Vector graphics import, labelling dilema

Report · Mar 08, 2011

I'm using Framemaker 10, Autodesk Illustrator Publisher, Inkscape, Windows Vista.

I have imported some CAD illustrations from Autodesk Illustrator into Illustrator Publisher. There I have labelled them.

I have then saved/published them as .svg files.

If I import them directly in to Framemaker, they open with the callouts at a strange angle and 3/4 of the picture missing. Therefore I have to open them in Inkscape, bring the whole picture in to frame and line up the callouts.

Now I import them into Framemaker. The trouble is, the numbering is difficult to predict. The labelling/callouts/numbering always turns what looks to be bold. But the real problem is resizing the illustrations. Because there is no way of predicting the size of the output from Publisher, the illustrations have to be resized in Framemaker. This would be no problem usually as the illustrations are svg (vector graphics) but of course it resizes the labelling/callouts/numbering which makes it look really daft when I have 10 illustrations all with different sized fonts.

What do people in here do? Does anyone else use Vector graphics in their manuals.

I would really appreciate some response on this as I feel I've hit a brick wall here.

Thanks

Report · Mar 08, 2011

> I'm using Framemaker 10, Autodesk Illustrator Publisher, Inkscape, Windows Vista.

Is Adobe Illustrator available?

> I have imported some CAD illustrations from Autodesk Illustrator into Illustrator Publisher. There I have labelled them.

Why not label them in Frame? We do, and it has advantages beyond avoiding text rendering and scaling issues, such as being able to re-use the same illustration for multiple purposes with different callouts. We use embedded callouts in our service manuals (the XML engine requires it), and depopulate the callouts (usually just switching off one layer) for re-use of that art in the Frame manuals.

> I have then saved/published them as .svg files.

Let me admit that I have no experience with SVG, due to lack of SVG support across all of our workflow, but we use vector EPS extensively.

> If I import them directly in to Framemaker, they open with the callouts at a strange angle and 3/4 of the picture missing. Therefore I have to open them in Inkscape, bring the whole picture in to frame and line up the callouts.

If SVG has preview/thumbnail embedded images, is there a chance that this is just a preview problem? What happens at print or render to PDF?

> Now I import them into Framemaker. The trouble is, the numbering is difficult to predict. The labelling/callouts/numbering always turns what looks to be bold. But the real problem is resizing the illustrations.

This is one of the downsides of embedded callouts. If the images cannot be pre-sized, either the text will scale arbitrarily, which is ugly, or it won't scale, which is a disaster. More bad news - your stroke weights are scaling too.

> Because there is no way of predicting the size of the output from ...

I would junk any image editor, vector or raster, that didn't provide that basic level of output control.

> Does anyone else use Vector graphics in their manuals?

Yes, sourced from Pro-E, AutoCAD, Adobe Illustrator, Frame and extractions from supplier PDFs of unknown origination. We clean them up in Adobe Illustrator, using specific dimensional extents, and a stroke weight that's acceptable for a limited range of up and down scalings. Callouts are added in Frame, using a self-masking arrow, and a self-masking bubble with a grouped text frame and a paragraph format specific to callout use.

Report · Mar 09, 2011

Bowen,

Whatever program you use to create your vector graphics, I suggest exporting/saving them as eps or pdf. Both work well in FrameMaker. I have never used svg.

I realize there are good reasons for adding callouts in FrameMaker, but personally, I do not like to Frame's drawing tools. So, I put the callouts in my illustrations created in Illustrator.

Van