Image not appearing in print as it should

[ccardimon]

The image on my title page is a nice, big picture. This image shows up just fine in WebHelp. I made WebHelp my primary output so I can preview things.

The image shows up much smaller in print or Word output. Other images show up looking good. The title page image is messed up.

I'm not really an image guy. Any ideas on how I should tackle this?

[KevinDAmery]

What I usually do with images that need to be a specific size in print is add them twice to the topic. The first one I add a Screen-only condition to and leave it "as is." The second one I add a Print-only condition to and add in-line style code to control the sizing. I format the size info in inches because that makes more sense than pixels for print (note that I could use centimeters or picas just as easily - I just find inches easier to figure out when it comes to page sizes. YMMV and all that....) By adding that size code, I can keep the image sizes under control.

[LTinker68]

How large an image appears in a monitor depends on the pixel dimensions (width/height) of the image, which can be driven by the resolution of the image (dpi). How large an image appears in print depends on the point/inch dimensions of the image, which is not driven by the dpi. (The higher the dpi, though, the better the print quality.)

In your case, your image is probably 96dpi with pixel dimensions of 800px wide or whatever, but the print dimensions are considerably smaller. Pixel dimensions also drive print dimensions and vice versa, so if the image is only 96dpi, then you're pretty much stuck at the smaller size in print. In Word you can get away with resizing the image a bit and it'll probably still appear fine when printed. Like Kevin said, you're most likely going to want to have two versions of the image. For online, use 96dpi and set the pixel dimensions. For print, use at least 150dpi and set the print dimensions.

[ccardimon]

Thanks for the replies.

[ccardimon]

What I usually do with images that need to be a specific size in print is add them twice to the topic. The first one I add a Screen-only condition to and leave it "as is." The second one I add a Print-only condition to and add in-line style code to control the sizing.

Sounds sensible. How do I add conditions to images?

[ccardimon]

add in-line style code to control the sizing

I added two images and set Print and Online conditions. How do I add in-line style code?

[LTinker68]

Hover the cursor over the bottom right corner of the image. The cursor will change to cross arrows. Drag the corner of the image until it's the size you want -- Flare automatically inserts the new width and height inline in the <img> tag.

[ccardimon]

Cool. Thanks, Lisa. I did as you said. I have two images and I set the conditions.

When I printed to Word, however, I had TWO images. One is still tiny and the other is the regular one I'm used to seeing.

Why would there be two images now? I set the condition for the first image to Online. I set the condition for the second image to Print.

When I send the output to Word, shouldn't I get only the second image?

[KevinDAmery]

Make sure your Word target is set to Include print content and Exclude screen content (odds are it's including both).

[ccardimon]

Yes, it was. Thanks for the hint.