have resulted in a 254-page manual. 
>I've done a visual check of pages 2 and 3 (the copyright page would be pdf 
>page 2 and page 1 of the comprehensive TOC would be pdf page 3) and either 
>there's nothing obviously wrong or I'm blind.
>
>Could someone explain the cryptography from the log file, specifically 
>line 4 (Error: typecheck . . .) and what follows it?


The Distiller error is related to having Tagged PDF turned on in FrameMaker.

Turn off "Generate Tagged PDF" (Format > Document > PDF Setup, Tags tab, of 
from within your Save as PDF / Print dialog box), then try converting to 
PDF again.


Shlomo Perets

MicroType, http://www.microtype.com
FrameMaker/TCS training & consulting * FM-to-Acrobat TimeSavers/Assistants___


You are currently subscribed to framers as arch...@mail-archive.com.

Send list messages to framers@lists.frameusers.com.

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com
or visit 
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Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit
http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.

best use of graphics in FM

[Shlomo Perets]

Ken,

You wrote:

>First, I very much appreciate the various on-list and off-list replies. 
>I'll try a few things myself this evening after getting home (61 miles 
>each way) regarding the graphics to see what I can do as a speed test.
>
>Second, I just did some minor edits to a series of FM files created by my 
>coworker and tried to create a pdf of the book. And yep, a big glitch 
>occurred right near the beginning during distilling. Here's the text from 
>the log file created by distiller:
>
>%%[ ProductName: Distiller ]%%
>%%[Page: 1]%%
>%%[Page: 2]%%
>%%[ Error: typecheck; OffendingCommand: pdfmark; ErrorInfo: StOBJ 
>--nostringval-- ]%%
>
>Stack:
>/StOBJ
>{/StOBJ}
>/Obj
>-dict-
>
>
>%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
>%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%
>
>*
>
>Notice that distiller gave up the ghost at or after page 2 of the file 
>during the book printing which should have resulted in a 254-page manual. 
>I've done a visual check of pages 2 and 3 (the copyright page would be pdf 
>page 2 and page 1 of the comprehensive TOC would be pdf page 3) and either 
>there's nothing obviously wrong or I'm blind.
>
>Could someone explain the cryptography from the log file, specifically 
>line 4 (Error: typecheck . . .) and what follows it?


The Distiller error is related to having Tagged PDF turned on in FrameMaker.

Turn off "Generate Tagged PDF" (Format > Document > PDF Setup, Tags tab, of 
from within your Save as PDF / Print dialog box), then try converting to 
PDF again.


Shlomo Perets

MicroType, http://www.microtype.com
FrameMaker/TCS training & consulting * FM-to-Acrobat TimeSavers/Assistants

RE: best use of graphics in FM (was: framers Digest, Vol 77, Issue 17)

[Rick Quatro]

Keith,

 

Your signature contains a definition of a racist. I wonder what you call
someone who makes blanket statements about unions, "big business", and
"republicans". I will be kind and call it stereotyping. It takes some effort
and intelligence to research issues and discuss them on their merits instead
of categorizing things according to labels, political talking points, and
sound bites. But of course, this requires that we think, which is more work
than many people are willing to do.

 

Respectfully (your Republican friend),

Rick

 

Rick Quatro

Carmen Publishing Inc.

*** 585-283-5045 *** NEW NUMBER

r...@frameexpert.com

http://www.frameexpert.com

 

  _  

Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:21:53 -0700
From: keith.sm...@att.net
Subject: Re: framers Digest, Vol 77, Issue 17
To: framers@lists.frameusers.com

Ken, it might be a good idea to inform you MANAGER of the Third Tort Law.

You need to protect yourself by getting written instructions on what to
include, and not include in the document. I saw this happen to an individual
I was working with. Fortunately, he had signed instructions from the Product
Manager to not include some safety instructions, as it would "upset the
customer". So when a customer got burned badly, the customer went after the
company, the company went after the writer, and the writer offered up the
program manager, who got fired, and sued. Yeah, CYA.

Tort's Third Law
It is a good idea to be versed in Tort Law, specifically Tort's Third Law.
The emphasis of the Tort Law is consumer protection.  Tort Law did for the
consumer what the unions did for the worker.  According to the Third Law, "A
product is defective when, at the time of sale or distribution, it contains
a manufacturing defect, is defective in design or is defective because of
INADEQUATE INSTRUCTIONS OR WARNINGS."

This is important to any of us in the technical writing domain, as it puts
the onus on us to provide adequate (and standard) instructions, which
includes warnings in the instructions (and on labels if that is a part of
our job). Most writers are completely oblivious to their responsibility
under the Tort Law and many companies are equally oblivious (or choose to
ignore).
As such, they are also ignorant to the fact that they can be sued in a
liability action, as a company and as individuals, for their failure to
provide adequate instructions and warnings.

To make matters even more complicated, it's a double-edged sword for a
writer.   Business loves to hate the Tort Law and tends to kill the
messenger.  If you, as the writer, are doing a proper job, you are the
messenger.

There are also very few places that teach you this stuff - even the
university tech writing courses overlook it.
If you muck around without knowing the standards and the law, you could get
yourself and your clients sued.

BTW, The Big B (big business) is currently throwing a lot of money at our
political types to try and weaken the Tort Law and relieve themselves of the
burden of liability (recalling those bloody toys that kill or maim kids is
such a blessed nuisance and just munches away at the bottom line).

In addition, any politicians who do not play ball will find themselves up
against some pretty big bucks intent on running them out on a rail. The
republicans in particular are fond of coming to the aid of Big B and can be
counted on to slam dunk your protection under the current law.

 

--
Keith L. Smyth
President
Smyth Consulting

-
Voting for someone because they are black is as racist
as voting against someone because they are black.

Beware an intrusive  government.

GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES


-
Technical Documentation Consultant

 

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best use of graphics in FM (was: framers Digest, Vol 77, Issue 17)

[Fred Ridder]

ent on running them out on a rail. The 
republicans in particular are fond of coming to the aid of Big B and can be 
counted on to slam dunk your protection under the current law.

 --
Keith L. Smyth
President
Smyth Consulting
-
Voting for someone because they are black is as racist
as voting against someone because they are black.

Beware an intrusive  government.

GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES

-Technical
 Documentation Consultant








Message: 6
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:59:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ken Poshedly 
To: FrameMaker Users List 
Subject: best use of graphics in FM
Message-ID:
<1332295140.67108.YahooMailRC at web180813.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional

Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if you 
reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?

My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment 
company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this job. 
He 
comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long time ago as a 
pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at best, but he 
considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had been the manager of 
his group. And our company never did fulfill its promises to him if he left his 
previous employer.

While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of FrameMaker 
graphics -- to embed or to reference?

We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we work in 
metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in which the 
Chinese 
engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the original documentation 
for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking as long as they want), then 
send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s (sorry, but I'm way past that 
age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed anywhere near the machinery but 
simply 
translate the stuff as best they can into "Chinglish". The machinery and their 
books are then put on ships and my coworker and I are then told we have two 
weeks to "Americanize" the Chinglish stuff. That means reformatting, 
reorganizing and rewriting the stuff for American heavy equiment owners.

Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told over 
and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as a 
profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody. Their 
books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page layouts, 
but 
it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually operate this 
extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar, punctuation, etc., 
are 
all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the idea. And the U.S. 
president of the company is only here in the U.S. for about 4 years and follows 
ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no salary increases; you simply stay 
at your starting level or quit. And, by the way, very few if any promotions. 
I'm 
there 3 years and looking to move on.)

Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable than 
my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document done in 
a 
fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically, he uses 
"PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics in the Word or pdf 
Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes them directly into 
his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any other 
details about any of the graphics in his documents.

He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the Chinglish 
books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents. The results 
are  horrendous because no real editing can be done (and errors in the original 
text abound). He simply creates small FrameMaker text blocks over incorrect 
words or sentences and types in the few words or sentences needed to fix 
something. So his FM documents are pretty much "pictures" of text with white 
boxes of corrected words that give his pages that "ransom-letter look".

This method allows him to "complete" a document much faster than doing it what 
I 
call "the right way".

I, on the other hand, have no problem with taking screen shots and saving them 
as legitimate graphics with an art control numbers (as listed in an Excel file 
created just for this purpose) that can be either referenced or embedded in 
other documents. It's true that my method takes a few steps more (thus more 
time), but the result is a findable graphics that can be reuse

best use of graphics in FM

[Ken Poshedly]

First, thanks to all who have written to me both on-list and off-list. It?s 
certainly good to have a support group of those likewise addicted to this 
software. (Maybe at an FM conference we can go around the room for 
introductions 
like at an AA meeting, ?I?m Ken and I?m a FrameMaker user.?)

Second, I?m still checking possible solutions to see if I cold convince my 
coworker to add graphics to FM docs correctly, but it seems like a lost cause 
because he simply doesn?t see the need to do anything other than copy and 
paste. 
For new images, he simply opens the folder with photos taken of a new machine, 
copies a photo and directly pastes it into an anchored frame in his FM document.

He?s asked me to come up with a better way, but I already know that to him, 
only 
speed counts, and he takes literally no longer than 20 seconds or so to do it 
his way:
* Have pdf document open and anchored frame in FM document already in 
place.
* Screen-shot the art (using PrintScreen32 which allows cropping before 
doing 
the capture).
* Paste it into anchored frame and size it as-needed.
My clumsy, more complicated, admittedly longer but correct method (using an 
existing pdf file with required images) is to: 

* Have pdf document open and anchored frame in FM document already in 
place.
* Extract single page with a required image from a multi-page pdf file.
* Open the pdf page (or photo) in art software and crop away unneeded 
material 
to leave only the image.
* Assign an art control number (from our existing acn excel file).
* Save the cropped pdf in the existing art control number file folder.
* Import the saved PDF image from the ACN folder into anchored frame in 
FrameMaker and re-size it as-needed
* Type the art control number inside a text box and place it inside the 
lower 
right corner of the anchored frame.
Third, thanks to Shlomo Perets for his suggestion for me to uncheck the box for 
?Generate Tagged PDF? as a fix to see if I could properly generate a pdf file 
on 
Wednesday afternoon. It worked. (Specifically, I unchecked the box for 
?Generate 
Acrobat Data?.)

-- Ken in Atlanta





From: Shlomo Perets 
To: Ken Poshedly 
Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Sent: Thu, March 22, 2012 6:49:03 AM
Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM

Ken,

You wrote:

>First, I very much appreciate the various on-list and off-list replies. 
>I'll try a few things myself this evening after getting home (61 miles 
>each way) regarding the graphics to see what I can do as a speed test.
>
>Second, I just did some minor edits to a series of FM files created by my 
>coworker and tried to create a pdf of the book. And yep, a big glitch 
>occurred right near the beginning during distilling. Here's the text from 
>the log file created by distiller:
>
>%%[ ProductName: Distiller ]%%
>%%[Page: 1]%%
>%%[Page: 2]%%
>%%[ Error: typecheck; OffendingCommand: pdfmark; ErrorInfo: StOBJ 
>--nostringval-- ]%%
>
>Stack:
>/StOBJ
>{/StOBJ}
>/Obj
>-dict-
>
>
>%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
>%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%
>
>*
>
>Notice that distiller gave up the ghost at or after page 2 of the file 
>during the book printing which should have resulted in a 254-page manual. 
>I've done a visual check of pages 2 and 3 (the copyright page would be pdf 
>page 2 and page 1 of the comprehensive TOC would be pdf page 3) and either 
>there's nothing obviously wrong or I'm blind.
>
>Could someone explain the cryptography from the log file, specifically 
>line 4 (Error: typecheck . . .) and what follows it?


The Distiller error is related to having Tagged PDF turned on in FrameMaker.

Turn off "Generate Tagged PDF" (Format > Document > PDF Setup, Tags tab, of 
from within your Save as PDF / Print dialog box), then try converting to 
PDF again.


Shlomo Perets

MicroType, http://www.microtype.com
FrameMaker/TCS training & consulting * FM-to-Acrobat TimeSavers/Assistants
-- next part --
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: 
<http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers/attachments/20120322/ea404f58/attachment.html>

RE: best use of graphics in FM (was: framers Digest, Vol 77, Issue 17)

[Fred Ridder]

ent on running them out on a rail. The 
republicans in particular are fond of coming to the aid of Big B and can be 
counted on to slam dunk your protection under the current law.

 --
Keith L. Smyth
President
Smyth Consulting
-
Voting for someone because they are black is as racist
as voting against someone because they are black.

Beware an intrusive  government.

GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES

-Technical
 Documentation Consultant








Message: 6
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:59:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ken Poshedly 
To: FrameMaker Users List 
Subject: best use of graphics in FM
Message-ID:
<1332295140.67108.yahoomai...@web180813.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional

Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if you 
reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?

My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment 
company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this job. 
He 
comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long time ago as a 
pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at best, but he 
considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had been the manager of 
his group. And our company never did fulfill its promises to him if he left his 
previous employer.

While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of FrameMaker 
graphics -- to embed or to reference?

