Support for Vector formats for hi-quality print

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forfear
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Support for Vector formats for hi-quality print

Post by forfear »

One of the ways in Word to get clean crisp line drawings is always to insert your line drawings, ie, business diagrams or charts, as EMF or WMF.

Was experimenting with this recently and am aware Flare does not support vector image formats yet...I couldn't get Visio to save TIFF files that retained the line drawing information...alas...

a little poking around...

Did you notice support for these formats HDP and WDP?


"...a new image format using the WDP file extension that promises "image quality comparable to JPEG 2000 with computational and memory performance more closely comparable to JPEG."
The WDP compression algorithm is efficient enough to run in-device and can deliver "mathematically lossless compressed images that are typically 2.5 times smaller than the original uncompressed data," the company said."

http://www.imaging-resource.com/NEWS/1148614858.html

other interesting tidbits, on wikipedia indicate it supports high dynamic range, higher compression rates...i guess this would appeal to the photographers and print specialists...interesting.

A little wikipedia turned out that these are new High Definition photo formats...imagine that...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Photo

I wonder if anyone is using this yet?

alas...flare does not support vector image formats yet like EMF, WMF, or SVG for resizable line drawings yet, but at least this turned up something new.


Other advantages of Vector picture formats
- lines in drawings, remain sharp lines when printed or resized, indistinguishable from the resolution in fonts
- usually any fonts in vector drawings, remain as fonts when printed, what this means is that the resolution of fonts in a vector image format are just as clear as the fonts in body text when resized or printed

unfortunately with vector image formats, they aren't supported natively to display on most web browsers unless its SVG.

other types of vector formats include, EPS, EMF, WMF, AI, DWG

these are the formats usually exported to in vector drawing apps like Visio, illustrator, AutoCad and Solidworks (arhictectural drawing tools)

anyway i thought i'd add something new to the forums...:)
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forfear
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Re: Support for Vector formats for hi-quality print

Post by forfear »

here's a little more about the WDP and HDP formats...

Ramon, a forum MVP, might have something to add :)


http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=38679
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scott
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Re: Support for Vector formats for hi-quality print

Post by scott »

Just to update this topic...

Flare 4 added support for the following image formats:

* EMF and WMF
* HDP and WDP
* EXPS and XPS
* XAML

hope this helps,
.scott
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LTinker68
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Re: Support for Vector formats for hi-quality print

Post by LTinker68 »

I'm not sure that all of those formats are supposed by web browsers, though, are they? If they're not and you're single-sourcing your content then you have to stick to a file format that is supported in both browser and print outputs, or else use two files for each image, one that can be viewed in the browser and one that can be printed.
Image

Lisa
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Re: Support for Vector formats for hi-quality print

Post by scott »

You're correct, Lisa. These formats are not supported by most browsers.

If you use a non-Web-safe format (anything other than gif, jpg, or png), you should select the "Generate 'web-safe' images" option on the Advanced tab of your WebHelp target and select gif, jpg, or png. Flare will then automatically create a web-safe version of the image for your WebHelp.
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forfear
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Re: Support for Vector formats for hi-quality print

Post by forfear »

The new 4.2 patch finally resolves the issue by providing REAL support for EMF. Well done!

Anyone working with Visio or line diagrams will want to save to EMF. No need for high resolution DPI image workarounds and all that. even if you are working with

Not WMF
Not XPS.
Don't even think WDP or HDP yet (Its not ready...yet)

This puts Flare and Blaze's picture quality support sufficiently high enough for pro-quality book printing - finally.

The benefits are W- A - A - A - Y too much in favour of a 'non-destructive' vector format for both online and your PDF outputs. Vector for online?
Flare 4 converts all your vector images to web-safe images (i.e png or JPEG) so they'll still look great in your help/online formats. Resize the 'vector' image before you compile to CHM or webhelp and you've still got the sharpest line drawings in town. you've got to try it to believe it.

And in PDF, the vector quality of the images are retained. Try zooming in on your EMF files in Acrobat, and you'll be laughin'.

Period...Think EMF....okay and PNG and JPEG for everything else.
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