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A
Anonymous
November 10, 2009
Question

Poor image quality with linked Word files

  • November 10, 2009
  • 2 replies
  • 4369 views

My help projects are set up in RH8 HTML, and I use linked MS Word 2007 source files to generate Webhelp output. After some troubleshooting on getting the images in my Word files to show up in the RH project files, I determined that a simple copy/paste (or Insert Picture without linking to file) is the best way to pull images from the source files into the help build. RH then creates its own image files/names in my help project, and it updates them appropriately when we modify them in the source files.

The problem is that the images come into the RH project files at a low resolution--very pixelated and grainy, and they retain this appearance into the help build. I have read other forum posts about options in Word to remove compression when saving files, but it hasn't seemed to make a difference. RH takes the images from the Word file and creates either .jpg or .gif images that are between 2KB - 25KB, even when the image source is at least four times larger than that.

I have tried inserting images by using the Word option Insert Picture > Link to File. That was actually my preferred method originally. But there's a whole separate problem with that. It does indeed produce much better image quality in the help build. But the RH project files end up displaying the first image everywhere else that an image is linked into the file.

I'm mainly wondering if there is a setting in RH to avoid compressing images when it creates its project files from the Word source files. Is there a way to force RH to create higher quality images rather than these 2KB jpgs and gifs? I cannot find an option for image compression within the RH project properties or in the Webhelp properties.

Or...is there a setting in Word that I'm missing? I followed the recommendation to select Save As and then navigate through the Tools drop-down to the Compress Pictures option. I unchecked the item to compress images upon saving. I even removed all the images from a file and copied new ones back in after changing that compression option. But RH still created the grainy image files in my help build.

I appreciate any suggestions that the forum has on this issue.

Best regards,

Athena

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

J
jeff_g
Participant
January 21, 2010

This is not a "why just for you" issue.  It is well documented that RH has extremely poor image handling when importing from Word.  I have been experiencing it and trying different work-arounds for years.

In my opinion, there is no excuse for this product to choose its own image settings and blindly create poor quality images for use in what should be a high-quality product.  Support for PNG file types (which maintains image quality) is advertised yet not available when importing from Word documents.

Word 2003 and 2007 will "Save as Web Page" with high quality images (PNGs) if the browser support is changed from the default IE 4 setting.  The fact that Word settings can be changed yet RH settings cannot points to a RH issue - not Word as suggested earlier.

Peter Grainge
Community Expert
Peter GraingeCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 21, 2010

Jeff

In my 18 Nov post, I reported that I was getting bad images just saving Athena's file in a different Word format without the document going anywhere near RoboHelp. My point there was that because of that whilst RH may be guilty, there is some evidence to the contrary that would give a court a problem in finding RoboHelp guilty as charged.

When I said "just you" I know it is not only Athena who has had problems but most people seem to be OK. Most is not good enough but the main point there is that good images can be obtained. What is different with people who get problems and those who do not is what we need to crack.

If you would like to create a one or two page Word document that shows good images but fails to import OK, I would be happy to see what I get. Do include the process in the document so that I know what you use to capture the images and how you get them into the document. For each image, please also send an image file for the original capture, ideally in JPG and GIF format.

Also are you seeing any difference between linked and imported documents?

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

Follow me @petergrainge

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A
Anonymous
November 10, 2009

Hi Athena,

Firstly with images, in my experience it's better to obtain the original gifs and then import into RH using insert picture etc.

The way we do things here is to capture the image as a bitmap in paintshop pro then save as a gif. This seems to retain the quality. Personally I prefer gifs to jpegs as jpegs can go a bit speckly.

Another useful hint is if you need to re-size an image without losing resolution import it into Viso, se-size then save as gif.

Any help?

A
Anonymous
November 10, 2009

I have found that any manual work I do with images in my RH project files is overwritten when I update the linked Word source files. This unfortunately keeps me from using RH's image tools like I could in an imported project. Back when I was originally troubleshooting images in my linked files, I had tried placing the higher resolution images into the RH project myself. But RH basically ignores them and only uses the project/image files that it automatically creates from the linked Word files.

A
Anonymous
November 10, 2009

I should have also mentioned that we don't use linked word source files. We author in RH in HTML and if we need a word document we export to word.

In other words RH is our source...

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