We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we work in 
metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in which the 
Chinese 
engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the original documentation 
for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking as long as they want), then 
send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s (sorry, but I'm way past that 
age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed anywhere near the machinery but 
simply 
translate the stuff as best they can into "Chinglish". The machinery and their 
books are then put on ships and my coworker and I are then told we have two 
weeks to "Americanize" the Chinglish stuff. That means reformatting, 
reorganizing and rewriting the stuff for American heavy equiment owners.

Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told over 
and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as a 
profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody. Their 
books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page layouts, 
but 
it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually operate this 
extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar, punctuation, etc., 
are 
all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the idea. And the U.S. 
president of the company is only here in the U.S. for about 4 years and follows 
ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no salary increases; you simply stay 
at your starting level or quit. And, by the way, very few if any promotions. 
I'm 
there 3 years and looking to move on.)

Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable than 
my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document done in 
a 
fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically, he uses 
"PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics in the Word or pdf 
Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes them directly into 
his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any other 
details about any of the graphics in his documents.

He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the Chinglish 
books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents. The results 
are  horrendous because no real editing can be done (and errors in the original 
text abound). He simply creates small FrameMaker text blocks over incorrect 
words or sentences and types in the few words or sentences needed to fix 
something. So his FM documents are pretty much "pictures" of text with white 
boxes of corrected words that give his pages that "ransom-letter look".

This method allows him to "complete" a document much faster than doing it what 
I 
call "the right way".

I, on the other hand, have no problem with taking screen shots and saving them 
as legitimate graphics with an art control numbers (as listed in an Excel file 
created just for this purpose) that can be either referenced or embedded in 
other documents. It's true that my method takes a few steps more (thus more 
time), but the result is a findable graphics that can be reused over and 

Re: best use of graphics in FM

[Shlomo Perets]

Ken,

You wrote:

First, I very much appreciate the various on-list and off-list replies. 
I'll try a few things myself this evening after getting home (61 miles 
each way) regarding the graphics to see what I can do as a speed test.


Second, I just did some minor edits to a series of FM files created by my 
coworker and tried to create a pdf of the book. And yep, a big glitch 
occurred right near the beginning during distilling. Here's the text from 
the log file created by distiller:


%%[ ProductName: Distiller ]%%
%%[Page: 1]%%
%%[Page: 2]%%
%%[ Error: typecheck; OffendingCommand: pdfmark; ErrorInfo: StOBJ 
--nostringval-- ]%%


Stack:
/StOBJ
{/StOBJ}
/Obj
-dict-


%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%

*

Notice that distiller gave up the ghost at or after page 2 of the file 
during the book printing which should have resulted in a 254-page manual. 
I've done a visual check of pages 2 and 3 (the copyright page would be pdf 
page 2 and page 1 of the comprehensive TOC would be pdf page 3) and either 
there's nothing obviously wrong or I'm blind.


Could someone explain the cryptography from the log file, specifically 
line 4 (Error: typecheck . . .) and what follows it?



The Distiller error is related to having Tagged PDF turned on in FrameMaker.

Turn off "Generate Tagged PDF" (Format > Document > PDF Setup, Tags tab, of 
from within your Save as PDF / Print dialog box), then try converting to 
PDF again.



Shlomo Perets

MicroType, http://www.microtype.com
FrameMaker/TCS training & consulting * FM-to-Acrobat TimeSavers/Assistants



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Fw: best use of graphics in FM

[Ken Poshedly]

I didn't see my own posting come up even hours later, so please excuse me if it 
did, in fact, make it. In any case, please see below.

-- Ken



- Forwarded Message 
From: Ken Poshedly 
To: FrameMaker Users List 
Sent: Wed, March 21, 2012 4:57:39 PM
Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM


First, I very much appreciate the various on-list and off-list replies. I'll 
try 
a few things myself this evening after getting home (61 miles each way) 
regarding the graphics to see what I can do as a speed test.

Second, I just did some minor edits to a series of FM files created by my 
coworker and tried to create a pdf of the book. And yep, a big glitch occurred 
right near the beginning during distilling. Here's the text from the log file 
created by distiller:

%%[ ProductName: Distiller ]%%
%%[Page: 1]%%
%%[Page: 2]%%
%%[ Error: typecheck; OffendingCommand: pdfmark; ErrorInfo: StOBJ 
--nostringval-- ]%%

Stack:
/StOBJ
{/StOBJ}
/Obj
-dict-


%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF  file produced. ] %%

*

Notice that distiller gave up the ghost at or after page 2 of the file during 
the book printing which should have resulted in a 254-page manual. I've done a 
visual check of pages 2 and 3 (the copyright page would be pdf page 2 and page 
1 
of the comprehensive TOC would be pdf page 3) and either there's nothing 
obviously wrong or I'm blind.

Could someone explain the cryptography from the log file, specifically line 4 
(Error: typecheck . . .) and what follows it?

-- Kenpo in a hellish place







From: Ken Poshedly 
To: FrameMaker Users List  
Sent: Tue, March 20, 2012 9:59:00 PM
Subject: best use of graphics in FM


FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional

Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if you 
reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?

My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment 
company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this job. 
He 
comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long time ago as a 
pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at best, but he 
considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had been the manager of 
his group. And our company never did fulfill its promises to him if he left his 
previous employer.

While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of FrameMaker 
graphics  -- to embed or to reference?

We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we work in 
metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in which the 
Chinese 
engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the original documentation 
for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking as long as they want), then 
send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s (sorry, but I'm way past that 
age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed anywhere near the machinery but 
simply 
translate the stuff as best they can into "Chinglish". The machinery and their 
books are then put on ships and my coworker and I are then told we have two 
weeks to "Americanize" the Chinglish stuff. That means reformatting, 
reorganizing and rewriting the stuff for American heavy equiment owners.

Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told over 
and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as  a 
profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody. Their 
books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page layouts, 
but 
it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually operate this 
extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar, punctuation, etc., 
are 
all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the idea. And the U.S. 
president of the company is only here in the U.S. for about 4 years and follows 
ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no salary increases; you simply stay 
at your starting level or quit. And, by the way, very few if any promotions. 
I'm 
there 3 years and looking to move on.)

Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable than 
my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document done in 
a 
fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically, he uses 
"PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics  in the Word or pdf 
Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes them directly into 
his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any other 
details about any of the graphics in his documents.

He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the Chinglish 
books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents. The results 
are  horrendous b

RE: best use of graphics in FM

[Steve Cavanaugh]

You can also just open the .docx file directly with your zip program and
copy the graphics out of there without any file renaming at all. We use
7zip here, so I just right click the .docx, choose 7zip > Open Archive >
Zip and I get a window with the Word file's content. Double click the
Word folder, then double-click the Media folder and you have the images
in their full resolution (without having to create a separate file from
which to copy them).

Steve

-Original Message-
From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Stuart Rogers
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 12:52 PM
To: framers@lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM

On 21/03/2012 3:21 PM, David Spreadbury wrote:
> First, SnagIt used to have a plugin for FrameMaker. It is no longer 
> supported.
>
> Secondly, if you source are coming as Word files, you should be able 
> to save some time capturing the graphics by exporting the Word, or 
> PDF, file. Export the Word as HTML. This creates a separate subfolder 
> of all of the graphics. Same is true with PDF. Use Save As to html.


If you are using Word docx files, you can copy and rename them with the
extension .zip and open the zip files.  The graphics are already in a
separate folder (word\media\) within each.


--
Stuart Rogers
Technical Communicator
Phoenix Geophysics Limited
3781 Victoria Park Avenue, Unit 3
Toronto, ON, Canada  M1W 3K5
+1 (416) 491-7340 x 325

http://www.phoenix-geophysics.com
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Re: best use of graphics in FM

[Ken Poshedly]

First, I very much appreciate the various on-list and off-list replies. I'll 
try 
a few things myself this evening after getting home (61 miles each way) 
regarding the graphics to see what I can do as a speed test.

Second, I just did some minor edits to a series of FM files created by my 
coworker and tried to create a pdf of the book. And yep, a big glitch occurred 
right near the beginning during distilling. Here's the text from the log file 
created by distiller:

%%[ ProductName: Distiller ]%%
%%[Page: 1]%%
%%[Page: 2]%%
%%[ Error: typecheck; OffendingCommand: pdfmark; ErrorInfo: StOBJ 
--nostringval-- ]%%

Stack:
/StOBJ
{/StOBJ}
/Obj
-dict-


%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%

*

Notice that distiller gave up the ghost at or after page 2 of the file during 
the book printing which should have resulted in a 254-page manual. I've done a 
visual check of pages 2 and 3 (the copyright page would be pdf page 2 and page 
1 
of the comprehensive TOC would be pdf page 3) and either there's nothing 
obviously wrong or I'm blind.

Could someone explain the cryptography from the log file, specifically line 4 
(Error: typecheck . . .) and what follows it?

-- Kenpo in a hellish place







From: Ken Poshedly 
To: FrameMaker Users List 
Sent: Tue, March 20, 2012 9:59:00 PM
Subject: best use of graphics in FM


FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional

Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if you 
reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?

My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment 
company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this job. 
He 
comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long time ago as a 
pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at best, but he 
considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had been the manager of 
his group. And our company never did fulfill its promises to him if he left his 
previous employer.

While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of FrameMaker 
graphics  -- to embed or to reference?

We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we work in 
metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in which the 
Chinese 
engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the original documentation 
for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking as long as they want), then 
send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s (sorry, but I'm way past that 
age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed anywhere near the machinery but 
simply 
translate the stuff as best they can into "Chinglish". The machinery and their 
books are then put on ships and my coworker and I are then told we have two 
weeks to "Americanize" the Chinglish stuff. That means reformatting, 
reorganizing and rewriting the stuff for American heavy equiment owners.

Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told over 
and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as  a 
profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody. Their 
books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page layouts, 
but 
it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually operate this 
extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar, punctuation, etc., 
are 
all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the idea. And the U.S. 
president of the company is only here in the U.S. for about 4 years and follows 
ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no salary increases; you simply stay 
at your starting level or quit. And, by the way, very few if any promotions. 
I'm 
there 3 years and looking to move on.)

Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable than 
my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document done in 
a 
fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically, he uses 
"PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics  in the Word or pdf 
Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes them directly into 
his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any other 
details about any of the graphics in his documents.

He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the Chinglish 
books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents. The results 
are  horrendous because no real editing can be done (and errors in the original 
text abound). He simply creates small FrameMaker text blocks over incorrect 
words or sentences and types in the few words or sentences needed to fix 
something. So his FM documents are pretty much "pictures" of text with white

RE: best use of graphics in FM

[Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net)]

In Windows 7, I find that the standard Snipping Tool (part of the OS) works 
very well for me. In some ways, even better than SnagIt (which I have also 
tried).

You can save as PNG, JPG, etc.

Z

[cid:image001.png@01CD07A3.3A5CB3F0]

From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Art Campbell
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 5:29 AM
To: Ken Poshedly
Cc: FrameMaker Users List
Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM

My take on your questions:
1. SnagIt from TechSmith, which is integrated into the FM interface. 15-30 
seconds or so if you use automated naming.
2. No, you should take the time to do it right the first time.
3. Quality of the document has a direct relationship both to how customers view 
the company and its products, and likely reduces calls for support. And... the 
quick and dirty method only works for the current writer. It'd be really hard 
for any other writer to maintain or change.


Art Campbell
  art.campb...@gmail.com<mailto:art.campb...@gmail.com>
  "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and a 
redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson
  No disclaimers apply.
   DoD 358

I support www.TheGrotonLine.com<http://www.TheGrotonLine.com>, hyperlocal news 
for Groton MA.

On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 9:59 PM, Ken Poshedly 
mailto:poshe...@bellsouth.net>> wrote:
FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional

Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if you 
reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?

My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment 
company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this job. 
He comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long time ago as 
a pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at best, but he 
considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had been the manager of 
his group. And our company never did fulfill its promises to him if he left his 
previous employer.

While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of FrameMaker 
graphics -- to embed or to reference?

We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we work in 
metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in which the 
Chinese engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the original 
documentation for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking as long as 
they want), then send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s (sorry, but I'm 
way past that age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed anywhere near the 
machinery but simply translate the stuff as best they can into "Chinglish". The 
machinery and their books are then put on ships and my coworker and I are then 
told we have two weeks to "Americanize" the Chinglish stuff. That means 
reformatting, reorganizing and rewriting the stuff for American heavy equiment 
owners.

Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told over 
and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as a 
profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody. Their 
books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page layouts, 
but it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually operate this 
extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar, punctuation, etc., 
are all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the idea. And the U.S. 
president of the company is only here in the U.S. for about 4 years and follows 
ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no salary increases; you simply stay 
at your starting level or quit. And, by the way, very few if any promotions. 
I'm there 3 years and looking to move on.)

Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable than 
my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document done in 
a fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically, he uses 
"PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics in the Word or pdf 
Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes them directly into 
his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any other 
details about any of the graphics in his documents.

