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Nedlaw
Legend
February 28, 2018
Answered

Linked/embedded graphics with callouts

  • February 28, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 3147 views

My client wants me to output a book as both PDF and HTML using the InDesign as the source program. InDesign will do this (and rather well). I can insert either linked or embedded graphics and add callouts to them -- there are excellent tutorials and discussions on both these topics. PDF output works fine.

My dilemma happens during output to HTML. The graphics output to HTML just fine -- only they don't bring the callout lines and the text with them. I'm guessing that these are not part of the text flow.

I have tried:

  • Embedding previously linked graphics (HTML output includes the graphic, does not include callouts.)
  • Grouping embedded graphics with callouts (HTML output includes the graphics, does not include the callouts.)
  • Creating a graphic in PS or AI that includes the callouts (but any scaling in the InDesign document changes the size of the callout text, and I would like callout text size to remain as consistent as possible between graphics, even with graphics at different scales).
  • Making the graphic conditional so that the PDF output includes high-quality graphic and callout lines/text (condition A), and HTML output includes the lower-res graphic with the built-in callouts (condition B). Apparently, a graphic cannot be made conditional; at least, I haven't found a way to do it either by selecting the graphic or the anchor or the paragraph marker for the inserted graphic.

So I'm at a loss, here. I can produce the high-quality PDF, but cannot produce the HTML output required (or rather, I can, but there won't be any callouts attached to the graphics). I can produce graphics and callouts outside of ID, and plunk the whole combined image into the document, but I run the risk that the text and lines of the callouts will be at disparate scales. It's not a project where I have great control over the size of each source graphic. Some will simply have to be shrunk and others won't require it.

Suggestions?

-Jeff W

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer John Mensinger

I am sure that there is a more refined way of doing this (I may have an extra step or two), but this process seems to work:

  1. Take the screen shot (usually results in a PNG or JPG at 96 dpi).
  2. Convert to PSD or AI & clean up the shot (this preserves resolution and minimizes pixelation during later scaling).
  3. Place the screenshot into the InDesign doc and scale it to suit the document. (If you don't scale the image in InDesign, the resulting graphic may be too big or too small for its placement. There may be a way to place a graphic into a pre-sized and already anchored graphics placeholder that will flow with the text, but I didn't immediately find that way, and I've burned enough hours on this question.)
  4. Copy the scaled screen shot at its new size from InDesign and paste into AI.
  5. (In AI) Add callouts. Adding callouts to a previously scaled graphic helps keep the callout text at the same point size throughout the document. Scaling after the fact would change the point size because by then the text is part of the graphic.
  6. (In AI) Group.
  7. (In AI) Save the grouped image as a named .ai file.
  8. Place the named .ai file at the correct location in InDesign as a linked and anchored file. This allows it to flow with the text and be edited externally. Text may be grainy in ID, but it exports and prints correctly as PDF and HTML.

Learning how to correctly export to both PDF and HTML with callouts in place was the goal of the original post.

I would vastly prefer to do all this exclusively in InDesign -- to simply scale the screen shot and add callouts and have them come out in both endpoint formats -- but that doesn't seem to be in the cards. There is another post elsewhere where someone said he took the image out to AI and added his callouts there, but he complained about the scaling of the lines and text when importing into InDesign. So I tried scaling before the fact rather than after the fact.

Thanks for all the help.


Nedlaw  wrote

4. Copy the scaled screen shot at its new size from InDesign and paste into AI.

5. (In AI) Add callouts. Adding callouts to a previously scaled graphic helps keep the callout text at the same point size throughout the document. Scaling after the fact would change the point size because by then the text is part of the graphic.

6. (In AI) Group.

7. (In AI) Save the grouped image as a named .ai file.

8. Place the named .ai file at the correct location in InDesign as a linked and anchored file. This allows it to flow with the text and be edited externally. Text may be grainy in ID, but it exports and prints correctly as PDF and HTML.

