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Question

Problem importing graphics

Forum|Forum|11 years ago
September 8, 2014
5 replies
3874 views

I have been using FrameMaker 6 ----> 9 for 15 years.... Ever since I started I have had a problem importing graphics. Basically I will try to import an image by copying from another source and pasting into my FM document. Usually it is by taking a screenshot, or just right-clicking on an image from another source, and selecting "copy." Then when I paste it in, it does paste in but it is a lower resolution than the source. Sometimes it is larger (exploded) than the source and I can resize it to look OK but it never ends up looking as good as the original source. I can take the exact same image and paste it into a simple graphics program, like Windows Paint, and it looks perfect, exactly like the original source. but when I paste it into FM, it is pixelated, blurry, the wrong size (usually too large), etc... I work on technical documents and it is important that our graphics are clear and easy to read, so this is a real problem for me (and my team).

I have attached two images.... a screenshot of the exact same image after it is pasted into Paint and then into FM:

pasted into MS Paint:

pasted into Frame 9:

as you can see it's a bit larger. when I try to shrink it, I can never seem to get it back to the original size or clarity.

(note the version from MS Paint looks EXACTLY like the original, and I can paste into other programs like Word and it also pastes in correctly)

If anyone could help me out with this I'd really appreciate it.

thanks,

gary in vermont

This topic has been closed for replies.

E

Engineer_technical_writer

Known Participant

Hello,

This was a interesting topic to read

Maybe I should have created a new topic, but I have a problem with importing Graphics also, but not with copy&paste though.

We use WMF files that are imported (by reference) from CAD drawings in FM a lot.

Now I would like too change that workflow and start using SVG files instead, as everybody seems to talk about SVG,

and I don't think DITA supports WMF. The SVG Graphics are also much nicer looking.

However, a lot of times FM failes to import the SVG file (crashes), or "the filter encountered a problem and could not complete the translation".

Do you have any tips or tricks? That would be very helpful.

Cheers

S

Seanb_us

Inspiring

I'd start a new thread. But, some thoughts: I never nailed this down. Adobe dropped SVG when they swallowed Macromedia (for Flash), I'd pick EMF over WMF, but would try DXF or EPS first.

Arnis Gubins

Inspiring

SVG is still quite viable and would be needed for vector graphics in HTML and ePub outputs. Not much work has been done with this import filter in prior releases, but with the shift to multi-channel publishing and Adobe's awareness of some bugs related to font handling, there may be improvements.

However, with the current problem of failed imports, it might be a function of the application creating the SVG files. Has the SVG been validated using something like the W3C online validator (The W3C Markup Validation Service) ?

For CAD drawings, PDF and EPS work quite well in FM and have more stable import filters. I would recommend this route and would discourage the use of MS WMF/EMF formats due to issues with font handling and text rendering.

S

Seanb_us

Inspiring

Hi,

What is your output and do the images look okay there? I mean, if you are not giving your customer FM files, it does not matter what the FM screen preview looks like. If you are giving your customer printed files, the printed output matters, so how does that look.

Also, your workflow is suboptimal. Word is not a graphics format and JPEG is a poor choice for those kinds of images. Those kinds of images should be vectors and not rasters, and as vectors would be unaffected by things like resolution.

Instead, find the original artwork, probably EPS, AI, CDR, etc. Import the original artwork by reference into FrameMaker. If you can't find the originals, redraw them as vectors. Lastly, if none of those are options, at least use PNGs, because PNG does not throw data and quality away, like JPEGs do.

I hope this has given you some ideas,

Sean

G

garybeckwithAuthor

Known Participant

After quite a bit of experimentation I found a workaround to this bug.

I noticed that if I copy/paste an image in a website that is displayed in a browser, it pastes into FM just fine.

(in contrast, when I do the exact same thing when the source is in Word, it comes out resampled like above).

So as a workaround, I will copy the image from Word (or another source that produces the resampling bug) into a graphics program, and save it as a jpg, gif, or tiff file. Then, using notepad or any simple text program, I create a simple web page in html like this, and put it in the same folder as the image file:

<html>

<html>

then I open the html file in a browser, right click on the image, select "copy" and then paste it into my FM document.

Works like a charm and there is no resampling. the pasted image looks exactly like the source.

Why in the world it resamples from Word and other sources, but it doesn't with web images, I have no idea. I consider it a bug.

Cheers,

gary in vermont

Jeff_Coatsworth

Community Expert

Knock your socks off Gary – FM is not a graphics program.

G

garybeckwithAuthor

Known Participant

It’s just not really designed for pasting images in, sorry – not a bug.

call it what you want.... If FM isn't designed for pasting in images, why does it have that feature enabled?

Most (or all) other publishing programs, many of which are much less sophisticated than FM, can paste in images just fine.

Pasting in images is part of the normal publishing process.. I can't imagine publishing documents without the ability to paste in images. If FM "isn't designed for pasting in images" maybe they should consider adding that feature because every other publishing program can do it just fine.

FM pastes images in correctly some of the time, but not all the time.

if that's not a bug, I don't know what is.... but hey, i'm just a user who's been using FM and other documentation programs for 15 years.

cheers

Bob_Niland

Community Expert

> ... problem importing graphics.

> ... when I paste it in, ...

