Microsoft Word 2007 vs. Framemaker

"- Templates are real templates in Word that can automatically ensure consistent formatting. With Frame you have to import formats from another document."

... actually the templates in Frame are much more robust. However, a file becomes a template based on location, not file extension (as in Word).

Francis...

I suggest you start a new thread asking for advice about the best practices for importing graphics into Frame documents. This is not the proper thread to tackle your difficulties with bitmaps and line art.

There are several of us that can offer additional advice to improve your understanding of the process and hence your workflow.

Dennis...

Percent scaling depends on zoom factor:
- Funny, mine works properly now too. Either I was dreaming when I discovered the problem or Adobe have quietly fixed it in one of the patches.

Create the graphic at final resolution and use 1:1 in Frame
- In principle yes, but not usually practicable. Strictly, that would means versions for on-line viewing, in-house printing and high resolution printing. And screendumps are captured at screen resolution and need to be scaled in Frame. They can be scaled with no loss of quality provided that you turn image compression off when you create a PDF.

Shift-drag for proportional scaling
- Sure, that works for visual sizing. I was talking about absolute sizing.

Paul,
I'm happy to discuss graphics in Word, or anything else about your decision. Send me an email: gmcconnell(at)cableone(dot)net.

Francis,
I'm with thomas - I'm not following what you are saying about graphics in Frame. For me, 80% is 80% - the dimensions of the graphic are the same, regardless of the file's zoom setting. Also, a file set at 80% in Frame shows the same dimensions for a graphic as it does at 80% in Word (with Frame 8, anyway).

The premise of using graphics in Frame is to work with dpi, which is a harder concept for many (including me). But you can enter a Scaling Percent in the Object Properties dialog box. thomas is again right, though - ideally the graphic should be created in the resolution you want in the end, so that it is 100% in FrameMaker, or a 1:1 ratio). I'm sure someone else can explain this better than I can.

--GMc

Hi Gloria,

Thank you for your offer to help with graphics in Word. If there is a better way to handle graphics, I'm definitely open to your skills/thoughts.

Paul

" ... 80% at 100% zoom and 80% at 200% zoom give very different results."

Mine doesn't.

The percentage is a true percentage, and often you will find that the value lies in between the dpi settings which is also possible.

In what way do see different results ?

keep smiling
thomas

... You have to type the height and width dimensions separately.

No way!!!

Hold down the shift key while scaling, and it works. Like in so many other applications (apart from some Microsoft :-)

In any case, the best result is always !!! obtained if you use a 1:1 ratio and NOT scale inside the application. It be Word, FM or any other.

And the way Word determines that an image is OK in a XX scale percentage and still look good is only in the eye of the beholder.

keep smiling
thomas

Warning if you're embedding bitmaps and want to use a consistent size. My Word background tells me that screen dumps look good in my manuals scaled to 80% of original size (a macro on Ctrl-8 does the job very efficiently).

Of course I transferred the principle to Frame when I started using that - set bitmaps to 80% of original size. Fine. Until one day I discovered that "80%" translates in reality to a percentage that varies according to the zoom setting of the Frame document on the screen. 80% at 100% zoom and 80% at 200% zoom give very different results.

So if you want to scale bitmaps to a consistent size, find a dpi setting that suits your purpose and use that. Don't use percent!

And while I'm on the rant, if you have inserted illustrations (that can't be scaled by dpi or percent) and want to set them to an exact size - for instance you have taken them from the same source program and want identical scaling in the end result - don't expect Frame to support scaling with maintained aspect ratios. It doesn't. You have to type the height and width dimensions separately. And if you want for example photos which are a fixed height but are cropped to different widths, bring out your pocket calculator because you will need to calculate the width settings from the height and the aspect ratio if you want to get it right.

Paul,
I'm not quite clear on how you are handling the graphics, but I think that there is a better way to handle them in Word, if that is your major problem. This is a Frame forum, though, so we won't go into that. If you'd like to discuss how to handle graphics in Word, let me know & we'll do so offline. (I am very well versed in Word, and agree with Francis that it is best in the usability department.)

I pretty much agree with Bill though, that Frame handles graphics better than Word. While you can link graphics in Word, which is similar to importing, I'd be a concerned about how well Word would handle linking the quantity you mention (although it might be just fine).

--GMc

Paul:

> I've got a ways to go to match all your experience and talents.

Experience, yes (I've been using Frame since v5.0 was brand new); I don't know about talents.

> I've had issues with images in Word.

Who among us hasn't? Everyone's workflow/situation is different, but we
i import
graphics into an anchored frame. We have a "figs" folder within the project folder, and by importing
i by reference
we're able to easily update graphics -- whether during initial document development or in subsequent editions -- simply by dropping a new version of the graphic (with the same filename) into the "figs" folder. This also keeps the FrameMaker chapter files relatively small... but, of course, Frame is just more stable in handling large files anyway.

So yes, FrameMaker handles this better.