images shown as gray boxes in ditamap -> book with FM component -> publish to PDF

[Andy38108926n5yf]

I've just picked up FM again between projects, and after a small progress I noticed the logo I've put on the book cover and header/footer sometimes printed as gray boxes in the final PDF.

At worst, every images (.PNG) would become gray boxes. Sometimes, it happens only on some of the chapters.

The workflow was:

1. create a blank DITA bookmap, then adding a couple of conrefs from the book tree menu.

2. save as book with FM component, in order to modify the TOC.

3. at this point, the images (cover logo, header/footer) would be shown correctly on every page.

4. Publish the FM book to PDF, then the error occured.

I have modified the DITA/outputTemplates for the intended layout.

During the early attempts of these templates creation, I've encountered an error where FM was asking for the image file location (file missing error). I never saw any of those errors after. The image file was always in the same location, though.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Andy

[mk-will]

Hi, @Andy38108926n5yf ,

it is always a good idea to also write about the used environment: what FM version (x.x.xxx), OS ("win10/11" is not enough), file-paths and any (error)-message.

"The image file was always in the same location, though."

So what is the path of that location?

A network share, a cloud share, local path?

The picture is still shown in FM, correct?

What do you get as path-information when you click on the image and open the properties of that image?

Regards

Stephan

[Andy38108926n5yf]

Thank you for the quick repsonse, @mk-will 

FM is 17.0.4.628

Windows 11 Business 10.0.22631 build 22631

I keep everything on local drive, precisely to avoid any potential network problem.

Documents path is c:\docs\eotg

Images path is c:\docs\img

FM templates is in default path, I copy my modified DITA templates into it manually

1.  Images are shown correctly in FM, whether it's the DITA bookmap or the book with FM component.

2. Single page export to PDF works perfectly.

3. ESC g o reveals referenced file as c:\docs\img\logo.png.

4. This issue happens occasionally, I can't always produce the same error. Save (the book with FM comp.) as PDF seems to work better compared to Publish as PDF. But I haven't tested it long enough to be certain.

5. Current workaround is to just import the image and do copy into document. I would much prefer to have it referenced instead.

Regards,

Andy

[mk-will]

@Andy38108926n5yf ,

your paths are fine as they give relative paths in FM.

If I remember correctly I have read about occasionally occuring problems with PNG files in FM and your desciption sounds familiar.

So as a test I would change the PNG format to TIF format (I am using only TIF files for graphics in FM), referencing the TIF file in FM and testing what happens with your PDFs.

Regards

Stephan

[Andy38108926n5yf]

Hi @mk-will ,

Thank you for confirming the image format problem.

A few months ago, I've had my suspicious about this. I've experimented with lines and boxes in place of an image, and true to your suggestion, those primitives worked just fine whereas the images were gray boxes.

Lately, I somehow managed to make FM works with PNG. And then out of the blue, it popped right back out.

Just now, I found out:

1. the cover logo was copied into, so no problem there.

2. I referenced another image in the cover's master page, linked to c:\docs\img\logo.png.

3. I referenced a copy of that image in the chapter's master page, but this one 'automatically' linked to $structdir...\dita\img\logo.png.

Somehow something replaced my referenced header/footer image to the $structdir location, explaining the gray boxes indicating missing file. I bet this is the reason of my problem.

Do you happen to know the cause?

Regards,

Andy

[mk-will]

Hi @Andy38108926n5yf ,

sorry, no idea.

Regards

Stephan