Pasting is not "importing", per se. Apart from the provenance issues with copy-into-document, you lose a lot of control over encoding and compression (and for contone images, you also lose any profiles). Pasting from one app to another puts you at the mercy of your operating system's clipboard, which is rarely sufficiently graphics-aware. Clippy will happily convert your nice CMYK, grayscale or bitmap graphics to RGB.

And there's the provenance issue. With paste-in or copy-into-document, future document stewards are apt to have no clue where that image came from, if it needs revising. I've inherited a lot of mystery content like that, and have had to re-create almost all of it (now with traceability).

Store your images in external files (in some common place with a log for extra credit).
File > Import > File

Import By Reference.

In the specific case of things that started as line art, if the authoring app generated vector art, keep it vector. Export/Import as PDF, EPS or SVG. You don't have to worry about dpi and pixels with vector art in these formats, because it's essentially infinitely scalable without damage.

If you can't do that, use a suitably high dpi, and a graphics file format that at least supports non-destructive (lossless) repeat-count compressions, like LZW or ZIP. Even the RLE of BMP is better than JPG's DCT damage. For raster images, know what your image pixel dimensions and/or resolution at all points in the workflow. This tends to be a culture shock for those raised in MS Windows, where the prevailing dogma is: you don't need to know, and we won't tell even if you ask. Sorry. You need to know.

Avoid using lossy compressions like that used in JPEG. The "ringing", blurring and stray gray pixels on edges is a classic sign that a curve-matching compression, usually DCT, has been used. Color space reductions, chroma subsampling and other transforms also irreversibly reduce image quality.

Arnis Gubins

Inspiring

The FM image seems to be re-sampled (289x208) compared to the MS Paint one (233x168). Being a JPG, that sort of operation (that tries to add additional pixels), degrades anything that looked like lines or text. The source for this type of graphic should be using a non-lossy image format. JPG's are for photographic rendering of scenes, not screenshots or line art. [FWIW, this example would be best served as vector graphics rather than as an image, but that's a different discussion).

I'm not certain of what you're precisely doing in FM. I took both your images from your message and they pasted (using both the standard Paste ctrl+v and Paste Special [both as DIB and BMP options to see if those made any differences]) into FM exactly as is. I see no change in quality (i.e. the MS Paint looks like what you posted as does the FM one that is different):

Can you explain exactly the steps that you are doing and which method(s) for pasting your graphics into FM. Also, do yo have any third-party clipboard utilities installed?

As a workflow, I would also not recommend using Paste to get your graphics into FM. Depending upon the source, you could also be creating OLE objects that are rendered as Windows Metafiles in FM. Also, if the content of those graphics is ever updated or you need to re-use them, then you have additional maintenance issues. Having the graphic as an external object and then importing by reference is a much more stable/predictable workflow.

G

garybeckwithAuthor

Known Participant

hi, and thanks for your help.

to answer your question of how the images were created, I have spent a lot of time trying different ways of importing graphics and I get results like this with many of them. the images in the post are not the best example because I had to find a public image to show (I could not include a proprietary image from my work as an example).

Here is an example of how I would typically do it in my work, that resulted in something similar as you see in the top post.

1) Image is in another source (MS Word in the current example I'm working on)

2) I right click on the image, select "copy"

3) I paste it in to FM.

4) The resulting image is resized and blurred.

Notes:

--there is no use of screenshots in this example. I am just copying from Word into FM. I am not saving or converting the image to JPG or anything like that. just copy and paste.

--it does't matter if the image is text, line art, or an intricate drawing created in another program and then put into MS Word before I received it. All of them appear blurred when I paste into FM.

--while the source in this example came from MS Word, I experience similar effects with other source, including Visio (often used by our engineers).

--it is not really an option for us to save all our graphics as external objects. we sometimes manipulate the image after it is in FM, adding labels, covering items with whitespace, etc, and we need it to all be flat inside the FM file. some of our documents have hundreds or thousands of images and it would be difficult to manage them all as external files. Also our technical writing staff is not all equipped with sophisticated imaging software to manage graphics (such as photoshop, illustrator, etc). FM is our graphics tool. It has served us well for the most part (except for this copy/paste issue) as many of our graphics are schematic line drawings and the FM tools are good for this.

--I have tried many ways to copy images into FM, including taking screenshots, going through a graphics program between the source and FM, and others. Sometimes I am surprised and it works OK but most of the time I have this blurring/exploding effect. I have not been able to find a method that works consistently.

--I have experienced this problem on multiple computers and with multiple versions of FM, over a long period of time.

Perhaps there is some kind of real/good reason this is happening, but I think it is a problem. I have used many other documentation programs such as Word, Open Office, ... and if I copy an image from another source into the document, it appears exactly as it did in the source. I see no benefit of FM resampling the image, with a simple copy/paste.

thanks

Bob_Niland

Community Expert

> ... I am just copying from Word into FM ...

In Word, select the image.
Right-click Save-as-Picture
.tif
to some file path that FM can find, filename temp.tif.
In FM, File > Import > File
some file path and temp.tif
Copy into Document

Delete the temp.tif when the document is complete. This avoids the damage caused by using the clipboard, and, as desired, you still end up with space-consuming embedded graphics that have no history as to where or when they came from or where else they might be used.

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