Images in PDF output very small

[jolev64]

our online help site is working fine, all graphics are correctly sized. i when i output as pdf, however, many if not most of the graphics are the size of a postage stamp. do i have to strike a copy of the online project and go through and resize all undersized images for the pdf version? is there a way to get all the graphics back to the right size for the pdf version?

thanks!

joel

[techwriter31]

Within your PDF target file, I'd check the PDF Options tab to see if image compression is enabled.

[jolev64]

hi, thanks for the quick response!

there's no option to disable compression, only to switch from automatic to jpeg, which i did. i also set the quality to maximum, with no change to the images.

anything else i might try? grateful for the help!

joel

[techwriter31]

For the image compression options in your target file, is the "Downsample images..." option checked? If yes, I'd try unchecking it and regenerating your PDF.

[jolev64]

downsample images isn't checked.

i think i can manually resize each image but that would be pretty time-consuming and less than fun.

thanks!

[techwriter31]

Hmmm. Maybe check your style sheet and see if there is a max-width or max-height specified for the img style? If using a medium for your PDFs, make sure to check this medium specifically.

If not, maybe check the individual images to see if a "Print Size" was defined (right click the image > Edit Image > Print Size tab)?

[jolev64]

everything's set to default in the style sheet...

when i get the image size with a right-click, i'm getting lots of zeros. bizarre, because this isn't the case with the online version of the doc. as soon as i told flare this copy was going to be output to pdf, it responded by very cruelly shrinking all my pictures.

i'm kind of resigned to going through and resizing everything by hand. should take a day or two. just wish there was a magic spell i could say that would work.

any other buried settings i can fiddle with? i appreciate it.

joel

[jolev64]

a bit more information, if anyone's still on this issue...

i'm generating one pdf for the windows version of our software and one for the mac version. it's one flare document with conditional text and conditional graphics. when a i publish the win pdf, most of the graphics are correctly sized. on the mac version, most of the graphics are tiny. both targets are set up identically and use the same style sheet.

any help is appreciated.

joel

[rob hollinger]

Check the DPI of the images between the Windows ones and the Mac ones.
If some are 96DPI and the others are say 300DPI - this could be the cause.

[CATERAF]

I agree with Rob Hollinger that it may be the DPI setting you have. Just one thing I wanted to add is that the print DPI is set in Capture and can be set in two places within File Properties (right-click on the image and select File Properties); the Format tab and also the Flare Print Format tab (only shown if the image is being used inside a Flare project). Just make sure you check both places otherwise you can get caught and change the size in one place but still not have it change in your PDF. I got caught with that one.. I had different sized images everywhere!

[jolev64]

the pdf output is based on the online output -- that is, i finished the online version (in which all graphics were properly sized), saved the project as the pdf version and changed the publishing from online to pdf. when i did that, many of the graphics got zapped to a tiny size. so the same graphics that are fine in the online manual are too small in the pdf manual. it's not just in the output: even in the flare document, a topic page for the online manual shows the properly-sized image but the same topic page for the pdf manual shows the postage-stamp sized image.

i've attached screenshots. fdpdf1 shows a topic page after it's set to output as PDF; fdonline2 show the original topic page in the online manual.

thanks,

joel

[Nita Beck]

Is there a thumbnail setting coming into play somehow? Have you checked the thumbnail setting either in the style sheet for the "img" style, or for the same in the print medium, or for each individual image? Right-click an image and select Edit Image, then check out the Thumbnail tab.

[jolev64]

THANK YOU NITA!!!!

For some reason, the thumbnail setting was set to Mouse Over -- that wasn't something I did. When i set it to None, the graphic is sized properly. Is there any way to turn thumbnails off globally or do I have to go image by image?

Joel

[Nita Beck]

Glad my hunch proved fruitful.

You can use Flare's Find and Replace feature to search for the thumbnail setting in the code and replace it with nothing.

However, MAKE A BACKUP of your project first, as a global find-and-replace done incorrectly could wreak havoc on the project.