When I look at linked Visio (2013) images in Framemaker 11, the text is corrupted. If I click on the image, and go into Visio, the images look fine in Visio. The particular corruption I see, is that rotated text comes out with the characters not rotated

[atish_smsc]

When I look at linked Visio (2013) images in Framemaker 11, the text is corrupted.  If I click on the image, and go into Visio, the images look fine in Visio.  The particular corruption I see, is that rotated text comes out with the characters not rotated.  So ABC will come out A on top of B on top of C without being rotated.  If I import into MS Word, the Visio drawing is okay.  If then import into Framemaker, it is okay.  Anyone know of a solution?

[Arnis_Gubins]

Did you copy & paste from Visio? If so, then you're not going to get anything better - the EMF format that is used is just not that well interpreted by FM's filters.

To get the best fidelity from Visio, create a PDF and then import that into FM.

[feknight8]

I have the same problem.  It worked fine until I updated from Windows 7 to Windows 10.  That is when it broke.  My visio files are linked as OLE2 objects.  I have Frame 9/10/11/12, and have been using these linked OLE images across all those FM versions, using several versions of Visio (the latest being 2007).  But now all those FM versions do the same thing - take vertical text (that is rotated 90 degrees) and ignore the rotation, so the letters are stacked on top of each other instead of running from top to bottom.

Since it broke after the upgrade from Win 7 to Win 10, I assume it is something MSFT changed that broke this.

Any chance FM 2015 would work?  Here is an example of what changed:

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Try it out by getting the FM2015 version as a trial on some
non-production machine – remember to patch it up right away (it doesn’t come
with all patches installed) before trying out a copy of your content. BTW – the
OLE method is really old & not really supported anymore in the MS universe.

[feknight8]

Thanks Jeff, Is there any kind of "linking" that does work today?  I have 100s of these kinds of figures, that occasionally need updating.  Today, I just do all my editing in Frame (double click on the linked image, and edit it).  Then print the FM document to PDF and everything is good.  The suggested methods mean I have to manually edit every figure in visio, and save each one as PDF.  The only automatic part is that FM will import the new PDF - but I still have the extra step of creating 100s of PDF files every time I need to make a change.

Any thoughts?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Supposedly it still works, but security tightening has made it less desirable. Best practices these days is to import by reference, which is a form of auto-linking since if you change the referenced file (keeping the same name), FM will automatically update the image in the FM content.

[Bob_Niland]

re: I assume it is something MSFT changed that broke this.

OLE is deprecated by MSFT itself. See this remark/link by Arnis.

OLE has always been unwise from a stewardship standpoint. It's a particular problem for documents that need to be sent outside the organization, such as for translation.

For objects sourced from Visio in particular, export the page/object as PDF, EPS or SVG. Import by reference into FM.

For extra credit, including some provenance detail in the object's margins (source file format, source file server/path, modification date, author ID, etc.) and crop that bit off with the Anchored Frame in FM. That info will be there for some future document maintainer to track back.

[feknight8]

OK, I hear what you're saying, but from the user perspective, you're asking me to change something that is working fine (the import part).  I import the linked document just fine.  FM finds the document and has full access to it.  The problem is the FM rendering of the content of that document. As you saying the rendering problem is tied to the method of import?  FYI, Visio and word can render it just fine, FM is the only one with the problem.

As for "stewardship" - you're asking me to add an extra step across 100s of files every time I make a change.  That is poor stewardship of my time.

My workflow today:

1) Open the book file,

2) open each individual chapter (about 10-15 chapters),

3) goto each figure, and

4) change it

5) print the book as PDF.

The suggested workflow is:

1) open visio

2) open a figure file

3) change it

4) print the figure as a PDF

5) go back to step 2) for the next figure (do this loop about 200 times)

6) open the book file

7) print the book as PDF.

We've stuck with FrameMaker because it is faster to edit and produce our documents (at 1000+ pages, 1000s of xrefs, with 200- visio figures it takes FM ~10 minutes to print the PDF).  Our production staff has been trying to get us to shift to Word, but it takes several hours to produce the PDF.  If our FM workflow starts taking as long as Word does, we'll have no reason to stay with FM.

[feknight8]

OK, another clue.  The plot thickens.

If I open a .vsd file in Visio 2007, and while it is open, I then open my .fm document that references THAT image - IT WORKS!

If I close that file in Visio 2007, and then open my document that references THAT image the vertical text is all messed up!

It seems that while the old Visio has the file open, it somehow changes how FM access that file.  Once the old Visio closes that file, FM doesn't work anymore.

SO, it appears that if I can open every one of my images (over 234 of them) in Visio 2007 (and leave them all open), and then access my book to print it - it should work - IF Visio can open that many files all at the same time!

Definitely a MSFT problem.