Oddball instructions question

[alaltenburg]

Hello all,
I am wondering if anyone has successfully used Madcap to create examples like the one below. Does anyone use Madcap to recreate this, or is the usual idea just to create it within photoshop and past it in?
I hope this question makes sense. I am trying to create a quick reference PDF manual. I would like to be able to do a PDF version of an image map found onscreen. Any ideas?

example.png

Thanks,
Andrea

[Andrew]

What do you mean by "user MadCap to recreate this"? I'm not sure what you're trying to do with the picture.

[alaltenburg]

I'm trying to create a picture similar to this within Flare. I'm wondering if it can be created within Flare, or if I need to create it in Photo shop and then import as a picture.

[Andrew]

There's no way I know of to create graphics like that using Flare. Via Capture, it can capture and manipulate existing images. Via CSS / xhtml, you may be able to get some basic graphics-ish done, but that would be...well, it wouldn't be easy, if possible at all.

May I ask why you want to use Flare for this? This sort of work is really ideal for Photoshop (or something like GIMP, if you need something free).

[alaltenburg]

I was asking as more of an inquisitive idea. I am creating a quick reference and was just wondering if there was an image mapping alternative for PDF files.

Thanks,
Andrea

[NorthEast]

To draw the image itself, you need a drawing tool - you can't do that part in Flare.

One idea for the text captions; if you have a copy of Capture then you could use that to add the captions, the advantage being you could edit them in the project without needing a copy of the drawing tool. It'd also be useful to do it that way if you translate the text to different languages.

[alaltenburg]

I do have capture, I just do not have photoshop any longer. Which is why I was wondering if a blown out version of a picture can be created.

Thanks,
Andrea

[alaltenburg]

I did figure out how to make my image work for me like the example above. I just change the callouts from bubbles to lines and it works great.

[RamonS]

If you are short of a decent image tool there is always GIMP. Does what PS does and doesn't cost a penny.

[alaltenburg]

I do not do a ton with imaging so it's not a big deal, I just wanted to label pictures. The only issue now is what you had stated in a earlier post regarding the gray background. I put in a feature request.

[ChoccieMuffin]

To get round the localisation problem, any pics I've put in my little book just have numbers as callouts, with a key in the Flare file to what the numbers mean.