Illustrator graphic issue in achored frame

[Guest]

How can I paste an Adobe Illustrator (AI) graphic into an achored frame? Instead of just the graphic, the picture comes in with the white art board background. I asked the question in the Illustrator forum and they said it was a FrameMaker issue. I'd rather not crop it in the frame. It just increases the size and makes the page scroll slower.

Thanks!

[ArnisG]

FM only sees AI files as a form of PDF, and doesn't get all of the proper information. Remove or hide extraneous objects on your artboard and then save as EPS (or PDF, but FM converts to PDF to EPS internally anyway, so you can save a step). Select the anchored frame and then import the EPS by reference. If you try to copy & paste, you will get an OLE object and your graphic will actually render as a WMF.

[Guest]

Thanks for your help. Sounds like EPS is the way to go.

[Art Campbell]

If I had to use a raw Illustrator file, I would import it by reference (File > Import (which creates the anchored frame for you)), not paste it in... and then adjust the offset of the graphic within the frame to display it properly and eliminate the white space.

But if you're not going to modify the Illustrator file in the future, I'd save it as a PDF from Illustrator and do the File > Import process on the PDF.

Note that if you work with a PDF, you can crop the file to eliminate any white canvas.

Cheers,

Art

[Van Kurtz]

My experience is to always use eps files from Illustrator and not AI or PDF; and import by reference. The eps file is still editable in Illustrator, and there is no white area to crop out. The size of the eps is its bounding box.

[Guest]

Thanks very much for your help!

[Guest]

I was just testing the AI file vs. the EPS file in my FrameMaker document. The AI file was clear. The imported EPS file had fuzzy lettering etc.

I snagged the graphic from Frame...this is what the EPS pic looked like. This drawing was originally made in CorelDraw and converted to AI. Any thoughts? Thanks!

[Arnis Gubins]

What you're seeing is the low-res preview image create for the EPS. Since FM (on Windows) doesn't support display postscript, that's the only way to see something on the screen - it's quick & dirty, but let's you know that you've properly placed and sized the graphic.

When you print to a postscript device or create a PDF, then you will see the proper high-res postscript component.