Colored Text Box, White Artifact Lines

[jbarkerhill]

Hi, 

I'm creating colored text boxes for different note types, e.g. Note, Caution, Warning, Danger. 

I've been using the Frame Above Pgf function and Frame Below Pgf function to add spacing of the colored text box above and below. The frames for Frame Aboe Pgf etc. are being sourced from the reference page. 

The colors look good, but the resulting PDF has white artifact lines on the text boxes (noticable in below pic on Caution box, but happens randomly on other colored boxes also). 

This seems to be a consistent Adobe problem, as Word doesn't cause these artifact lines. 

I know that I can modify the preferences of the PDF, with things like uncheck Smooth Line Art and Enhance Thin Lines, and this does seem to get rid fo the white artifact lines. But then it screws up the way that the border lines on the headers and footers look.

I'm wondering if there's a way to create colored text boxes and not have these white artifact lines. 

Is there a way to add "padding" to the text box so that I don't have to use the Frame Above Pgf function? That function seems to be the culprit for creating the artifact lines, as the lines usually happen right at border of text. 

In the paragraph style, when I set space above paragraph, it doens't apply to the first line of text. Not sure why that would be the default behavior...

Thanks. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Did you make your colored blocks by putting a colored rectangle inside of a graphic frame?

[K.Daube]

Please check this:

• Full fm version? In the past there were some problems in this area.
• on the ref page the labels for the warning and caution block are interchanged (see colour of the frames)
• It seems to me that he frames on the ref page have not the same height (the yellow seems to be less high than the orange)
• Check whether colored background (¶-designer > advanced > paragraph box) provides better results (alone or in addition)

[jbarkerhill]

Thanks for the advice. 

The colored "padding" rectangles are on the reference page inside a graphics frame. I made sure to crop the graphics frame to the edge of the rectangle to avoid creating unwanted white space that way. 

I need to have a color set on the Pgf. Box setting in Paragraph Designer > Advanced. And having a background color set in Pagraph Designer > Font > Background doesn't seem make a difference (colored text boxes look the same whether this setting is on or off, and get artifact lines also with either on or off). 

The white lines don't show up when the page is printed. So I know these are artifact lines. 

However, the customer will likely view the documents electronically, and it looks bad having those lines. Maybe no one will notice it but it irks me. I may just have to accept the glitch. This style (colored text boxes) wasn't my prefernece but it's a style decided by other people I'm working with and I have to use it. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS · Accepted solution]

I've had better luck by coloring the actual graphic frame and not put a rectangle inside. I also give the graphic frame a stroke. 

[jbarkerhill]

I tried your advice to set the color on the actual graphics frame, and I think that helps. 

I tested a few outputs, and one box did still have a white line. 

But latest output didn't have white lines, and the ones I did see at least aren't visible at 100% zoom. 

So I think that will do it for me. Thanks for the help 🙂 . 

Also, when you say set a stroke, what settings do you mean?

This is the stroke dialog box: 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I was just using the Graphics toolbar. 

I find squinting helps too...

[jbarkerhill]

Here's some more info: 

The white artifact lines don't seem to show up when I turn off the Frame Above Pgf and Frame Below Pgf settings. 

So I think those functions are introducing the glitch. 

But then the text boxes look worse, having no padding. 

So I guess my question is if there's any way to add padding to text boxes without using the Frame Above Pgf function. 

Adding spacing to a paragraph using the Paragraph Designer > Spacing Above Paragraph doesn't work because they for some reason programmed this function to not apply to the first line of a paragraph. 

[Matt-Tech Comm Tools]

Have you considered using a 2-cell table for the content?

[jbarkerhill]

I've come across the method of using tables to format notes, cautions, etc. I like that method better. 

However, the other two writers I'm working with insist on using paragraph styles because they think it's easier (even though a table style is just as easy to apply once it's set up). 

The suggestion to use a colored graphics frame on reference page to add padding to text boxes seems to work pretty well (helped to eliminate artifact lines when PDF is at a normal zoom level). 