He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the Chinglish 
books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents. The results 
are  horrendous because no real editing can be done (and errors in the original 
text abound). He simply creates small FrameMaker text blocks over incorrect 
words or sentences and types in the few words or sentences nee

best use of graphics in FM

[Syed Zaeem Hosain (syed.hos...@aeris.net)]

In Windows 7, I find that the standard Snipping Tool (part of the OS) works 
very well for me. In some ways, even better than SnagIt (which I have also 
tried).

You can save as PNG, JPG, etc.

Z

[cid:image001.png at 01CD07A3.3A5CB3F0]

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com 
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Art Campbell
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 5:29 AM
To: Ken Poshedly
Cc: FrameMaker Users List
Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM

My take on your questions:
1. SnagIt from TechSmith, which is integrated into the FM interface. 15-30 
seconds or so if you use automated naming.
2. No, you should take the time to do it right the first time.
3. Quality of the document has a direct relationship both to how customers view 
the company and its products, and likely reduces calls for support. And... the 
quick and dirty method only works for the current writer. It'd be really hard 
for any other writer to maintain or change.


Art Campbell
  art.campbell at gmail.com<mailto:art.campbell at gmail.com>
  "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and a 
redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson
  No disclaimers apply.
   DoD 358

I support www.TheGrotonLine.com<http://www.TheGrotonLine.com>, hyperlocal news 
for Groton MA.

On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 9:59 PM, Ken Poshedly mailto:poshedly at bellsouth.net>> wrote:
FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional

Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if you 
reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?

My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment 
company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this job. 
He comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long time ago as 
a pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at best, but he 
considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had been the manager of 
his group. And our company never did fulfill its promises to him if he left his 
previous employer.

While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of FrameMaker 
graphics -- to embed or to reference?

We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we work in 
metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in which the 
Chinese engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the original 
documentation for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking as long as 
they want), then send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s (sorry, but I'm 
way past that age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed anywhere near the 
machinery but simply translate the stuff as best they can into "Chinglish". The 
machinery and their books are then put on ships and my coworker and I are then 
told we have two weeks to "Americanize" the Chinglish stuff. That means 
reformatting, reorganizing and rewriting the stuff for American heavy equiment 
owners.

Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told over 
and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as a 
profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody. Their 
books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page layouts, 
but it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually operate this 
extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar, punctuation, etc., 
are all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the idea. And the U.S. 
president of the company is only here in the U.S. for about 4 years and follows 
ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no salary increases; you simply stay 
at your starting level or quit. And, by the way, very few if any promotions. 
I'm there 3 years and looking to move on.)

Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable than 
my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document done in 
a fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically, he uses 
"PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics in the Word or pdf 
Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes them directly into 
his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any other 
details about any of the graphics in his documents.

He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the Chinglish 
books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents. The results 
are  horrendous because no real editing can be done (and errors in the original 
text abound). He simply creates small FrameMaker text blocks over incorrect 
words or sentences and types in the few words or 

best use of graphics in FM

[Kenneth C. Benson]

On 3/21/2012 4:13 PM, Combs, Richard wrote:
> I suspect that Stuart's suggestion (assuming the Word docs are .docx) 
> is a better idea because it should preserve the original size (and 
> format) of the graphics, even if they've been resized in Word. I don't 
> think HTML export does that.  If

Another tool that does this nicely is OpenOffice. Open your .doc file in 
OpenOffice, save in OO's native format, change the extension to .zip, 
and unzip the graphics inside.

Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type
www.pegtype.com

Fw: best use of graphics in FM

[Ken Poshedly]

I didn't see my own posting come up even hours later, so please excuse me if it 
did, in fact, make it. In any case, please see below.

-- Ken



- Forwarded Message 
From: Ken Poshedly 
To: FrameMaker Users List 
Sent: Wed, March 21, 2012 4:57:39 PM
Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM


First, I very much appreciate the various on-list and off-list replies. I'll 
try 
a few things myself this evening after getting home (61 miles each way) 
regarding the graphics to see what I can do as a speed test.

Second, I just did some minor edits to a series of FM files created by my 
coworker and tried to create a pdf of the book. And yep, a big glitch occurred 
right near the beginning during distilling. Here's the text from the log file 
created by distiller:

%%[ ProductName: Distiller ]%%
%%[Page: 1]%%
%%[Page: 2]%%
%%[ Error: typecheck; OffendingCommand: pdfmark; ErrorInfo: StOBJ 
--nostringval-- ]%%

Stack:
/StOBJ
{/StOBJ}
/Obj
-dict-


%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF  file produced. ] %%

*

Notice that distiller gave up the ghost at or after page 2 of the file during 
the book printing which should have resulted in a 254-page manual. I've done a 
visual check of pages 2 and 3 (the copyright page would be pdf page 2 and page 
1 
of the comprehensive TOC would be pdf page 3) and either there's nothing 
obviously wrong or I'm blind.

Could someone explain the cryptography from the log file, specifically line 4 
(Error: typecheck . . .) and what follows it?

-- Kenpo in a hellish place







From: Ken Poshedly 
To: FrameMaker Users List  
Sent: Tue, March 20, 2012 9:59:00 PM
Subject: best use of graphics in FM


FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional

Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if you 
reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?

My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment 
company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this job. 
He 
comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long time ago as a 
pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at best, but he 
considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had been the manager of 
his group. And our company never did fulfill its promises to him if he left his 
previous employer.

While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of FrameMaker 
graphics  -- to embed or to reference?

We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we work in 
metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in which the 
Chinese 
engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the original documentation 
for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking as long as they want), then 
send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s (sorry, but I'm way past that 
age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed anywhere near the machinery but 
simply 
translate the stuff as best they can into "Chinglish". The machinery and their 
books are then put on ships and my coworker and I are then told we have two 
weeks to "Americanize" the Chinglish stuff. That means reformatting, 
reorganizing and rewriting the stuff for American heavy equiment owners.

Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told over 
and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as  a 
profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody. Their 
books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page layouts, 
but 
it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually operate this 
extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar, punctuation, etc., 
are 
all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the idea. And the U.S. 
president of the company is only here in the U.S. for about 4 years and follows 
ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no salary increases; you simply stay 
at your starting level or quit. And, by the way, very few if any promotions. 
I'm 
there 3 years and looking to move on.)

Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable than 
my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document done in 
a 
fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically, he uses 
"PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics  in the Word or pdf 
Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes them directly into 
his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any other 
details about any of the graphics in his documents.

He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the Chinglish 
books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents. The results 
are  horrendous b

Re: best use of graphics in FM

[Kenneth C. Benson]

On 3/21/2012 4:13 PM, Combs, Richard wrote:
I suspect that Stuart's suggestion (assuming the Word docs are .docx) 
is a better idea because it should preserve the original size (and 
format) of the graphics, even if they've been resized in Word. I don't 
think HTML export does that.  If


Another tool that does this nicely is OpenOffice. Open your .doc file in 
OpenOffice, save in OO's native format, change the extension to .zip, 
and unzip the graphics inside.


Kenneth Benson
Pegasus Type
www.pegtype.com

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best use of graphics in FM

[Stuart Rogers]

On 21/03/2012 3:21 PM, David Spreadbury wrote:
> First, SnagIt used to have a plugin for FrameMaker. It is no longer
> supported.
>
> Secondly, if you source are coming as Word files, you should be able to
> save some time capturing the graphics by exporting the Word, or PDF,
> file. Export the Word as HTML. This creates a separate subfolder of all
> of the graphics. Same is true with PDF. Use Save As to html.


If you are using Word docx files, you can copy and rename them with the 
extension .zip and open the zip files.  The graphics are already in a 
separate folder (word\media\) within each.


-- 
Stuart Rogers
Technical Communicator
Phoenix Geophysics Limited
3781 Victoria Park Avenue, Unit 3
Toronto, ON, Canada  M1W 3K5
+1 (416) 491-7340 x 325

http://www.phoenix-geophysics.com

best use of graphics in FM

[Mike Wickham]

On 3/21/2012 11:55 AM, Gillian wrote:
> *How is SnagIT integrated into the Frame interface?*
> *-Gillian*

It creates a SnagIt menu on the main menu at the top of the FrameMaker 
window for easy access to the SnagIt program.

Mike Wickham

-- next part --
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: 

best use of graphics in FM

[Steve Cavanaugh]

You can also just open the .docx file directly with your zip program and
copy the graphics out of there without any file renaming at all. We use
7zip here, so I just right click the .docx, choose 7zip > Open Archive >
Zip and I get a window with the Word file's content. Double click the
Word folder, then double-click the Media folder and you have the images
in their full resolution (without having to create a separate file from
which to copy them).

Steve

-Original Message-
From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Stuart Rogers
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 12:52 PM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM

On 21/03/2012 3:21 PM, David Spreadbury wrote:
> First, SnagIt used to have a plugin for FrameMaker. It is no longer 
> supported.
>
> Secondly, if you source are coming as Word files, you should be able 
> to save some time capturing the graphics by exporting the Word, or 
> PDF, file. Export the Word as HTML. This creates a separate subfolder 
> of all of the graphics. Same is true with PDF. Use Save As to html.


If you are using Word docx files, you can copy and rename them with the
extension .zip and open the zip files.  The graphics are already in a
separate folder (word\media\) within each.


--
Stuart Rogers
Technical Communicator
Phoenix Geophysics Limited
3781 Victoria Park Avenue, Unit 3
Toronto, ON, Canada  M1W 3K5
+1 (416) 491-7340 x 325

http://www.phoenix-geophysics.com
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best use of graphics in FM

[Ken Poshedly]

First, I very much appreciate the various on-list and off-list replies. I'll 
try 
a few things myself this evening after getting home (61 miles each way) 
regarding the graphics to see what I can do as a speed test.

Second, I just did some minor edits to a series of FM files created by my 
coworker and tried to create a pdf of the book. And yep, a big glitch occurred 
right near the beginning during distilling. Here's the text from the log file 
created by distiller:

%%[ ProductName: Distiller ]%%
%%[Page: 1]%%
%%[Page: 2]%%
%%[ Error: typecheck; OffendingCommand: pdfmark; ErrorInfo: StOBJ 
--nostringval-- ]%%

Stack:
/StOBJ
{/StOBJ}
/Obj
-dict-


%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%

*

Notice that distiller gave up the ghost at or after page 2 of the file during 
the book printing which should have resulted in a 254-page manual. I've done a 
visual check of pages 2 and 3 (the copyright page would be pdf page 2 and page 
1 
of the comprehensive TOC would be pdf page 3) and either there's nothing 
obviously wrong or I'm blind.

Could someone explain the cryptography from the log file, specifically line 4 
(Error: typecheck . . .) and what follows it?

-- Kenpo in a hellish place







From: Ken Poshedly 
To: FrameMaker Users List 
Sent: Tue, March 20, 2012 9:59:00 PM
Subject: best use of graphics in FM


FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional

Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if you 
reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?

My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment 
company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this job. 
He 
comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long time ago as a 
pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at best, but he 
considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had been the manager of 
his group. And our company never did fulfill its promises to him if he left his 
previous employer.

While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of FrameMaker 
graphics  -- to embed or to reference?

We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we work in 
metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in which the 
Chinese 
engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the original documentation 
for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking as long as they want), then 
send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s (sorry, but I'm way past that 
age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed anywhere near the machinery but 
simply 
translate the stuff as best they can into "Chinglish". The machinery and their 
books are then put on ships and my coworker and I are then told we have two 
weeks to "Americanize" the Chinglish stuff. That means reformatting, 
reorganizing and rewriting the stuff for American heavy equiment owners.

Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told over 
and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as  a 
profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody. Their 
books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page layouts, 
but 
it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually operate this 
extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar, punctuation, etc., 
are 
all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the idea. And the U.S. 
president of the company is only here in the U.S. for about 4 years and follows 
ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no salary increases; you simply stay 
at your starting level or quit. And, by the way, very few if any promotions. 
I'm 
there 3 years and looking to move on.)

Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable than 
my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document done in 
a 
fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically, he uses 
"PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics  in the Word or pdf 
Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes them directly into 
his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any other 
details about any of the graphics in his documents.

He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the Chinglish 
books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents. The results 
are  horrendous because no real editing can be done (and errors in the original 
text abound). He simply creates small FrameMaker text blocks over incorrect 
words or sentences and types in the few words or sentences needed to fix 
something. So his FM documents are pretty much "pictures" of text with white

RE: best use of graphics in FM

[David Spreadbury]

I was referring to the base filename when renaming. PDF->HTML produces jpeg 
files. Word gives you a choice, one of which if PNG.
To change the graphic format, jpeg or png, you would need a conversion tool. 
Snagit will do a good job, but if you don't have that, there are plenty of free 
graphic conversion tools out there.

--- On Wed, 3/21/12, Combs, Richard  wrote:

From: Combs, Richard 
Subject: RE: best use of graphics in FM
To: "David Spreadbury" 
Cc: "FrameMaker Users List" 
Date: Wednesday, March 21, 2012, 3:13 PM

David Spreadbury wrote:
 
> Secondly, if you source are coming as Word files, you should be able to
> save some time capturing the graphics by exporting the Word, or PDF,
> file. Export the Word as HTML. This creates a separate subfolder of all
> of the graphics. 

