FrameMaker Text Frame Callouts Fail to Import

[servobot]

Howdy all,

I am trying to import a FrameMaker book into Flare. Images in anchored frames make it through, but callouts contained in text frames inside the anchored frame do not.

This appears to be a known issue, but support has not yet offered a workaround.

Has anyone here overcome this issue, without recreating the callouts in an image editor, such as Capture? We simply don't have time to do it in the first iteration of our move from Frame to Flare.

We have thousands of graphics with callouts. Each of these can have up to 10 callouts. Recreating this all by hand would be impossible in the brief window we have planned for conversion.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

[GregStenhouse]

Flare uses distiller to create JPGs out of anchored frames with images and callouts. Maybe there is something wrong with your Acrobat installation - issues I've had in the past were resolved by uninstalling Acrobat (or the PDF tool that comes with FrameMaker), and reinstalling. Also, I've had issues with Chinese text not coming through before - maybe it's a font thing? Perhaps try something generic like Arial (if not aleady).

To help diagnose, it may be best to test with a single document (so you don't waste time importing large FrameMaker books each time). Experiment with different types of anchored frames, image types, FrameMaker drawing tools, and different fonts and see if you can narrow down what comes through and what does not. Is anything appearing in your Flare error logs?

Finally - if you do get callouts to appear you may be disappointed with the quality. I find the end result (being JPG) is quite blurry.

Good luck.

Cheers
Greg

[servobot]

Thanks, Greg!

I followed the recommendations in the Transition from FrameMaker Guide, but they don't include any details on how to handle fonts in Distiller. I will fool around in the settings before I attempt to re-install the Acrobat portion of ATCS.

Frame drawings, such as arrows connected to callouts come though. The only thing that fails to render is text frames within anchored frames. Text that isn't contained in text frames comes through.

Nothing appears in the Flare error logs, but on the Frame side, these errors appear in my console for each failed graphic:

The font file may be damaged.
MIF: "C:\Users\andys\Documents\FlareConversionSupport\Element Manager\Output\AndyS\Temporary\FrameImport1\Getting Started.fm.mif.mifimages\28.mif" (10418): Missing dimension.
MIF: "C:\Users\andys\Documents\FlareConversionSupport\Element Manager\Output\AndyS\Temporary\FrameImport1\Getting Started.fm.mif.mifimages\28.mif" (10419): Missing dimension.
maker: Cannot read font metrics from font file named MicrosoftSansSerif.

Support says there is a known defect for this, but they don't have a workaround, and I doubt that a bug fix would be coded in time for me to make my deadline.

So, to confirm, you are able to convert text in text frames, which, in turn, live in anchored frames?

Flare uses distiller to create JPGs out of anchored frames with images and callouts. Maybe there is something wrong with your Acrobat installation - issues I've had in the past were resolved by uninstalling Acrobat (or the PDF tool that comes with FrameMaker), and reinstalling. Also, I've had issues with Chinese text not coming through before - maybe it's a font thing? Perhaps try something generic like Arial (if not aleady).

To help diagnose, it may be best to test with a single document (so you don't waste time importing large FrameMaker books each time). Experiment with different types of anchored frames, image types, FrameMaker drawing tools, and different fonts and see if you can narrow down what comes through and what does not. Is anything appearing in your Flare error logs?

Finally - if you do get callouts to appear you may be disappointed with the quality. I find the end result (being JPG) is quite blurry.

Good luck.

Cheers
Greg

[servobot]

I fixed the issue by changing the font in the offending Paragraph tag.

In this case, apparently the conversion process was choking on the Microsoft Sans Serif font. I changed it to Verdana and the callouts started appearing in the converted graphics.

[GregStenhouse]

Good result! Pleased that you found the problem. We use Calibri and that comes through OK (I find that font gives the best result at smaller sizes in callouts).