I've now encountered though that some of the text boxes (mostly just ones with a single line of text) still have the white artifact line. And the line even shows up when I print the page. The line is only visible when I zoom way in. Whereas before when I used a rectangle shape within a graphics frame on reference page as "padding" shape, the white lines were noticeable at normal zoom level (looks bad), but at least didn't show

up in printing. So guess I'll take my pick of glitches. 

[jbarkerhill]

Update:

More thorougly following the advice of Creamer Training I think did it.

I needed to apply a stroke to the colored graphics frame > Check box for Pen Pattern.

Now in the outputted PDF I don't see the artifact line on the text box that had it before. 

Maybe FrameMaker isn't glitchy after all. Just ununituitive. 

Sorry for longwinded thread. I don't see option to delete comments. 

[jbarkerhill]

* unintuitive (also no spell check in these comments hah)

[Matt-Tech Comm Tools]

Yeah, unintuitive to be sure. But the most owrkable long doc solution I know of.

I actually like to use paragraph styles with autonumbering (as in a W-Warning paragraph style that has Autonumbering set either to WARNING: or set to a warning icon) and then use the Pgf. Box property for color.

If you need padding, you should be able to bracket the W-Warning style with a P-Padding style that adds 2pts or more of colored space to the top or bottom.

The advantage (as your other writers will surely tell you) is that you can easily switch warning styles, or remove them altogether.

There are also some major advantages to avoiding the table method, if you publish to HTML and related formats.

Here's an example of using autonumbering for the warning, with a character style to provide the background color. This example is just a single paragraph, using (obviously) a single paragraph style. 

Here's a heading for the same client, paragraph-based, where I didn't have the padding issues you ran into

But here's what I use in my own work...these are individual paragraph styles, using a free icon font aptly named Font Awesome. I can swap or remove icons simply by applying the corresponding paragraph style

-Matt

[jbarkerhill]

Hi Matt, 

Thanks for the advice 🙂 . 

Yeah, I fairly recently joined a tech writing team documenting factory machines, with long manuals. The team recently switched to FrameMaker instead of Word, and I'm learning FM. It definitely seems like a powerful program and the right tool, but it can just be frustrating to learn. 

With those green text boxes, I assume you used the Pgf. Box: setting in Paragraph Designer > Advanced. It looks like there's no added "padding" on those. The issue I encountered was when trying to add padding to top and bottom of paragraph using Frame Above Pgf. and Frame Below Pgf., the colored rectangle pulled from reference page was introducting a glitch of a white artifact line. David's suggestion of using a colored graphics frame with stroke applied, on the referrence page, seems to resolve that glitch, hopefully. 

The other writer had already set up the paragraph styles for notes, cautions, etc. and I've just been fiddling with the formatting to improve it. 

I think he used that autonumbering strategy you're mentioning. 

[Bob_Niland]

On the colors per se, see also: ANSI Z535.1 Safety Colors in Frame (circa 2011) 

[jbarkerhill]

Hi Bob, 

Thanks for the advice about colors. 

I tested those colors, and got this. For the blue and orange though, since I'm using colored text boxes, dark text would be too hard to read. So I'll probably just stick with the light blue and orange I came up with even though I guess it deviates from the standard. 

[Bob_Niland]

We were using white text on blue & red.

But insofar as what colors to use, start with what safety std, regulatory, industry & liability carrier requirements apply.

Chances are, also, that ANSI Z535.1 & ISO 3864-1 have evolved since I last needed to know, and take into account the challenges of the web, monitors & end-user convenience printing.

[jbarkerhill]

I tried that out, and think it looks pretty good. The white text on blue is pretty high contrast though. I'll have to see if the other people I'm working with think this style is good. 

[jbarkerhill]

Decided to go with this:  

[jbarkerhill]

Update:

The white line glitch is coming back, even using David's method of colored graphics frame with stroke applied. 

The only failsafe way I've found to have a colored text box (as a paragraph style) without glitchy white artifact lines to to not apply the Frame Above Pgf and Frame Below Pgf functions. However, this means I can't add any padding to the text , because FrameMaker is also designed so that paragraph spacing doesn't apply to the first line of a paragraph, which makes no sense. 

Since I've already spent too much time wrestling with this I'm going to just use the text boxes with no spacing added, even though it looks not as good.