Complete Capture newbie trying to start out right

[dorcutt]

Hi all,

I'm brand new to Capture. Pretty soon, I'm going to be replacing all my imported word images with Capture images, and I really want to make sure I do it right. I've been reading the guides, but I still have many questions. I've set up a basic profile. If there is some sort of resource that can help answer the questions below, by all means I'd love to watch/read it!

Anyway, here's what's stumping/concerning me:

1) How do I set up the initial capture resolution? Will it just grab "as is" and then make the files smaller for online and print? If I set the "print" to, say, 96 dpi (my documents will never be professionally printed, and if it is printed I'm OK with fuzzy images), will i make the image itself be captured smaller? This would make zoom-in effects and the like blurry.

2) File locations: I probably think I'm going to set up a single, non-project specific folder for images on my local computer, then periodically back it up to the network drive. Source control doesn't do images I imagine.

3) File Names: I kind of want to have descriptive names for my folders and images, but in my search and replace experience doing so can make searching and replacing a much, much more time intensive experience as I have to make sure not to accidentally replace words in filepaths. Any thoughts?

4) Callouts: Is there anything I have to do ahead of time to make sure that my callouts will scale properly with my images? I've read quite a bit about this and I'm still quite confused.

[NorthEast]

1) It'll grab the image at its real pixel size. The dpi won't affect the pixel size of the image in print, it'll just determine the image dimensions in the PDF; e.g. 300px at 100dpi = 3in.

2) It'd make more sense to keep them in the project. Plus I don't think Capture images can be outside the project, as it keeps the original image data in a props file, and generates output image files from that. If you're using Flare's source control intergration, it'll include all images and props files (basically everything in the Content folder).

4) The bug/issue with this is that when you scale the image using dpi, the font size also scales too - which it shouldn't, as it's a pt size not px size. Anyway, I'd advise using a small number of preset image sizes, i.e. combinations of image dpi and font pt size.

[dorcutt]

Hey,

Thanks for the answer, Dave! I just watched DocGuy's capture webinar and between that and your answer I feel like I have a much better grasp on things.

Creating combinations of DPI settings for images (controlled using CSS I'm assuming, not Capture profiles) and different point size callouts will take a bit of trial and error, I think, but it should be manageable.

I'm still curious about the best way of naming images. I suspect that the proper way of doing it is to use descriptive image names and then figure out how to use jEdit or some other similarly advanced tool to perform a search and replace using regular expressions that is smart enough to not replace things inside of filepaths. I'm still having nightmares about my initial import from Word when I did a search-and-replace to replace <ProductName> with the appropriate variable, and my project had <ProductName> in the filepath for every image...

[atomdocs]

Hi dorcutt

Concerning 2), Dave is right, images are stored inside your project, but there are couple of file management things you can do.

By all means, have a central image folder. You can create screencaps with Capture and save them to this folder. The props file is also saved here (it must always be kept with the capture if you want your Capture edits to remain editable). This means you can use this folder as a screencap source folder for all your projects. Whenever you add a capture to a project, the capture image file and the props file are copied to your project.

Building on this model > when you insert an image into a Flare project, you have the option of keeping the source image and the image in the project synchronised. That might be useful for global images.

I will try and have a look at your other questions. Good luck on your Capture journey. It is mostly very powerful, occasionally fairly limited, and generally quite quirky. It is closely integrated with Flare, and that is a great time-saver. If you have a FrameMaker background, it is not quite as good as Frame's image management, but it is still great if you learn the ropes (and there are a lot of ropes). I have been working in a limited DITA environment for many years, without any image management, so Flare + Capture is a massive boost for me.

[dorcutt]

Excellent, thanks for the feedback! Atomdocs, using image files in a central folder and copying them (and their corresponding props files) is an interesting idea, especially with the image synchronization option.

I am still hoping to keep most of my content for our main product in one project, but if I have to give up and make a few client-specific projects this technique could be very helpful.