Background image in page layout doesn't appear

[amatsumoto]

I'm using v4.2. I recently added page layouts and added a background image to my first page. I see the image just fine when I look at the page layout itself, but the image doesn't show up in generated FrameMaker or PDF output. Does anyone know why this is?

Thanks!

[LTinker68]

Do you have a background color or image specified on the body or html tags in the stylesheet? Also, did you properly specify the topics in the TOC that are supposed to use that page layout?

[amatsumoto]

Yup, I specified chapter breaks and to start the new chapter with page First in the TOC. I don't have any background colors or images specified in body or html tags. Does the image need to be saved in a particular format? It's a .gif right now.

[LTinker68]

That shouldn't be a problem. And you made sure the body frame in your page layout doesn't have a background color or transparency set? I can't remember if you can set transparency or not. (And just to clarify, before I was referring to the body and html tags in the main topic stylesheet, not the page layout, but now I'm talking about the page layout body frame.)

[amatsumoto]

I added the image through Frame Properties, not Page Properties, if that makes any difference. I want the image to only appear in the top half of the frame. The Page Properties are set to the factory defaults. I have not tried reversing the property settings. Maybe the Page Properties override the Frame Properties?

In the Frame Properties dialog, my settings are Color = (default), Repeat = No repeat, Fill start/end appear to be set to (default) - the little icon doesn't show a color.

[amatsumoto]

Never mind...I tried adding the image to the Page Properties, then made my "First" page's body frame shorter. The background image shows up in the PDF.

[amatsumoto]

I take back some of what I said yesterday about it working.

I've discovered that if I generate the PDF output from within Flare, the background image appears. Unfortunately, if I generate the PDF build using madbuild in a batch program (which is how I'm typically trying to create our output), the background image does not appear. Has anyone else experienced this or have any ideas why that happens?

Thanks.

[siskamoens]

Flare 4.2 with PDF patch.

I'm having the same problem, only my background image doesn't appear in the pdf no matter what.
I have a cover page layout with the image set as a background image (only one page: First), and a cover page topic containing the manual's title text.

I tried:
- adding the image as a background image in the page properties
- adding the image as a background image in the body frame properties
- generating the pdf from within Flare
- generating the pdf with Madbuild

The strange thing is that I can see the image in Flare, when editing the page layout.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

[amatsumoto]

In our case, the image was supposed to be at the top 3rd of the page with part of the chapter name overlaying it. I finally used a workaround by putting the image in the Header frame. I made the height of the Body frame shorter, made the Header frame longer and inserted the image into it. I gave up trying to get any text to overlay, so the text starts just below the picture. It's a hack, but it works reliably for PDF. Not sure how it does for other print output.

[DianeP5001]

I'm trying to overlay topic text onto a page layout background image in my flare to word output. Has anyone figured out how to do this? I've submitted a defect but no word back yet.

[ruthhoward]

I just had this issue and discovered that my problem was that my CSS had background set to white. Setting background-color:transparent; sorted it out

[wolfmanjack]

Ruth, I had the exact same issue with the CSS background set to white. Thank for you catching that and for the solution! I wonder why it is set that way in the first place?