I suspect that Stuart's suggestion (assuming the Word docs are .docx) is a 
better idea because it should preserve the original size (and format) of the 
graphics, even if they've been resized in Word. I don't think HTML export does 
that. 

 If
> you don't like to use jpeg (pdf saveas) or the graphic format chosen if
> using Word, get a file naming tool, several free ones are available,
> that will do a batch rename and rename them or display the graphics
> folder in Explorer, turn on display as thumbnails, and manually rename
> them.

Changing the name of a file from *.jpg to *.png doesn't change the file format. 
In fact, it simply ensures that some applications will be unable to open the 
file because it's the wrong format for the filter the file name leads them to 
use. There are graphics programs that will let you batch-convert the files to a 
different format. But that's far different from batch-renaming them. 

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
--
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
--






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best use of graphics in FM

[David Spreadbury]

I was referring to the base filename when renaming. PDF->HTML produces jpeg 
files. Word gives you a choice, one of which if PNG.
To change the graphic format, jpeg or png, you would need a conversion tool. 
Snagit will do a good job, but if you don't have that, there are plenty of free 
graphic conversion tools out there.

--- On Wed, 3/21/12, Combs, Richard  wrote:

From: Combs, Richard 
Subject: RE: best use of graphics in FM
To: "David Spreadbury" 
Cc: "FrameMaker Users List" 
Date: Wednesday, March 21, 2012, 3:13 PM

David Spreadbury wrote:

> Secondly, if you source are coming as Word files, you should be able to
> save some time capturing the graphics by exporting the Word, or PDF,
> file. Export the Word as HTML. This creates a separate subfolder of all
> of the graphics. 

I suspect that Stuart's suggestion (assuming the Word docs are .docx) is a 
better idea because it should preserve the original size (and format) of the 
graphics, even if they've been resized in Word. I don't think HTML export does 
that. 

 If
> you don't like to use jpeg (pdf saveas) or the graphic format chosen if
> using Word, get a file naming tool, several free ones are available,
> that will do a batch rename and rename them or display the graphics
> folder in Explorer, turn on display as thumbnails, and manually rename
> them.

Changing the name of a file from *.jpg to *.png doesn't change the file format. 
In fact, it simply ensures that some applications will be unable to open the 
file because it's the wrong format for the filter the file name leads them to 
use. There are graphics programs that will let you batch-convert the files to a 
different format. But that's far different from batch-renaming them. 

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
--
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
--






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RE: best use of graphics in FM

[Combs, Richard]

David Spreadbury wrote:
 
> Secondly, if you source are coming as Word files, you should be able to
> save some time capturing the graphics by exporting the Word, or PDF,
> file. Export the Word as HTML. This creates a separate subfolder of all
> of the graphics. 

I suspect that Stuart's suggestion (assuming the Word docs are .docx) is a 
better idea because it should preserve the original size (and format) of the 
graphics, even if they've been resized in Word. I don't think HTML export does 
that. 

 If
> you don't like to use jpeg (pdf saveas) or the graphic format chosen if
> using Word, get a file naming tool, several free ones are available,
> that will do a batch rename and rename them or display the graphics
> folder in Explorer, turn on display as thumbnails, and manually rename
> them.

Changing the name of a file from *.jpg to *.png doesn't change the file format. 
In fact, it simply ensures that some applications will be unable to open the 
file because it's the wrong format for the filter the file name leads them to 
use. There are graphics programs that will let you batch-convert the files to a 
different format. But that's far different from batch-renaming them. 

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
--
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
--






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best use of graphics in FM

[Combs, Richard]

David Spreadbury wrote:

> Secondly, if you source are coming as Word files, you should be able to
> save some time capturing the graphics by exporting the Word, or PDF,
> file. Export the Word as HTML. This creates a separate subfolder of all
> of the graphics. 

I suspect that Stuart's suggestion (assuming the Word docs are .docx) is a 
better idea because it should preserve the original size (and format) of the 
graphics, even if they've been resized in Word. I don't think HTML export does 
that. 

 If
> you don't like to use jpeg (pdf saveas) or the graphic format chosen if
> using Word, get a file naming tool, several free ones are available,
> that will do a batch rename and rename them or display the graphics
> folder in Explorer, turn on display as thumbnails, and manually rename
> them.

Changing the name of a file from *.jpg to *.png doesn't change the file format. 
In fact, it simply ensures that some applications will be unable to open the 
file because it's the wrong format for the filter the file name leads them to 
use. There are graphics programs that will let you batch-convert the files to a 
different format. But that's far different from batch-renaming them. 

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
--
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
--

best use of graphics in FM

[Beverly Robinson]

Responding from Digest land


1.   I, too, use SnagIt. I've never timed myself but I'm sure that by using 
keyboard shortcuts as much as possible I can select, save, and import by 
reference in less than a minute.

2.   You are not being too controlling.

3.   The best argument I can think of to bolster your side of the story is 
to insist that your co-worker do his own technical review recovery.  (You said 
that you've "had to completely redo correctly with edits throughout following 
its technical review".) If he has to suffer the consequences of his 
unprofessional methods, maybe he'll see the wisdom of your professional way of 
working. At the least, you will be taking care of your own mental health.

Best of luck to you,
Beverly

NOTICE - This message and any attachment(s) are for authorized use by the 
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information.  Unless you are an intended recipient, you may not use, copy, 
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Re: best use of graphics in FM

[Stuart Rogers]

On 21/03/2012 3:21 PM, David Spreadbury wrote:

First, SnagIt used to have a plugin for FrameMaker. It is no longer
supported.

Secondly, if you source are coming as Word files, you should be able to
save some time capturing the graphics by exporting the Word, or PDF,
file. Export the Word as HTML. This creates a separate subfolder of all
of the graphics. Same is true with PDF. Use Save As to html.



If you are using Word docx files, you can copy and rename them with the 
extension .zip and open the zip files.  The graphics are already in a 
separate folder (word\media\) within each.



--
Stuart Rogers
Technical Communicator
Phoenix Geophysics Limited
3781 Victoria Park Avenue, Unit 3
Toronto, ON, Canada  M1W 3K5
+1 (416) 491-7340 x 325

http://www.phoenix-geophysics.com
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Re: best use of graphics in FM

[Mike Wickham]

On 3/21/2012 11:55 AM, Gillian wrote:

*How is SnagIT integrated into the Frame interface?*
*-Gillian*


It creates a SnagIt menu on the main menu at the top of the FrameMaker 
window for easy access to the SnagIt program.


Mike Wickham

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Re: best use of graphics in FM

[David Spreadbury]

First, SnagIt used to have a plugin for FrameMaker. It is no longer supported.

Secondly, if you source are coming as Word files, you should be able to save 
some time capturing the graphics by exporting the Word, or PDF, file. Export 
the Word as HTML. This creates a separate subfolder of all of the graphics. 
Same is true with PDF. Use Save As to html. It also creates a folder of jpeg 
files. The images are named according to the order that they appear in the 
source doc. As long as you have a copy of the source doc, you can go through 
and rename the exported graphics. If you don't like to use jpeg (pdf saveas) or 
the graphic format chosen if using Word, get a file naming tool, several free 
ones are available, that will do a batch rename and rename them or display the 
graphics folder in Explorer, turn on display as thumbnails, and manually rename 
them.

Your coworker who wants to embed them is not right in the head. Import by 
reference is the only way to go.

--- On Wed, 3/21/12, Gillian  wrote:

From: Gillian 
Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM
To: "Art Campbell" , "Ken Poshedly" 

Cc: "FrameMaker Users List" 
Date: Wednesday, March 21, 2012, 11:55 AM



 
 



How is SnagIT integrated into the Frame 
interface?
-Gillian

  - Original Message - 
  From: 
  Art 
  Campbell 
  To: Ken Poshedly 
  Cc: FrameMaker Users List 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 5:29 
  AM
  Subject: Re: best use of graphics in 
  FM
  
My take on your questions:
  1. SnagIt from TechSmith, which is integrated into the FM interface. 
  15-30 seconds or so if you use automated naming.
  2. No, you should take the time to do it right the first time.
  3. Quality of the document has a direct relationship both to how 
  customers view the company and its products, and likely reduces calls for 
  support. And... the quick and dirty method only works for the current writer. 
  It'd be really hard for any other writer to maintain or change.

  

  
Art Campbell            
                        
                        
                    art.campb...@gmail.com
  "... In my opinion, there's 
  nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and a redheaded girl." -- Richard 
  Thompson
                  
                        
                No disclaimers 
  apply.
                  
                        
                      
     DoD 358

I support www.TheGrotonLine.com, hyperlocal news for Groton 
  MA.



  On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 9:59 PM, Ken Poshedly  
  wrote:

  


FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional

Except for 
bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if you reference 
graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?

My coworker 
is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment company but 
was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this job. He comes 
for a primarily graphics background, having started a long time ago as a 
pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at best, but he 
considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had been the manager 
of his group. And our company never did fulfill its promises to him if he 
left his previous employer.

While we do get along pretty well, we do 
differ on this aspect of FrameMaker graphics -- to embed or to 
reference?

We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs 
manager -- and we work in metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational 
Chinese company in which the Chinese engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere 
over there write the original documentation for heavy machinery in the 
Chinese language (taking as long as they want), then send the stuff to a 
group of kids in their 20s (sorry, but I'm way past that age) in Shanghai 
who are not even allowed anywhere near the machinery but simply translate 
the stuff as best they can into "Chinglish". The machinery and their books 
are then put on ships and my coworker and I are then told we have two weeks 
to "Americanize" the Chinglish stuff. That means reformatting, reorganizing 
and rewriting the stuff for American heavy equiment owners.

Thus, we 
have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told over and 
over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as a 
profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody. 
Their books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page 
layouts, but it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually 
operate this extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar, 
punctuation, etc., are all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the 
idea. And the U.S. president of the company is only here in the U.S. for 
about 4 years and follows ONLY the Chinese method

best use of graphics in FM

[David Spreadbury]

First, SnagIt used to have a plugin for FrameMaker. It is no longer supported.

Secondly, if you source are coming as Word files, you should be able to save 
some time capturing the graphics by exporting the Word, or PDF, file. Export 
the Word as HTML. This creates a separate subfolder of all of the graphics. 
Same is true with PDF. Use Save As to html. It also creates a folder of jpeg 
files. The images are named according to the order that they appear in the 
source doc. As long as you have a copy of the source doc, you can go through 
and rename the exported graphics. If you don't like to use jpeg (pdf saveas) or 
the graphic format chosen if using Word, get a file naming tool, several free 
ones are available, that will do a batch rename and rename them or display the 
graphics folder in Explorer, turn on display as thumbnails, and manually rename 
them.

Your coworker who wants to embed them is not right in the head. Import by 
reference is the only way to go.

--- On Wed, 3/21/12, Gillian  wrote:

From: Gillian 
Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM
To: "Art Campbell" , "Ken Poshedly" 
Cc: "FrameMaker Users List" 
Date: Wednesday, March 21, 2012, 11:55 AM








How is SnagIT integrated into the Frame 
interface?
-Gillian

  - Original Message - 
  From: 
  Art 
  Campbell 
  To: Ken Poshedly 
  Cc: FrameMaker Users List 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 5:29 
  AM
  Subject: Re: best use of graphics in 
  FM

My take on your questions:
  1. SnagIt from TechSmith, which is integrated into the FM interface. 
  15-30 seconds or so if you use automated naming.
  2. No, you should take the time to do it right the first time.
  3. Quality of the document has a direct relationship both to how 
  customers view the company and its products, and likely reduces calls for 
  support. And... the quick and dirty method only works for the current writer. 
  It'd be really hard for any other writer to maintain or change.




Art Campbell? ? ? ? ? ? 
  ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 
  ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 
  ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? art.campbell at gmail.com
? "... In my opinion, there's 
  nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and a redheaded girl." -- Richard 
  Thompson
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 
  ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 
  ? ? ? ? ? ? ? No disclaimers 
  apply.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 
  ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 
  ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 
  ?? DoD 358

I support www.TheGrotonLine.com, hyperlocal news for Groton 
  MA.



  On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 9:59 PM, Ken Poshedly  
  wrote:




FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional

Except for 
bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if you reference 
graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?

My coworker 
is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment company but 
was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this job. He comes 
for a primarily graphics background, having started a long time ago as a 
pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at best, but he 
considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had been the manager 
of his group. And our company never did fulfill its promises to him if he 
left his previous employer.

While we do get along pretty well, we do 
differ on this aspect of FrameMaker graphics -- to embed or to 
reference?

We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs 
manager -- and we work in metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational 
Chinese company in which the Chinese engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere 
over there write the original documentation for heavy machinery in the 
Chinese language (taking as long as they want), then send the stuff to a 
group of kids in their 20s (sorry, but I'm way past that age) in Shanghai 
who are not even allowed anywhere near the machinery but simply translate 
the stuff as best they can into "Chinglish". The machinery and their books 
are then put on ships and my coworker and I are then told we have two weeks 
to "Americanize" the Chinglish stuff. That means reformatting, reorganizing 
and rewriting the stuff for American heavy equiment owners.