I would vastly prefer to do all this exclusively in InDesign -- to simply scale the screen shot and add callouts and have them come out in both endpoint formats -- but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

That round trip to / from AI is entirely unnecessary. (And what's more, copying a placed raster image from InDesign for pasting elswhere is a terrible practice. Not a tragedy in this particular case, seeing as the images are screen-resolution screenshots in the first place. The reason for that is the graphic you copy from InDesign is actually not that which you originally placed, but rather a dedicated, InDesign-written, JPEG proxy.)

  1. With the screenshot placed in InDesign and sized as desired.
  2. Use InDesign's Line or Pen tool to draw the callout line; position and assign stroke weight and color as desired.
  3. Set the callout text in an ordinary InDesign text frame; format and position relative to the callout line as desired.
  4. Select the placed screenshot, the callout line, and the callout text frame; Group and Cut.
  5. With the Type tool, set an insertion point (blinking cursor) at the position where you want to anchor the screenshot/callout group and Paste.

3 replies

JonathanArias
JonathanArias
Legend
March 1, 2018

i think he wants to make a log in page in indesign and things that indesign to html is going to give him a real html page with a working log in screen.

His definition of caption is a plain old text frame to me.

N
NedlawAuthor
Legend
March 1, 2018

Guys, please. You've all tried to be very helpful by correcting my terribly mistaken notion of writing a log-in page or large application by using InDesign... Except that's not at all what I'm doing, I have no idea where that concept came from, and it seems to me that no one is reading my posts.

I am documenting a piece of software. Think of it as a big PDF -- let's call it a "manual." In that documentation, I have a screen shot (actually, I have a large number). To the side of each screen shot, I want to point a line at a feature within the graphic and put a blurb at the other end of that line that says "Hey -- This is the widget feature. You'll find it right here at the other end of this line." I have done this type of documentation for some few years, now, but have not had to produce both InDesign output and HTML.

The screen shot is anchored so that it will move when text is added or taken away. (That was a good point someone made.)

Currently I can add the line and the blurb. Perhaps is is the anchoring that causes the problem but at least at this point, I cannot select both the graphic, and the line/blurb. Selecting one de-selects the other (yes, I use shift-click). That is one problem in following the advice offered here, and maybe that is indeed a conceptual issue.

After the PDF is done, and my clients have sat around the big conference table telling me what a swell guy I am for making such a good-looking PDF, I still have to dump this baby into HTML. That is the other problem. Even if I successfully draw the line, and add the blurb, they do not export to HTML along with the graphic -- and that was the subject of the original post.

I think that this is an appropriate workflow for InDesign. I am happy to be told how to do it better (one poster mentioned In5).

But please, folks: I am NOT writing a software application in InDesign. I am NOT writing an interactive log-in screen. I am writing a software manual that includes screen shots. That's all.

Your help is always appreciated.

-JW

John Mensinger
Community Expert
John MensingerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 1, 2018

Right, so your screenshot is rightly anchored in the text flow, but to have your callout line and text flow with the screenshot (in the InDesign layout and in HTML), you'll have to anchor them all (the screenshot, the callout line, and the callout text) as a group. Then it will work the way you need.

Frans v.d. Geest
Community Expert
Frans v.d. GeestCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 28, 2018

What do you mean by callout? This is a bit unclear. Do you mean Captions?

JonathanArias
JonathanArias
Legend
February 28, 2018

Can you show screenshots? are callouts popups? i am having a hard time understanding what you want to do.

N
NedlawAuthor
Legend
February 28, 2018

Callout -- a line extending from and calling attention to a feature in a graphic, usually with explanatory text on the end.

This is the appearance in InDesign and in PDF:

And this is the appearance in an HTML file:

JonathanArias
JonathanArias
Legend
February 28, 2018

that looks like you are trying to make a log in screen. you are not trying to make a website with indesign are you?

why does it look all pixelated? i am sorry but can you take better screenshots?

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