Illustrator text squishing/separating in WMF image

[justinr28947902]

Some times when I export WMF and import into Word, the image works perfectly. Other times, not so much. What am I doing wrong? I have Googled, I tried this trick, I tried that trick and nothing seems to work for consistency.

The Cold Water Mist.ai file works perfectly for me. I tried to place the Completed Wrapper.ai file, and it does not work.

Quick run down:

Saving as DXF from AutoCAD, Opening in Illustrator, Exporting as WMF, Importing in Word as WMF. When I resize the completed wrapper WMF image in Word the text will squish together or separate. I do not have this issue with the Cold Water Mist image.

Thanks

[John Mensinger]

Seeing as you didn't mention setting the text in Illustrator, I'll assume it is of AutoCAD origins, and I can say with near certainty, therein lies your problem. I suspect you'll have to start resetting all the text in Illustrator before you can expect to get reliably consistent results.

[justinr28947902]

Actually I am redoing the text in Illustrator. Sorry for not specifying earlier.

The process now is:

I receive the AutoCAD file. I remove about 50% of the information. The other 50% is deemed to be used for end user information (service manuals, marketing literature, etc). Save as DXF. Open in Illustrator. I will add an Illustrator text box and retype what the AutoCAD text states, then delete the imported AutoCAD text. The text used between AutoCAD and Illustrator are the same, Arial. In Illustrator I will make the text size 7pt or 10pt depending on image size/spacing.

[John Mensinger · Accepted solution]

Not knowing whether you're in a position to change this workflow, there are 2 options which would likely solve the problem you've encountered:

1. Export to EMF rather than WMF
2. In Illustrator, Select All > Copy / in Word, Paste Special > Adobe SVG*

*Option 2 produces a visibly better result, but I don't have enough experience with this method to be certain it won't pose unforeseen issues further downstream.

Actually, the best workflow change would be to replace Word with a true page layout application.

[justinr28947902]

I can change the image process anyway I want. They would do PDF images in the past, but after some time the images just started to look horrible. They would develop weird blotches and other issues.

The only process I am stuck with is using Word for now. I'd love to ditch Word. I have used FrameMaker in the past. Not the best, but not the worst program. The last company I worked for used a technical writing software developed by some European company. This program is what is used to write and manage content for some major automotive manufacturers. One of the best most simple programs I have ever used.

I have had issues with trying EMF before, but now it came out perfect. I could not get the SVG to save right, but I will try that later.

Thanks for your help.

[Mike_Gondek]

Your pdf settings may have been bitmapping items rather than staying all vector.  Don't give up on .pdf though as that format  should have the least issues for you now and in the near future. Enhanced meta file is  better than WMF so that is an excellent suggestion also and glad you got this working so quickly.

[John Mensinger]

MikeGondek  wrote

Your pdf settings may have been bitmapping items rather than staying all vector.  Don't give up on .pdf.

Not essential to any of my workflows, but I'm curious Mike; no matter what I do, inserting (an all-vector, Illustrator-saved) PDF in Word results in rasterization. What am I missing?

[Mike_Gondek]

For me did a test below on word 15.27 2016 for Mac. In the past did this on PC and worked good also. But I do not use word often and they keep changing the software, so anything is possible why this may not work for someone.

All I did was use command Insert >> Pictures >> Picture from File and chose the .pdf.

Sharp quality and fast and zoomed in 426%.

When PDF first was first importable into Microsoft 20 years ago this did not work well at first.

[justinr28947902]

I will check out the PDF settings. I have been a technical writer for 10 years and for the most part I have used proprietary writing programs. Everyone is using something different. I have never really used Illustrator to manage technical images. For the most part I have used Solidworks/AutoCAD/Whatever file, and then create a PDF or PNG image. I would upload that into the document and have no issues, but again I was not using Word as the "content manager".

The best process for me was to copy/paste the AutoCAD image into Word. If I ever need to edit it, I could edit this image on the fly by just double clicking the image. Unfortunately I found out that depending on how manufacturing plants/regions print the materials, the AutoCAD image output may vary. Some nice and clean, others light and hard to read.

My goal this year for the company I work with is image improvement. Over the past month (I started this task in December 2017) I have had great success with using EMF/WMF/PDF, but then I come across an issue from time to time where it will just fails across the board.

[Mike_Gondek]

Appears you are having some issues with live type & the Windows Meta File old file format that has not been updated

Try exporting .pdf format from autocad and importing that into word.

If the file looks fine in illustrator,  outline the type, and then save to a format word will accept. PDF is more reliable as I have had strange experience with wmf in the past and even changing your printer settings would make files output incorrectly.

[Andrew31702771az5t]

I have the correct answer for you. I expierence this regularly... UNTIL I found something that has fixed it for me 100% of the time... In Illustrator, before you export your WMF, make sure your Font size is a WHOLE NUMBER, 6 or 7 or 8... NOT 6.5, or 7.6, or 8.3). Sometimes in AutoCAD even if your font is an even number, Illustrator will slightly scale the graphic. Either scale the entire graphic back up so your font is a whole number again, or just select all the text and make it a whole number. The problem of overlapping text and spaced-out text has never happened after correcting font size.

Hope this helps future users.