Thus, we 
have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told over and 
over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as a 
profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody. 
Their books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page 
layouts, but it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually 
operate this extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar, 
punctuation, etc., are all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the 
idea. And the U.S. president of the company is only here in the U.S. for 
about 4 years and follows ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, 

Re: best use of graphics in FM

[Gillian]

How is SnagIT integrated into the Frame interface?
-Gillian
  - Original Message - 
  From: Art Campbell 
  To: Ken Poshedly 
  Cc: FrameMaker Users List 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 5:29 AM
  Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM


  My take on your questions:
  1. SnagIt from TechSmith, which is integrated into the FM interface. 15-30 
seconds or so if you use automated naming.
  2. No, you should take the time to do it right the first time.
  3. Quality of the document has a direct relationship both to how customers 
view the company and its products, and likely reduces calls for support. And... 
the quick and dirty method only works for the current writer. It'd be really 
hard for any other writer to maintain or change.




  Art Campbell  
art.campb...@gmail.com
"... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and a 
redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson
No disclaimers apply.
 DoD 358

  I support www.TheGrotonLine.com, hyperlocal news for Groton MA.



  On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 9:59 PM, Ken Poshedly  wrote:

FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional

Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if 
you reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?

My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment 
company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this job. 
He comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long time ago as 
a pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at best, but he 
considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had been the manager of 
his group. And our company never did fulfill its promises to him if he left his 
previous employer.

While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of 
FrameMaker graphics -- to embed or to reference?

We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we 
work in metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in which 
the Chinese engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the original 
documentation for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking as long as 
they want), then send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s (sorry, but I'm 
way past that age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed anywhere near the 
machinery but simply translate the stuff as best they can into "Chinglish". The 
machinery and their books are then put on ships and my coworker and I are then 
told we have two weeks to "Americanize" the Chinglish stuff. That means 
reformatting, reorganizing and rewriting the stuff for American heavy equiment 
owners.

Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told 
over and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as a 
profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody. Their 
books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page layouts, 
but it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually operate this 
extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar, punctuation, etc., 
are all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the idea. And the U.S. 
president of the company is only here in the U.S. for about 4 years and follows 
ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no salary increases; you simply stay 
at your starting level or quit. And, by the way, very few if any promotions. 
I'm there 3 years and looking to move on.)

Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable 
than my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document 
done in a fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically, he 
uses "PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics in the Word or 
pdf Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes them directly 
into his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any 
other details about any of the graphics in his documents.

He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the 
Chinglish books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents. The 
results are  horrendous because no real editing can be done (and errors in the 
original text abound). He simply creates small FrameMaker text blocks over 
incorrect words or sentences and types in the few words or sentences needed to 
fix something. So his FM documents are pretty much "pictures" of text with 
white boxes of corrected words that give his pages that "ransom-letter look".

This method allows him to "complete" a document much faster than doing it 
what I 

Re: best use of graphics in FM

[Beverly Robinson]

Responding from Digest land


1.   I, too, use SnagIt. I've never timed myself but I'm sure that by using 
keyboard shortcuts as much as possible I can select, save, and import by 
reference in less than a minute.

2.   You are not being too controlling.

3.   The best argument I can think of to bolster your side of the story is 
to insist that your co-worker do his own technical review recovery.  (You said 
that you've "had to completely redo correctly with edits throughout following 
its technical review".) If he has to suffer the consequences of his 
unprofessional methods, maybe he'll see the wisdom of your professional way of 
working. At the least, you will be taking care of your own mental health.

Best of luck to you,
Beverly

NOTICE - This message and any attachment(s) are for authorized use by the 
intended recipient(s) only and may contain privileged or confidential 
information.  Unless you are an intended recipient, you may not use, copy, 
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attachment(s).  If you are not an intended recipient of this message, please 
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best use of graphics in FM

[Gillian]

How is SnagIT integrated into the Frame interface?
-Gillian
  - Original Message - 
  From: Art Campbell 
  To: Ken Poshedly 
  Cc: FrameMaker Users List 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 5:29 AM
  Subject: Re: best use of graphics in FM


  My take on your questions:
  1. SnagIt from TechSmith, which is integrated into the FM interface. 15-30 
seconds or so if you use automated naming.
  2. No, you should take the time to do it right the first time.
  3. Quality of the document has a direct relationship both to how customers 
view the company and its products, and likely reduces calls for support. And... 
the quick and dirty method only works for the current writer. It'd be really 
hard for any other writer to maintain or change.




  Art Campbell  
art.campbell at gmail.com
"... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and a 
redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson
No disclaimers apply.
 DoD 358

  I support www.TheGrotonLine.com, hyperlocal news for Groton MA.



  On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 9:59 PM, Ken Poshedly  
wrote:

FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional

Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if 
you reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?

My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment 
company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this job. 
He comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long time ago as 
a pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at best, but he 
considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had been the manager of 
his group. And our company never did fulfill its promises to him if he left his 
previous employer.

While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of 
FrameMaker graphics -- to embed or to reference?

We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we 
work in metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in which 
the Chinese engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the original 
documentation for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking as long as 
they want), then send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s (sorry, but I'm 
way past that age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed anywhere near the 
machinery but simply translate the stuff as best they can into "Chinglish". The 
machinery and their books are then put on ships and my coworker and I are then 
told we have two weeks to "Americanize" the Chinglish stuff. That means 
reformatting, reorganizing and rewriting the stuff for American heavy equiment 
owners.

Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told 
over and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as a 
profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody. Their 
books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page layouts, 
but it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually operate this 
extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar, punctuation, etc., 
are all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the idea. And the U.S. 
president of the company is only here in the U.S. for about 4 years and follows 
ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no salary increases; you simply stay 
at your starting level or quit. And, by the way, very few if any promotions. 
I'm there 3 years and looking to move on.)

Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable 
than my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document 
done in a fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically, he 
uses "PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics in the Word or 
pdf Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes them directly 
into his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any 
other details about any of the graphics in his documents.

He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the 
Chinglish books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents. The 
results are  horrendous because no real editing can be done (and errors in the 
original text abound). He simply creates small FrameMaker text blocks over 
incorrect words or sentences and types in the few words or sentences needed to 
fix something. So his FM documents are pretty much "pictures" of text with 
white boxes of corrected words that give his pages that "ransom-letter look".

This method allows him to "complete" a document much faster than doing it 
what I 

best use of graphics in FM

[Mike Wickham]

> So the questions are:
> * Does anybody here have a fast way of saving screenshots as legit 
> graphics for later reuse, and if so, what is your method and how many 
> seconds would you say it takes?
SnagIt is the most recommended screen capture program. It is easy to use 
and very feature rich. It probably takes me less than 30 seconds to 
capture and save a screen shot-- and I rarely use the program and am not 
proficient with it. Someone who uses it frequently would probably be 
substantially faster. FrameMaker 9 and 10 have a built-in program, 
RoboScreenCapture, that also does screen captures. I can't imagine that 
your co-worker's PrintScreen32 program does the work any faster or more 
efficiently.

> * Am I being too controlling on this matter? (I suspect yes.)
No, it sounds like you are being sane! The co-worker's method sounds 
completely unprofessional.

> * If I'm not too controlling in this, are there any other arguments I 
> can use to bolster my side of the story?
Referencing graphics reduces file size, increases speed, and eliminates 
possible problems due to memory limits. An external graphic can be more 
easily edited and shared by many documents. You can edit an external 
graphic to update it, and all the documents that include it are 
automatically updated without further user effort.

-- next part --
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: 

best use of graphics in FM

[Art Campbell]

My take on your questions:
1. SnagIt from TechSmith, which is integrated into the FM interface. 15-30
seconds or so if you use automated naming.
2. No, you should take the time to do it right the first time.
3. Quality of the document has a direct relationship both to how customers
view the company and its products, and likely reduces calls for support.
And... the quick and dirty method only works for the current writer. It'd
be really hard for any other writer to maintain or change.


Art Campbell
  art.campbell at gmail.com
  "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and
a redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson
  No disclaimers apply.
   DoD 358

I support www.TheGrotonLine.com, hyperlocal news for Groton MA.


On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 9:59 PM, Ken Poshedly wrote:

> FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional
>
> Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if
> you reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?
>
> My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment
> company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this
> job. He comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long
> time ago as a pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at
> best, but he considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had
> been the manager of his group. And our company never did fulfill its
> promises to him if he left his previous employer.
>
> While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of
> FrameMaker graphics -- to embed or to reference?
>
> We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we
> work in metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in
> which the Chinese engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the
> original documentation for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking
> as long as they want), then send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s
> (sorry, but I'm way past that age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed
> anywhere near the machinery but simply translate the stuff as best they can
> into "Chinglish". The machinery and their books are then put on ships and
> my coworker and I are then told we have two weeks to "Americanize" the
> Chinglish stuff. That means reformatting, reorganizing and rewriting the
> stuff for American heavy equiment owners.
>
> Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told
> over and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as
> a profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody.
> Their books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page
> layouts, but it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually
> operate this extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar,
> punctuation, etc., are all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the
> idea. And the U.S. president of the company is only here in the U.S. for
> about 4 years and follows ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no
> salary increases; you simply stay at your starting level or quit. And, by
> the way, very few if any promotions. I'm there 3 years and looking to move
> on.)
>
> Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable
> than my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document
> done in a fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically,
> he uses "PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics in the
> Word or pdf Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes
> them directly into his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of
> any filename or any other details about any of the graphics in his
> documents.
>
> He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the
> Chinglish books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents.
> The results are  horrendous because no real editing can be done (and errors
> in the original text abound). He simply creates small FrameMaker text
> blocks over incorrect words or sentences and types in the few words or
> sentences needed to fix something. So his FM documents are pretty much
> "pictures" of text with white boxes of corrected words that give his pages
> that "ransom-letter look".
>
> This method allows him to "complete" a document much faster than doing it
> what I call "the right way".
>
> I, on the other hand, have no problem with taking screen shots and saving
> them as legitimate graphics with an art control numbers (as listed in an
> Excel file created just for this purpose) that can be either referenced or
> embedded in other documents. It's true that my method takes a few steps
> more (thus more time), but the result is a findable graphics that can be
> reused over and over. (I

RE: best use of graphics in FM

[Sharon Burton]

What this co-worker is creating are unmaintainable documents. When they need
to be edited for the next version, it's going to take someone hours and
hours to change out one graphic that appears in 8 places. Days to edit the
copied text. The cost of making one small change to these documents can be
measured in hundreds of dollars. 10 minutes of changes become 3 days of
changes. 

I don't know if you have supervisory status in this situation, but a process
and Best Practices must be put in place. When running my own company and
when docs manager, I put these in place, trained the writers in them. After
that, anyone who created unmaintainable documents was fired. By me. Happily!



sharon

Sharon Burton
Content Strategy Consultant
951-369-8590
New book "8 Steps to Amazing Webinars" available on Amazon and BN.com
www.sharonburton.com
IM: sharonvbur...@yahoo.com
Twitter: sharonburton
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonvburton


-Original Message-
From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Combs, Richard
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 6:56 AM
To: Ken Poshedly; FrameMaker Users List
Subject: RE: best use of graphics in FM

Ken Poshedly wrote:

> Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more 
> knowledgeable than my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack"
> to get a document done in a fraction of the time that it would 
> ordinarily take. Specifically, he uses "PrintScreen32" to take screen 
> shots of existing graphics in the Word or pdf Chinglish books we get 
> from the home office and then pastes them directly into his FM 
> document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any 
> other details about any of the graphics in his documents.
> 
> He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the 
> Chinglish books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM 
> documents. The results are  horrendous because no real editing can be 
> done (and errors in the original text abound). He simply creates small 
> FrameMaker text blocks over incorrect words or sentences and types in 
> the few words or sentences needed to fix something. So his FM 
> documents are pretty much "pictures" of text with white boxes of 
> corrected words that give his pages that "ransom-letter look".

Reasonable people can disagree about whether the long-term benefits of
referenced graphics (updating is practically effortless) are worth a little
more time and process up front. I'm firmly in the import by reference camp
myself. 

But no reasonable person -- no competent, sane person -- would paste screen
shots of text into a doc! How is this even a time-saver over copying and
pasting the text itself? 

Pick your battles. Agree to disagree on the graphics, but tell your
cow-orker that "pictures" of text are an abomination, a maintenance
nightmare, a sign of computer illiteracy, and simply can't be tolerated. 

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
--
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
--






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best use of graphics in FM

[Sharon Burton]

What this co-worker is creating are unmaintainable documents. When they need
to be edited for the next version, it's going to take someone hours and
hours to change out one graphic that appears in 8 places. Days to edit the
copied text. The cost of making one small change to these documents can be
measured in hundreds of dollars. 10 minutes of changes become 3 days of
changes. 

