Captured screenshots stretching in browser window.

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
March 17, 2010
2 replies
2769 views

Hello. I'm using RoboHelp HTML 8.0.2.208. I'm creating an online user manual (exporting as FlashHelp), for which I am capturing many screen shots of my application, and cropping to various sizes (using RoboScreenCapture). I'm editing the size of the new images, and generally "maintaining aspect ratio" and setting the preferred width to 80%. When I initially preview the topic and new image, the image is often (not always) stretched horizontally down the screen. If I close preview, and re-open (without saving or anything), the image is then displayed fine. The same thing is happening with my generated output file, both while viewing in a web browser, and within a JFrame: When you click on a topic in the TOC, the screen-captured images are distorted and stretched horizontally. If you simply re-click the topic and reload the page, the displayed image appears fine. Images in the same topic, further down the page, however, display the same behavior until you re-load with them in the viewing pane.

If there is a fix to this, can it be applied to all of my images? Thank you!!!

Chris

HTML

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A

Anonymous

Hi,

Resizing of screen shots is a problem I've wrestled with also. The way I usually do it is as follows:

Capture image using paintshop pro and do any cropping or special effects in there but leave size alone.
Save as a gif
Then if I need to resize the image I import into Viso which allows me to re-size the iamge with very little loss of resolution prior to re-saving as a gif.
For most situations I bring the image into RH at actual size.

C

csmysticAuthor

Participant

All - Thanks very much for the replies and helpful discussion. It seems the consensus is to resize the image before import (if necessary, but not recommended). I was hoping to utilize the '%' variable for "preferred width", however this doesn't seem appropriate unless you are specifically defining the size of your web page, which I am not. So, I'll have to decide on an appropriate static size for most images and stick with that. Thank you!!

Chris

Peter Grainge

Community Expert

If the image is in RH and then you resize it, you need to right click the image and select Reset Size. Could that be it?

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

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C

csmysticAuthor

Participant

Thanks Peter, but I don't think that's it. 'Reset' brings the image back to the original size, which in this case is too big for the FlashHelp browser. It appears that the problem is with the "Preferred Height" setting, which is being captured as a percentage when I set my "Preferred Width" setting to 80%. When the page first loads, the overall length is not static, so the image is stretched. Once the page length info is cached, and the image re-loaded, it displays fine.

Maybe a better question for this forum is: What is the best practice for setting RoboHelp screen capture image sizes to achieve the optimal display for users?

Captiv8r

Legend

RICK

The bottom line is to capture, then scale to the desired size and save. Then import into RoboHelp at the saved size.

All I was getting at was that I think it's OK to resize before inserting or after, provided that where you resize after you do so either as I described or using the Resizer tool in the tool box rather than by double clicking the image in RH.

CSMYSTIC

'Reset' brings the image back to the original size, which in this case is too big for the FlashHelp browser. It appears that the problem is with the "Preferred Height" setting, which is being captured as a percentage when I set my "Preferred Width" setting to 80%.

That suggests you are resizing by using the Size button in the Image dialog so that the image is one size and the display is another size. Can you not resize the image in the way Rick and I are suggesting? That is truly resizing it rather changing its display size.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

Hi Peter

I totally agree with you. After all, resizing is resizing and it really doesn't matter if you resize before insertion or after insertion. It just seems simpler to me if you resize before you even insert, because then you don't have to take the extra step of remembering to reset the size in the page once you have finished with the resizing.

I think the issue here is that we are essentially talking about two different approaches. The correct approach totally depends on where the beginning point is.

If you aren't sure about the size to begin with, or you received a system, page or other document that has the image in it already, Peter's approach is the only real approach you have. Insert, observe, resize, save and reset, observe...

If you already know the size you want, just resize and save before dropping into RoboHelp.

This has been an interesting thread. First I've ever seen where someone suggested Visio produces the "cleanest" resized image. We used to see that Microsoft Word was suggested for that very reason. Folks claimed that viewing the image at the scaled size in Word resulted in a nicely reduced size. They would then screen capture that image for use later.

Cheers... Rick