Image quality in Robohelp

[Guest]

I have a linked Framemaker book with images throughout. The image quailty in the finished Robohelp Webhelp html isn't very good.

What are the "best practices" etc. that will get me decent image quality?

Also, how can I get an image to spawn a larger version of itself when clicked?

Regards,

RP

[dcrouse10]

Hello all,

I have TC3 and it is still an issue.

What worked for me, which is a kluge but once done does not have to be done again, is to add a Text Frame into the Anchored Frame of the image.  The text frame can be empty.  For whatever reason, I got my image quality back in RH and in the generated help files after doing this.

I would be interested to hear if this works for anybody else.

[IDON_THAVEONE________]

I am absolutely crushed, infuriated, and feeling deeply betrayed by Adobe. I've followed every 'instruction,' 'fix,' 'workaround,' etc. that I've been able to find to generate good quality images from Framemaker to Robohelp. Everything has failed. I finally found the following document: "Troubleshooting FrameMaker content conversion in RoboHelp - Part 2/Images," on blogs.adobe.com. Basically, according to this paper, there is no such thing as single-sourcing both a printed document AND Help from Framemaker. Robohelp no longer converts high resolution images to web-ready resolution. This means, if you are writing a document that will be going to be printed as a book, AND you have conditioned content in that same Framemaker book that you are conditioning for help, you will need to use two sets of images ... one for high-quality printing and a second set in exactly the resolution needed for online help. 

Not only is Adobe lying to us about the benefits of Framemaker as single-source, it is lying to us about Robohelp's ability to handle images. Following the information in the above mentioned paper, I have recaptured all of the system screens at the required dpi. They still look like crap after Robohelp has processed them.

In addition, some additional art work is needed to clarify some of the topics. I create all the new artwork in Photoshop, at the required dpi, and they are completely illegible once Robohelp is finished with them.

I've been using Framemaker since the early 1990s and Robohelps since it entered the market. I've NEVER had these kinds of problems. The quality has diminished to the point that these products are basically unusable.

The poor product performance and lack of support has caused me considerable grief, cost me a lot of money, time, is causing health problems and has distrupted my life.

Why is it so difficult to create products that do what Adobe claims they'll do? What has happened to the Adobe of the past that was approachable and produced quality products? 

[Peter Grainge]

I understand your frustration but you are wasting your time with these comments here as it is a user to user forum. It is not offiicially monitored by Adobe and your comments are aimed at them.

I cannot help you with FM related matters but those who can may find it useful to know what version of the Technical Communication Suite or individual products you are using.

Clearly there were problems as this thread evidences but I cannot help but feel solutions must have been found as it is a while since any new posts appeared. Hopefully your post and my reply will reach some of those who had image problems and they will assist.

---

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[RoboAsh]

HI ,

         Can you please share a sample FrameMaker document having few images which do not appear properly in the output and mapping settings (.isf file exported from RoboHelp's Project settings dialog) so that I can try and Help.

Regards

Ashish

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

I cannot disagree more strongly with your post.

I've successfully used these products since FM8 and RH7. I've helped lots of clients to do the same.

With each release, the integration features are greatly improved and I've not had issues with my graphics.

I'd be happy to spend a few minutes to screen share to see what it is you're describing. I imagine one of 2 things will happen:

1. I'll understand what it is you're experiencing and be able to help others avoid similar problems
2. We can get you back to where you need to be

Please let me know if you'd like to take me up on my offer.

-Matt

[ZeBarron]

A good bet is that RoboHelp does not handle PNGs very well. We have examples that JPEG works better when used with e.g. callouts and arrows, but the overall problem with JPEGs (imho) is that they are not suited for print (i.e. PDFs) due to issues related to resizing and compression which often degrades the image more than is the case with PNG. PNG is a format that works well for outputting PDF and WebHelp but not when adding anchored frames on top of them ... .

[RoboAsh]

HI ZeBarron,

      Have you tried distiller route for .png images with callouts with TCS 3?

Regards

Ashish

[ZeBarron]

Not sure what you mean by "distiller route". If you are thinking of another step, outside the regular conversion process (FM -> RH), I am not familiar with that. However, I would most certainly like to know more

That said, we do not use TCS 3 and will probably not upgrade from FM 9 and RH 8 (standalone licenses) as we are moving towards DITA and other tools. The idea behind this move is to open up the documentation source to more contributers (mostly R&D). Having a bunch of FM and RH licenses is just a waste of money.

Regards,

Jon

[RoboAsh]

I was talking about an option in TCS 3/RoboHelp 9 for image conversion (in the conversion setting under the image tab - there is an option to "use distiller to Generate images"), which uses distiller route to generate images which are of high quality.

Regards

Ashish