I don't know if you have supervisory status in this situation, but a process
and Best Practices must be put in place. When running my own company and
when docs manager, I put these in place, trained the writers in them. After
that, anyone who created unmaintainable documents was fired. By me. Happily!



sharon

Sharon Burton
Content Strategy Consultant
951-369-8590
New book "8 Steps to Amazing Webinars" available on Amazon and BN.com
www.sharonburton.com
IM: sharonvburton at yahoo.com
Twitter: sharonburton
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonvburton


-Original Message-
From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Combs, Richard
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 6:56 AM
To: Ken Poshedly; FrameMaker Users List
Subject: RE: best use of graphics in FM

Ken Poshedly wrote:

> Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more 
> knowledgeable than my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack"
> to get a document done in a fraction of the time that it would 
> ordinarily take. Specifically, he uses "PrintScreen32" to take screen 
> shots of existing graphics in the Word or pdf Chinglish books we get 
> from the home office and then pastes them directly into his FM 
> document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any 
> other details about any of the graphics in his documents.
> 
> He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the 
> Chinglish books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM 
> documents. The results are? horrendous because no real editing can be 
> done (and errors in the original text abound). He simply creates small 
> FrameMaker text blocks over incorrect words or sentences and types in 
> the few words or sentences needed to fix something. So his FM 
> documents are pretty much "pictures" of text with white boxes of 
> corrected words that give his pages that "ransom-letter look".

Reasonable people can disagree about whether the long-term benefits of
referenced graphics (updating is practically effortless) are worth a little
more time and process up front. I'm firmly in the import by reference camp
myself. 

But no reasonable person -- no competent, sane person -- would paste screen
shots of text into a doc! How is this even a time-saver over copying and
pasting the text itself? 

Pick your battles. Agree to disagree on the graphics, but tell your
cow-orker that "pictures" of text are an abomination, a maintenance
nightmare, a sign of computer illiteracy, and simply can't be tolerated. 

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
--
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
--






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RE: best use of graphics in FM

[Combs, Richard]

Ken Poshedly wrote:

> Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more
> knowledgeable than my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack"
> to get a document done in a fraction of the time that it would
> ordinarily take. Specifically, he uses "PrintScreen32" to take screen
> shots of existing graphics in the Word or pdf Chinglish books we get
> from the home office and then pastes them directly into his FM
> document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any
> other details about any of the graphics in his documents.
> 
> He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the
> Chinglish books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM
> documents. The results are  horrendous because no real editing can be
> done (and errors in the original text abound). He simply creates small
> FrameMaker text blocks over incorrect words or sentences and types in
> the few words or sentences needed to fix something. So his FM documents
> are pretty much "pictures" of text with white boxes of corrected words
> that give his pages that "ransom-letter look".

Reasonable people can disagree about whether the long-term benefits of 
referenced graphics (updating is practically effortless) are worth a little 
more time and process up front. I'm firmly in the import by reference camp 
myself. 

But no reasonable person -- no competent, sane person -- would paste screen 
shots of text into a doc! How is this even a time-saver over copying and 
pasting the text itself? 

Pick your battles. Agree to disagree on the graphics, but tell your cow-orker 
that "pictures" of text are an abomination, a maintenance nightmare, a sign of 
computer illiteracy, and simply can't be tolerated. 

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
--
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
--






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best use of graphics in FM

[Combs, Richard]

Ken Poshedly wrote:

> Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more
> knowledgeable than my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack"
> to get a document done in a fraction of the time that it would
> ordinarily take. Specifically, he uses "PrintScreen32" to take screen
> shots of existing graphics in the Word or pdf Chinglish books we get
> from the home office and then pastes them directly into his FM
> document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any
> other details about any of the graphics in his documents.
> 
> He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the
> Chinglish books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM
> documents. The results are? horrendous because no real editing can be
> done (and errors in the original text abound). He simply creates small
> FrameMaker text blocks over incorrect words or sentences and types in
> the few words or sentences needed to fix something. So his FM documents
> are pretty much "pictures" of text with white boxes of corrected words
> that give his pages that "ransom-letter look".

Reasonable people can disagree about whether the long-term benefits of 
referenced graphics (updating is practically effortless) are worth a little 
more time and process up front. I'm firmly in the import by reference camp 
myself. 

But no reasonable person -- no competent, sane person -- would paste screen 
shots of text into a doc! How is this even a time-saver over copying and 
pasting the text itself? 

Pick your battles. Agree to disagree on the graphics, but tell your cow-orker 
that "pictures" of text are an abomination, a maintenance nightmare, a sign of 
computer illiteracy, and simply can't be tolerated. 

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
--
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
--

Re: best use of graphics in FM

[Mike Wickham]

So the questions are:
* Does anybody here have a fast way of saving screenshots as legit 
graphics for later reuse, and if so, what is your method and how many 
seconds would you say it takes?
SnagIt is the most recommended screen capture program. It is easy to use 
and very feature rich. It probably takes me less than 30 seconds to 
capture and save a screen shot-- and I rarely use the program and am not 
proficient with it. Someone who uses it frequently would probably be 
substantially faster. FrameMaker 9 and 10 have a built-in program, 
RoboScreenCapture, that also does screen captures. I can't imagine that 
your co-worker's PrintScreen32 program does the work any faster or more 
efficiently.



* Am I being too controlling on this matter? (I suspect yes.)
No, it sounds like you are being sane! The co-worker's method sounds 
completely unprofessional.


* If I'm not too controlling in this, are there any other arguments I 
can use to bolster my side of the story?
Referencing graphics reduces file size, increases speed, and eliminates 
possible problems due to memory limits. An external graphic can be more 
easily edited and shared by many documents. You can edit an external 
graphic to update it, and all the documents that include it are 
automatically updated without further user effort.


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Re: best use of graphics in FM

[Writer]

>My take on your questions:

>1. SnagIt from TechSmith, which is integrated into the FM interface. 15-30 
>seconds or so if you use automated naming.
>2. No, you should take the time to do it right the first time.
>3. Quality of the document has a direct relationship both to how customers 
>view the company and its products, and likely reduces calls for support. 
>And... the quick and dirty method only works for the current writer. It'd be 
>really hard for any other writer to maintain or change.

I agree with Art. I also add: Run, Ken, run! Before they completely suck your 
soul out of you!

There are a lot of people out there who pass themselves off as tech writers, 
but who really aren't (your coworker, for example). They should be flogged.

Nadine

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best use of graphics in FM

[Writer]

>My take on your questions:

>1. SnagIt from TechSmith, which is integrated into the FM interface. 15-30 
>seconds or so if you use automated naming.
>2. No, you should take the time to do it right the first time.
>3. Quality of the document has a direct relationship both to how customers 
>view the company and its products, and likely reduces calls for support. 
>And... the quick and dirty method only works for the current writer. It'd be 
>really hard for any other writer to maintain or change.

I agree with Art. I also add: Run, Ken, run! Before they completely suck your 
soul out of you!

There are a lot of people out there who pass themselves off as tech writers, 
but who really aren't (your coworker, for example). They should be flogged.

Nadine

Re: best use of graphics in FM

[Art Campbell]

My take on your questions:
1. SnagIt from TechSmith, which is integrated into the FM interface. 15-30
seconds or so if you use automated naming.
2. No, you should take the time to do it right the first time.
3. Quality of the document has a direct relationship both to how customers
view the company and its products, and likely reduces calls for support.
And... the quick and dirty method only works for the current writer. It'd
be really hard for any other writer to maintain or change.


Art Campbell
  art.campb...@gmail.com
  "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and
a redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson
  No disclaimers apply.
   DoD 358

I support www.TheGrotonLine.com, hyperlocal news for Groton MA.


On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 9:59 PM, Ken Poshedly wrote:

> FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional
>
> Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if
> you reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?
>
> My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment
> company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this
> job. He comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long
> time ago as a pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at
> best, but he considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had
> been the manager of his group. And our company never did fulfill its
> promises to him if he left his previous employer.
>
> While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of
> FrameMaker graphics -- to embed or to reference?
>
> We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we
> work in metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in
> which the Chinese engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the
> original documentation for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking
> as long as they want), then send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s
> (sorry, but I'm way past that age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed
> anywhere near the machinery but simply translate the stuff as best they can
> into "Chinglish". The machinery and their books are then put on ships and
> my coworker and I are then told we have two weeks to "Americanize" the
> Chinglish stuff. That means reformatting, reorganizing and rewriting the
> stuff for American heavy equiment owners.
>
> Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told
> over and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as
> a profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody.
> Their books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page
> layouts, but it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually
> operate this extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar,
> punctuation, etc., are all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the
> idea. And the U.S. president of the company is only here in the U.S. for
> about 4 years and follows ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no
> salary increases; you simply stay at your starting level or quit. And, by
> the way, very few if any promotions. I'm there 3 years and looking to move
> on.)
>
> Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable
> than my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document
> done in a fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically,
> he uses "PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics in the
> Word or pdf Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes
> them directly into his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of
> any filename or any other details about any of the graphics in his
> documents.
>
> He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the
> Chinglish books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents.
> The results are  horrendous because no real editing can be done (and errors
> in the original text abound). He simply creates small FrameMaker text
> blocks over incorrect words or sentences and types in the few words or
> sentences needed to fix something. So his FM documents are pretty much
> "pictures" of text with white boxes of corrected words that give his pages
> that "ransom-letter look".
>
> This method allows him to "complete" a document much faster than doing it
> what I call "the right way".
>
> I, on the other hand, have no problem with taking screen shots and saving
> them as legitimate graphics with an art control numbers (as listed in an
> Excel file created just for this purpose) that can be either referenced or
> embedded in other documents. It's true that my method takes a few steps
> more (thus more time), but the result is a findable graphics that can be
> reused over and over. (I al

best use of graphics in FM

[Ken Poshedly]

FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional

Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if you 
reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?

My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment 
company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this job. 
He 
comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long time ago as a 
pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at best, but he 
considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had been the manager of 
his group. And our company never did fulfill its promises to him if he left his 
previous employer.

While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of FrameMaker 
graphics -- to embed or to reference?

We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we work in 
metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in which the 
Chinese 
engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the original documentation 
for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking as long as they want), then 
send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s (sorry, but I'm way past that 
age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed anywhere near the machinery but 
simply 
translate the stuff as best they can into "Chinglish". The machinery and their 
books are then put on ships and my coworker and I are then told we have two 
weeks to "Americanize" the Chinglish stuff. That means reformatting, 
reorganizing and rewriting the stuff for American heavy equiment owners.

Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told over 
and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as a 
profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody. Their 
books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page layouts, 
but 
it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually operate this 
extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar, punctuation, etc., 
are 
all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the idea. And the U.S. 
president of the company is only here in the U.S. for about 4 years and follows 
ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no salary increases; you simply stay 
at your starting level or quit. And, by the way, very few if any promotions. 
I'm 
there 3 years and looking to move on.)

Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable than 
my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document done in 
a 
fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically, he uses 
"PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics in the Word or pdf 
Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes them directly into 
his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any other 
details about any of the graphics in his documents.

He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the Chinglish 
books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents. The results 
are  horrendous because no real editing can be done (and errors in the original 
text abound). He simply creates small FrameMaker text blocks over incorrect 
words or sentences and types in the few words or sentences needed to fix 
something. So his FM documents are pretty much "pictures" of text with white 
boxes of corrected words that give his pages that "ransom-letter look".

This method allows him to "complete" a document much faster than doing it what 
I 
call "the right way".

I, on the other hand, have no problem with taking screen shots and saving them 
as legitimate graphics with an art control numbers (as listed in an Excel file 
created just for this purpose) that can be either referenced or embedded in 
other documents. It's true that my method takes a few steps more (thus more 
time), but the result is a findable graphics that can be reused over and over. 
(I also know how to copy text and properly paste it in an FM document.)

Many of our graphics are used again and again, and many are one-timers. Plus, 
embedding pert near 100 or 200 graphics in a document tends to create a 
humongous filesize. For instance, a 225-page manual done by my coworker as 
described above  (that I've had to completely redo correctly with edits 
throughout following its technical review) and that has over 200 embedded 
graphics and text blocks was about 800 megabytes in size. I routinely get a 
warning that there may not be enough computer memory to open the document, but 
it does open, taking about 45 seconds or more. He says that it is poor software 
and refuses to admit that his way is stupid. The file is smaller since I've 
redone it.

So the questions are:
* Does anybody here have a fast way of saving screenshots as legit graphics for 
later reuse, and if so, what is your method and how many seconds would you say 
it takes?
* Am I being too controlling o

best use of graphics in FM

[Ken Poshedly]

FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional

Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if you 
reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?

My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment 
company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this job. 
He 
comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long time ago as a 
pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at best, but he 
considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had been the manager of 
his group. And our company never did fulfill its promises to him if he left his 
previous employer.

While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of FrameMaker 
graphics -- to embed or to reference?

We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we work in 
metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in which the 
Chinese 
engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the original documentation 
for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking as long as they want), then 
send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s (sorry, but I'm way past that 
age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed anywhere near the machinery but 
simply 
translate the stuff as best they can into "Chinglish". The machinery and their 
books are then put on ships and my coworker and I are then told we have two 
weeks to "Americanize" the Chinglish stuff. That means reformatting, 
reorganizing and rewriting the stuff for American heavy equiment owners.

Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told over 
and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as a 
profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody. Their 
books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page layouts, 
but 
it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually operate this 
extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar, punctuation, etc., 
are 
all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the idea. And the U.S. 
president of the company is only here in the U.S. for about 4 years and follows 
ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no salary increases; you simply stay 
at your starting level or quit. And, by the way, very few if any promotions. 
I'm 
there 3 years and looking to move on.)

Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable than 
my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document done in 
a 
fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically, he uses 
"PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics in the Word or pdf 
Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes them directly into 
his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of any filename or any other 
details about any of the graphics in his documents.

He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the Chinglish 
books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents. The results 
are  horrendous because no real editing can be done (and errors in the original 
text abound). He simply creates small FrameMaker text blocks over incorrect 
words or sentences and types in the few words or sentences needed to fix 
something. So his FM documents are pretty much "pictures" of text with white 
boxes of corrected words that give his pages that "ransom-letter look".

This method allows him to "complete" a document much faster than doing it what 
I 
call "the right way".

I, on the other hand, have no problem with taking screen shots and saving them 
as legitimate graphics with an art control numbers (as listed in an Excel file 
created just for this purpose) that can be either referenced or embedded in 
other documents. It's true that my method takes a few steps more (thus more 
time), but the result is a findable graphics that can be reused over and over. 
(I also know how to copy text and properly paste it in an FM document.)

Many of our graphics are used again and again, and many are one-timers. Plus, 
embedding pert near 100 or 200 graphics in a document tends to create a 
humongous filesize. For instance, a 225-page manual done by my coworker as 
described above  (that I've had to completely redo correctly with edits 
throughout following its technical review) and that has over 200 embedded 
graphics and text blocks was about 800 megabytes in size. I routinely get a 
warning that there may not be enough computer memory to open the document, but 
it does open, taking about 45 seconds or more. He says that it is poor software 
and refuses to admit that his way is stupid. The file is smaller since I've 
redone it.

So the questions are:
* Does anybody here have a fast way of saving screenshots as legit graphics for 
later reuse, and if so, what is your method and how many seconds would you say 
it takes?
* Am I being too controlling o

Graphics in FM

[Fred Ridder]

Art Campbell wrote:

> You can delete lines and words with Acrobat and keep it in PDF format.

Unfortunately, this is frequently not the case for drawings that originate
in a CAD application. In nearly all cases, text is not comprised of font
glyphs, but is actually drawn with lots of tiny curves. Similarly, what 
we percieve as a line or some other geometric primitive is often built
up from dozens (or hundreds) of smaller line and curve segments. And to
make matters worse, most CAD tools create arbitrary object groups that
contain hundreds (even thousands) of tiny curves, not all of which are 
components of logically related drawing objects. I've had to deal with 
PDFs from CAD tools at four different companies, and there have always
been issues. In trying to select all of the lines that make up the letters 
in some text, it often happens that you also select (and potentially 
delete) parts of objects that you need to keep. And even opening it
in Illustrator is only a partial solution becase some of the grouped 
objects are so complex that Illustrator chokes when trying to ungroup 
them.

But Acrobat does provide the opportunity to hide objects by drawing 
white shaped over them and then outputting a new "refried" PDF. I
know there can be some techincal issues with this approach, but it
has saved my bacon more than a few times.

Fred Ridder

Graphics in FM

[Art Campbell]

You can delete lines and words with Acrobat and keep it in PDF format.

Art

Art Campbell
  art.campbell at gmail.com
  "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52
Vincent and a redheaded grl." -- Richard Thompson
  No disclaimers apply.
   DoD 358



On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 9:30 AM, Deirdre Reagan
 wrote:
> Thanks Richard --
>
> The original line drawings are coming ot me as PDFs.  I don't have
> AutoCad or Katia or any of the other programs that the engineers have,
> so I get the drawing as a PDF file.  I turn it into a jpg so I can
> erase lines and words.
>
> It would be nice to have the original vector drawing!
>
>
>
> On 10/9/08, Combs, Richard  wrote:
>> Deirdre Reagan wrote:
>>
>> > In my documents, we use black and white line drawings exclusively.
>> >
>> > I've been cutting and pasting 200 pixels / inch bitmaps.  FM scrolls
>> > through them very quickly.
>> >
>> > My colleagues import 300 pixels / inch jpgs.  Their jpgs are better
>> > quality but FM works very very slowly when scrolling past a page with
>> > a jpg.
>> >
>> > I just imported a PDF-ed graphic that was made from a 600 pixels /
>> > inch jpg.  It has the best resolution and FM scrolls through the page
>> > very quickly.
>> >
>> > So here's my question:  is there any downside to using the PDF-ed
>> graphic?
>>
>> None at all. IMHO, PDFs are a great way to import graphics into FM.
>>
>> But here's a question back to you: Where are these line drawings coming
>> from?
>>
>> See, any graphic format described in terms of pixels or dots per inch
>> (dpi) is what's called a bitmap (or raster) image -- that includes BMP,
>> JPG, PNG, and GIF. Its resolution is limited to whatever it was created
>> at (200, 300, 600 dpi). If you resize it (or zoom in), you lose
>> resolution.
>>
>> But line drawings are by nature vector images. That means they're not
>> defined in terms of a fixed resolution, but in terms of vectors -- lines
>> and arcs -- that can be scaled to any size without loss of resolution.
>> If you're starting with a vector drawing (like from Adobe Illustrator or
>> Corel Draw), it's best not to turn it into a bitmap.
>>
>> Instead, make a PDF from the original vector drawing, and it will still
>> be a scalable vector drawing in PDF form. You'll really see the
>> difference if you zoom way in (say 800%) on a bitmap version and a
>> vector version of the same drawing.
>>
>> 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 art.campbell at gmail.com.
>
> Send list messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com.
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> framers-unsubscribe at lists.frameusers.com
> or visit 
> http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/art.campbell%40gmail.com
>
> Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit
> http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
>

RE: Graphics in FM

[Fred Ridder]

Art Campbell wrote:
 
> You can delete lines and words with Acrobat and keep it in PDF format.
 
Unfortunately, this is frequently not the case for drawings that originate
in a CAD application. In nearly all cases, text is not comprised of font
glyphs, but is actually drawn with lots of tiny curves. Similarly, what 
we percieve as a line or some other geometric primitive is often built
up from dozens (or hundreds) of smaller line and curve segments. And to
make matters worse, most CAD tools create arbitrary object groups that
contain hundreds (even thousands) of tiny curves, not all of which are 
components of logically related drawing objects. I've had to deal with 
PDFs from CAD tools at four different companies, and there have always
been issues. In trying to select all of the lines that make up the letters 
in some text, it often happens that you also select (and potentially 
delete) parts of objects that you need to keep. And even opening it
in Illustrator is only a partial solution becase some of the grouped 
objects are so complex that Illustrator chokes when trying to ungroup 
them.
 
But Acrobat does provide the opportunity to hide objects by drawing 
white shaped over them and then outputting a new "refried" PDF. I
know there can be some techincal issues with this approach, but it
has saved my bacon more than a few times.
 
Fred Ridder
 
 
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Graphics in FM

[Deirdre Reagan]

Thanks Richard --

The original line drawings are coming ot me as PDFs.  I don't have
AutoCad or Katia or any of the other programs that the engineers have,
so I get the drawing as a PDF file.  I turn it into a jpg so I can
erase lines and words.

It would be nice to have the original vector drawing!



On 10/9/08, Combs, Richard  wrote:
> Deirdre Reagan wrote:
>
> > In my documents, we use black and white line drawings exclusively.
> >
> > I've been cutting and pasting 200 pixels / inch bitmaps.  FM scrolls
> > through them very quickly.
> >
> > My colleagues import 300 pixels / inch jpgs.  Their jpgs are better
> > quality but FM works very very slowly when scrolling past a page with
> > a jpg.
> >
> > I just imported a PDF-ed graphic that was made from a 600 pixels /
> > inch jpg.  It has the best resolution and FM scrolls through the page
> > very quickly.
> >
> > So here's my question:  is there any downside to using the PDF-ed
> graphic?
>
> None at all. IMHO, PDFs are a great way to import graphics into FM.
>
> But here's a question back to you: Where are these line drawings coming
> from?
>
> See, any graphic format described in terms of pixels or dots per inch
> (dpi) is what's called a bitmap (or raster) image -- that includes BMP,
> JPG, PNG, and GIF. Its resolution is limited to whatever it was created
> at (200, 300, 600 dpi). If you resize it (or zoom in), you lose
> resolution.
>
> But line drawings are by nature vector images. That means they're not
> defined in terms of a fixed resolution, but in terms of vectors -- lines
> and arcs -- that can be scaled to any size without loss of resolution.
> If you're starting with a vector drawing (like from Adobe Illustrator or
> Corel Draw), it's best not to turn it into a bitmap.
>
> Instead, make a PDF from the original vector drawing, and it will still
> be a scalable vector drawing in PDF form. You'll really see the
> difference if you zoom way in (say 800%) on a bitmap version and a
> vector version of the same drawing.
>
> HTH!
> Richard
>
>
> Richard G. Combs
> Senior Technical Writer
> Polycom, Inc.
> richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
> 303-223-5111
> --
> rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
> 303-777-0436
> --
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Re: Graphics in FM

[Art Campbell]

You can delete lines and words with Acrobat and keep it in PDF format.

Art

Art Campbell
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52
Vincent and a redheaded grl." -- Richard Thompson
  No disclaimers apply.
   DoD 358



On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 9:30 AM, Deirdre Reagan
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Thanks Richard --
>
> The original line drawings are coming ot me as PDFs.  I don't have
> AutoCad or Katia or any of the other programs that the engineers have,
> so I get the drawing as a PDF file.  I turn it into a jpg so I can
> erase lines and words.
>
> It would be nice to have the original vector drawing!
>
>
>
> On 10/9/08, Combs, Richard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Deirdre Reagan wrote:
>>
>> > In my documents, we use black and white line drawings exclusively.
>> >
>> > I've been cutting and pasting 200 pixels / inch bitmaps.  FM scrolls
>> > through them very quickly.
>> >
>> > My colleagues import 300 pixels / inch jpgs.  Their jpgs are better
>> > quality but FM works very very slowly when scrolling past a page with
>> > a jpg.
>> >
>> > I just imported a PDF-ed graphic that was made from a 600 pixels /
>> > inch jpg.  It has the best resolution and FM scrolls through the page
>> > very quickly.
>> >
>> > So here's my question:  is there any downside to using the PDF-ed
>> graphic?
>>
>> None at all. IMHO, PDFs are a great way to import graphics into FM.
>>
>> But here's a question back to you: Where are these line drawings coming
>> from?
>>
>> See, any graphic format described in terms of pixels or dots per inch
>> (dpi) is what's called a bitmap (or raster) image -- that includes BMP,
>> JPG, PNG, and GIF. Its resolution is limited to whatever it was created
>> at (200, 300, 600 dpi). If you resize it (or zoom in), you lose
>> resolution.
>>
>> But line drawings are by nature vector images. That means they're not
>> defined in terms of a fixed resolution, but in terms of vectors -- lines
>> and arcs -- that can be scaled to any size without loss of resolution.
>> If you're starting with a vector drawing (like from Adobe Illustrator or
>> Corel Draw), it's best not to turn it into a bitmap.
>>
>> Instead, make a PDF from the original vector drawing, and it will still
>> be a scalable vector drawing in PDF form. You'll really see the
>> difference if you zoom way in (say 800%) on a bitmap version and a
>> vector version of the same drawing.
>>
>> 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/art.campbell%40gmail.com
>
> Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit
> http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
>
___


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RE: Graphics in FM

[Owen, Clint]

 Deidre,

You need a good vector graphics program, such as Corel Designer or Adobe
Illustrator. These programs will import the PDF and maintain the vector
data. Then you can edit the graphic any way you want  and export a new
graphic that you can reference in FM.

You can't do your job without the proper tools, and this is one of the
tools that you need.

Clint


Clinton Owen | Senior Technical Writer | Crane Aerospace & Electronics |
Telephone: +1 425-743-8674 | Fax: +1 425-743-8113

In celebration of National Customer Service Week, Crane Aerospace and
Electronics would like to thank you, Our Valued Customer, for your
continued support.


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Deirdre
Reagan
Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 6:31 AM
To: Combs, Richard
Cc: Framer's List
Subject: Re: Graphics in FM

Thanks Richard --

The original line drawings are coming ot me as PDFs.  I don't have
AutoCad or Katia or any of the other programs that the engineers have,
so I get the drawing as a PDF file.  I turn it into a jpg so I can erase
lines and words.

It would be nice to have the original vector drawing!



