Image quality in printed documentation stinks.

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gregoryrwalker
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Image quality in printed documentation stinks.

Post by gregoryrwalker »

So, I've got a diagram, created in Illustrator and saved as a .jpeg. It's a 1700 x 1700 px file and saved at 300 dpi.

I import it into Flare and it's gigantic. So, in Flare I use "edit with Madcap Capture." I use the scale setting to shrink it down to about 0.3. It looks as good as an image scaled down that much will look on a monitor in my online help, and I'm cool with that. However, in my printed documentation (Word 2007) the image is just as pixelated as it is on screen. I even use the "Print Format" setting as a .jpeg at 300 dpi and it still looks awful. I'm guessing there's something wrong in my work flow. Any suggestions?

Also, I've got some images in a shaded row of a table, but they keep the white background. Would importing a png with a transparent background keep this from happening.

Actually, any suggestions on a Best Practices work flow with capture of online and high quality printed documentation would be super!

--ger
RamonS
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Re: Image quality in printed documentation stinks.

Post by RamonS »

While I struggle with the same problem you may want to try and use a gif or png instead of a jpg. Jpg files are just huge unless one dials the compression up a lot and then they are small and look crappy. Just one more thing to try.
forfear
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Re: Image quality in printed documentation stinks.

Post by forfear »

I guess this is taken care of in Flare v4, through the use of stylesheets then..

has everyone seen this

http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... &sk=t&sd=a
If you submit your bug feedback request here, the more likely it'll get fixed or included in a future release
Open Utilities PageLayout Resizer for Flare/Blaze | Batch builder
beagley
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Re: Image quality in printed documentation stinks.

Post by beagley »

gregoryrwalker wrote:
Also, I've got some images in a shaded row of a table, but they keep the white background. Would importing a png with a transparent background keep this from happening.
Yes and no.

I am using PNGs with a transparent background throughout my project. When compiling to WebHelp, this works well. When compiling to PDF, the transparency comes out as white, as you have experienced. Frustrating.

I've searched through the forums and found several other people who have noted transparency difficulties when exporting to Word format. (They have to "reset the image" once they get to Word for the transparency to work properly.

If anyone reading knows of a work around, let me know. I need the transparency in my images to work for my PDF printed output.
RiverMonster
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Re: Image quality in printed documentation stinks.

Post by RiverMonster »

As this post is a year old you have likely figured it out now, but if not....just in case you resized in Capture 4 using "Print Size" rather than "Print DPI" there is a bug that results in a low quality graphic. May not be your situation but thought I would mention it just in case. I posted some "test" results on this a while ago:
http://forums.madcapsoftware.com/viewto ... =13&t=8032
Not sure if this is fixed in Capture 5 or not.

Cheers,

Adrian
DocuWil
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Re: Image quality in printed documentation stinks.

Post by DocuWil »

Hi Gregory

Did you use the feature to edit the picture with the Media Properties; that is, select the picture and press CTRL+ALT+B or right-click and select Object.
Then you can set the width to a certain value and the height to 'Automatic' or the other way around.
I use that a lot. As an example I created something for you. The picture below has a origin size of 1082 x 847 pixels.
With the Media Properties I set it to 300 x automatic and printed it in PDF:
pdf-wil.png
As you can see, it looks pretty good. The 'Automatic' setting lowers the size but enlarges the resolution corresponding.
It only works for documentation! Not for WebHelp.
I hope I could help you.
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Wil Veenstra

Documentation and Training Centre
Infologic Nederland
(Using Flare 11.1.2, Capture 7.0.0 and Mimic 7.0.0 in Windows 10 64-bit)
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