On 10/9/08, Combs, Richard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Deirdre Reagan wrote:
>
> > In my documents, we use black and white line drawings exclusively.
> >
> > I've been cutting and pasting 200 pixels / inch bitmaps.  FM scrolls

> > through them very quickly.
> >
> > My colleagues import 300 pixels / inch jpgs.  Their jpgs are better 
> > quality but FM works very very slowly when scrolling past a page 
> > with a jpg.
> >
> > I just imported a PDF-ed graphic that was made from a 600 pixels / 
> > inch jpg.  It has the best resolution and FM scrolls through the 
> > page very quickly.
> >
> > So here's my question:  is there any downside to using the PDF-ed
> graphic?
>
> None at all. IMHO, PDFs are a great way to import graphics into FM.
>
> But here's a question back to you: Where are these line drawings 
> coming from?
>
> See, any graphic format described in terms of pixels or dots per inch
> (dpi) is what's called a bitmap (or raster) image -- that includes 
> BMP, JPG, PNG, and GIF. Its resolution is limited to whatever it was 
> created at (200, 300, 600 dpi). If you resize it (or zoom in), you 
> lose resolution.
>
> But line drawings are by nature vector images. That means they're not 
> defined in terms of a fixed resolution, but in terms of vectors -- 
> lines and arcs -- that can be scaled to any size without loss of
resolution.
> If you're starting with a vector drawing (like from Adobe Illustrator 
> or Corel Draw), it's best not to turn it into a bitmap.
>
> Instead, make a PDF from the original vector drawing, and it will 
> still be a scalable vector drawing in PDF form. You'll really see the 
> difference if you zoom way in (say 800%) on a bitmap version and a 
> vector version of the same drawing.
>
> HTH!
> Richard
>
>
> Richard G. Combs
> Senior Technical Writer
> Polycom, Inc.
> richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
> 303-223-5111
> --
> rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
> 303-777-0436
> --
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
___


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[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Please click the survey link to tell us how we are doing.

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>>>>>>>>>> Crane Aerospace & Electronics Confidentiality Statement <<<<<<<<<<
The information contained in this email message may be privileged and is 
confidential information intended only for the use of the recipient, or any 
employee or agent responsible to deliver it to the intended recipient. Any 
unauthorized use, distribution or copying of this information is strictly 
prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in 
error, please notify the sender immediately and destroy the original message 
and all attachments from your electronic files.


This e-mail message has been scanned and cleared by MailMarshal 

-

Graphics in FM

[Owen, Clint]

 Deidre,

You need a good vector graphics program, such as Corel Designer or Adobe
Illustrator. These programs will import the PDF and maintain the vector
data. Then you can edit the graphic any way you want  and export a new
graphic that you can reference in FM.

You can't do your job without the proper tools, and this is one of the
tools that you need.

Clint


Clinton Owen | Senior Technical Writer | Crane Aerospace & Electronics |
Telephone: +1 425-743-8674 | Fax: +1 425-743-8113

In celebration of National Customer Service Week, Crane Aerospace and
Electronics would like to thank you, Our Valued Customer, for your
continued support.


-Original Message-
From: framers-boun...@lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Deirdre
Reagan
Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 6:31 AM
To: Combs, Richard
Cc: Framer's List
Subject: Re: Graphics in FM

Thanks Richard --

The original line drawings are coming ot me as PDFs.  I don't have
AutoCad or Katia or any of the other programs that the engineers have,
so I get the drawing as a PDF file.  I turn it into a jpg so I can erase
lines and words.

It would be nice to have the original vector drawing!



On 10/9/08, Combs, Richard  wrote:
> Deirdre Reagan wrote:
>
> > In my documents, we use black and white line drawings exclusively.
> >
> > I've been cutting and pasting 200 pixels / inch bitmaps.  FM scrolls

> > through them very quickly.
> >
> > My colleagues import 300 pixels / inch jpgs.  Their jpgs are better 
> > quality but FM works very very slowly when scrolling past a page 
> > with a jpg.
> >
> > I just imported a PDF-ed graphic that was made from a 600 pixels / 
> > inch jpg.  It has the best resolution and FM scrolls through the 
> > page very quickly.
> >
> > So here's my question:  is there any downside to using the PDF-ed
> graphic?
>
> None at all. IMHO, PDFs are a great way to import graphics into FM.
>
> But here's a question back to you: Where are these line drawings 
> coming from?
>
> See, any graphic format described in terms of pixels or dots per inch
> (dpi) is what's called a bitmap (or raster) image -- that includes 
> BMP, JPG, PNG, and GIF. Its resolution is limited to whatever it was 
> created at (200, 300, 600 dpi). If you resize it (or zoom in), you 
> lose resolution.
>
> But line drawings are by nature vector images. That means they're not 
> defined in terms of a fixed resolution, but in terms of vectors -- 
> lines and arcs -- that can be scaled to any size without loss of
resolution.
> If you're starting with a vector drawing (like from Adobe Illustrator 
> or Corel Draw), it's best not to turn it into a bitmap.
>
> Instead, make a PDF from the original vector drawing, and it will 
> still be a scalable vector drawing in PDF form. You'll really see the 
> difference if you zoom way in (say 800%) on a bitmap version and a 
> vector version of the same drawing.
>
> HTH!
> Richard
>
>
> Richard G. Combs
> Senior Technical Writer
> Polycom, Inc.
> richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
> 303-223-5111
> --
> rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
> 303-777-0436
> --
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
___


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>>>>>>>>>> Crane Aerospace & Electronics Confidentiality Statement <<<<<<<<<<
The information contained in this email message may be privileged and is 
confidential information intended only for the use of the recipient, or any 
employee or agent responsible to deliver it to the intended recipient. Any 
unauthorized use, distribution or copying of this information is strictly 
prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in 
error, please notify the sender immediately and destroy the original message 
and all attachments from your electronic files.


This e-mail message has been scanned and cleared by MailMarshal 

Re: Graphics in FM

[Deirdre Reagan]

Thanks Richard --

The original line drawings are coming ot me as PDFs.  I don't have
AutoCad or Katia or any of the other programs that the engineers have,
so I get the drawing as a PDF file.  I turn it into a jpg so I can
erase lines and words.

It would be nice to have the original vector drawing!



On 10/9/08, Combs, Richard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Deirdre Reagan wrote:
>
> > In my documents, we use black and white line drawings exclusively.
> >
> > I've been cutting and pasting 200 pixels / inch bitmaps.  FM scrolls
> > through them very quickly.
> >
> > My colleagues import 300 pixels / inch jpgs.  Their jpgs are better
> > quality but FM works very very slowly when scrolling past a page with
> > a jpg.
> >
> > I just imported a PDF-ed graphic that was made from a 600 pixels /
> > inch jpg.  It has the best resolution and FM scrolls through the page
> > very quickly.
> >
> > So here's my question:  is there any downside to using the PDF-ed
> graphic?
>
> None at all. IMHO, PDFs are a great way to import graphics into FM.
>
> But here's a question back to you: Where are these line drawings coming
> from?
>
> See, any graphic format described in terms of pixels or dots per inch
> (dpi) is what's called a bitmap (or raster) image -- that includes BMP,
> JPG, PNG, and GIF. Its resolution is limited to whatever it was created
> at (200, 300, 600 dpi). If you resize it (or zoom in), you lose
> resolution.
>
> But line drawings are by nature vector images. That means they're not
> defined in terms of a fixed resolution, but in terms of vectors -- lines
> and arcs -- that can be scaled to any size without loss of resolution.
> If you're starting with a vector drawing (like from Adobe Illustrator or
> Corel Draw), it's best not to turn it into a bitmap.
>
> Instead, make a PDF from the original vector drawing, and it will still
> be a scalable vector drawing in PDF form. You'll really see the
> difference if you zoom way in (say 800%) on a bitmap version and a
> vector version of the same drawing.
>
> HTH!
> Richard
>
>
> Richard G. Combs
> Senior Technical Writer
> Polycom, Inc.
> richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
> 303-223-5111
> --
> rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
> 303-777-0436
> --
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
___


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Graphics in FM

[Combs, Richard]

Deirdre Reagan wrote:

> In my documents, we use black and white line drawings exclusively.
> 
> I've been cutting and pasting 200 pixels / inch bitmaps.  FM scrolls
> through them very quickly.
> 
> My colleagues import 300 pixels / inch jpgs.  Their jpgs are better
> quality but FM works very very slowly when scrolling past a page with
> a jpg.
> 
> I just imported a PDF-ed graphic that was made from a 600 pixels /
> inch jpg.  It has the best resolution and FM scrolls through the page
> very quickly.
> 
> So here's my question:  is there any downside to using the PDF-ed
graphic?

None at all. IMHO, PDFs are a great way to import graphics into FM.

But here's a question back to you: Where are these line drawings coming
from? 

See, any graphic format described in terms of pixels or dots per inch
(dpi) is what's called a bitmap (or raster) image -- that includes BMP,
JPG, PNG, and GIF. Its resolution is limited to whatever it was created
at (200, 300, 600 dpi). If you resize it (or zoom in), you lose
resolution. 

But line drawings are by nature vector images. That means they're not
defined in terms of a fixed resolution, but in terms of vectors -- lines
and arcs -- that can be scaled to any size without loss of resolution.
If you're starting with a vector drawing (like from Adobe Illustrator or
Corel Draw), it's best not to turn it into a bitmap. 

Instead, make a PDF from the original vector drawing, and it will still
be a scalable vector drawing in PDF form. You'll really see the
difference if you zoom way in (say 800%) on a bitmap version and a
vector version of the same drawing. 

HTH!
Richard


Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
--
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
--

RE: Graphics in FM

[Combs, Richard]

Deirdre Reagan wrote:
 
> In my documents, we use black and white line drawings exclusively.
> 
> I've been cutting and pasting 200 pixels / inch bitmaps.  FM scrolls
> through them very quickly.
> 
> My colleagues import 300 pixels / inch jpgs.  Their jpgs are better
> quality but FM works very very slowly when scrolling past a page with
> a jpg.
> 
> I just imported a PDF-ed graphic that was made from a 600 pixels /
> inch jpg.  It has the best resolution and FM scrolls through the page
> very quickly.
> 
> So here's my question:  is there any downside to using the PDF-ed
graphic?

None at all. IMHO, PDFs are a great way to import graphics into FM.

But here's a question back to you: Where are these line drawings coming
from? 

See, any graphic format described in terms of pixels or dots per inch
(dpi) is what's called a bitmap (or raster) image -- that includes BMP,
JPG, PNG, and GIF. Its resolution is limited to whatever it was created
at (200, 300, 600 dpi). If you resize it (or zoom in), you lose
resolution. 

But line drawings are by nature vector images. That means they're not
defined in terms of a fixed resolution, but in terms of vectors -- lines
and arcs -- that can be scaled to any size without loss of resolution.
If you're starting with a vector drawing (like from Adobe Illustrator or
Corel Draw), it's best not to turn it into a bitmap. 

Instead, make a PDF from the original vector drawing, and it will still
be a scalable vector drawing in PDF form. You'll really see the
difference if you zoom way in (say 800%) on a bitmap version and a
vector version of the same drawing. 

HTH!
Richard


Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
--
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
--






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Fwd: Graphics in FM

[Deirdre Reagan]

Sorry if this is a repost -- I got an autogenerated message that this
post DIED before it reached it's destination.

"I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

: Command died with status 1:"


-- Forwarded message --
From: Deirdre Reagan 
Date: Oct 9, 2008 2:43 PM
Subject: Graphics in FM
To: Framer's List 


Hi all!

FM 8.0, Windows XP.

In my documents, we use black and white line drawings exclusively.

I've been cutting and pasting 200 pixels / inch bitmaps.  FM scrolls
through them very quickly.

My colleagues import 300 pixels / inch jpgs.  Their jpgs are better
quality but FM works very very slowly when scrolling past a page with
a jpg.

I just imported a PDF-ed graphic that was made from a 600 pixels /
inch jpg.  It has the best resolution and FM scrolls through the page
very quickly.

So here's my question:  is there any downside to using the PDF-ed graphic?

We PDF these documents and send them to the customer, who does who
know what to them.  We may in the future be turning these documents
into HTML documents.

I don't know jack about graphics, so any help would be most appreciated.

Deirdre

Fwd: Graphics in FM

[Deirdre Reagan]

Sorry if this is a repost -- I got an autogenerated message that this
post DIED before it reached it's destination.

"I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

: Command died with status 1:"


-- Forwarded message --
From: Deirdre Reagan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Oct 9, 2008 2:43 PM
Subject: Graphics in FM
To: Framer's List 


Hi all!

FM 8.0, Windows XP.

In my documents, we use black and white line drawings exclusively.

I've been cutting and pasting 200 pixels / inch bitmaps.  FM scrolls
through them very quickly.

My colleagues import 300 pixels / inch jpgs.  Their jpgs are better
quality but FM works very very slowly when scrolling past a page with
a jpg.

I just imported a PDF-ed graphic that was made from a 600 pixels /
inch jpg.  It has the best resolution and FM scrolls through the page
very quickly.

So here's my question:  is there any downside to using the PDF-ed graphic?

We PDF these documents and send them to the customer, who does who
know what to them.  We may in the future be turning these documents
into HTML documents.

I don't know jack about graphics, so any help would be most appreciated.

Deirdre
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