Tip of the month from PRC
November 1997
How to use vectorised images
in MS Word
Updated 22 July
1998
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Tip of the month is edited by Peter
Ring, PRC (Peter Ring Consultants, Denmark)
- consultants on how to write
uer friendly manuals
A lot of people use MS Word
for technical documentation, mainly for documents up to 50..100 pages for
internal printing. The major reasons are:
- It's relatively cheap to
buy - especially if you need (parts of) the rest of the MS Office package,
too.
- It's a fast programme to
work with.
- Setting text up as numbered
or bulleted points - used a lot in technical documentation - is fast and
easy. When you know the programme well, even multi-level numbering is fast
and easy.
- At least MS Word 6 and 7/95
are reasonably stable.
- You can easily insert texts
with images written by R&D people in the document. And R&D people
don't work with DTP programmes like PageMaker, FrameMaker or QuarkXpress
- most of them use MS Word.
But if you have ever tried to
transfer vectorised images from e.g. Corel Draw, and print them on a 600
dpi printer or better, you have probably noticed, that the quality of the
images are degraded. Examples (depending of the method of transfer used):
- Circles are not round. In
fact, if you look closely at them, they consist of a large number of short
straight lines. The sad fact is, that WMF can handle curves, and does it
in MS Word's own internal drawing programme. But according to an article
by Olav Kvern on Adobe's website, the problem is bad export filters coming
with most drawing programmes, incl. Corel Draw and (according to R.S.Berman
on PAGEMAKR-L 10 July 1998) Adobe Illustrator.
- The line width is heavily
distorted. All lines below a certain width are changed to hairline, which
prints very badly on a good printer, but almost acceptable on a 300 dpi printer.
Seems to be the same bad export filter problem again!
- Line ends are not as originally
drawn.
The reason is the way MS Word
handles vectorised images.
Six ways of inserting
vectorised images, incl. my
best and
second best
solutions so far:
- Copy & Paste:
You copy the image from e.g. Corel Draw and paste it on place in MS Word.
This saves two images in MS Word: the original (e.g. Corel Draw) file, to
be used for editing, and a WMF file to be displayed and printed out. The
result is the problems described above.
- Drag it over (OLE)
from the original application (e.g. Corel Draw): Same bad result as Copy
& Paste.
- Insert Object: Same
bad result as Copy & Paste!
- Insert image ...
- as the
original file format, e.g. CDR: The image is converted to a good WMF
image, which can then be further edited in MS Word. The original image file
information is not included. This normally results in a better results because
it uses MS Word's own import filter: Circles and ellipses are circles and
ellipses, line width is by basically preserved, but line ends are distorted.
- as an
Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) file: This will print the PostScript file
on a PostScript printer, and the printing result is very good. But the wyswyg
image on the screen is slightly problematic. The image on the screen is the
"thumbnail" image saved with the EPS file. The format of the thumbnail image
may e.g. be a TIFF or a WMF. I have so far got the best results with a 300
dpi greyscale TIFF, which gives a decent image to look at, only slightly
distorted cutting away a little at the bottom of the TIFF image. Coloured
TIFF and WMF thumbnails don't display in MS Word.
- Make the
drawing in MS Word's build-in drawing programme. Yes, it is a very
primitive programme, and the zoom facilities are very poor, but for simple
drawings it will make fairly nice results, including rounded curves.
How to make the MS Word file
smaller
When inserting the image, tag
"Link to file", and then untag "Save image with document". In that way the
Word file becomes a lot smaller and 100+ page documents becomes much less
of a problem.
How to make relative path
for MS Word images
When inserted as "Link to file",
MS Word includes the full path for the image. This is a problem if you need
to transfer the file to another computer. Do as follow:
- Place all images in the same
directory as the MS Word file.
- When all images are inserted,
switch to "Show field codes": Menu "Tools/Options", sheet "View, mark the
tag "Field codes".
- The images will now show
addresses like this: "C:\\WINWORD\\PROJ-001\\IMG0001.EPS". (Yes, it uses
double \ = \\ !)
- Make a global Search &
Replace, changing the directory. In the example replace "C:\\WINWORD\\PROJ-001\\"
with "" (blank replace text). The final result will then e.g. be "IMG0001.EPS".
(If you get problems with this, try with "..\\IMG0001.EPS" instead.)
- Return to normal view.
If you have placed all the images
in a subdirectory, e.g. IMAGES, the final result should be "IMAGES\\IMG0001.EPS".
Note, that the global Search & Replace is the same.
David Rapport, Israel,
added these practical advices on TECHWR-L 13 Nov 97:
The working directory for Word always has to be the correct one for the relative
path to work. That means, always open your doc from File|Open, not
not from Explorer or equivalent, and not from a recently used file list (Word's
or Win95's). If you open new docs or insert graphics and thereby cause the
working directory to change, you will have to return to the correct directory
by saving your file. If the working directory is correct and you still have
problems, press F9 to update the link.
The following MS Word 7/95 macro
- made by Dr. Menachem Rosen, Tech-Tav technical and end-user documentation,
Israel - changes the working directory from wherever it is to the one belonging
to the open document. I have now received permission form Menachem Rosen
to forward it to the world. Note that it is a Word 7 macro and I don't know
if it works in Word 97.
Sub MAIN
dir$ = SelectionFileName$()
dir$ = FileNameInfo$(dir$, 5)
ChDir dir$
Print "Changed from: ", dir0$, " to ", dir$
End Sub
If you make it an AutoOpen macro,
every time you open a doc with linked pictures, _even if I do it from a recently
used file list or Explorer_, the working directory is the correct one and
I have no problems with my pics. If you change directory in the middle, I
simply press its button on the tool bar to be in the correct directory again.
David wishes to thank contributors
to techwhirl, the international technical writing list, and tech-shoret,
the Israeli technical writing list, for their help in coming up with the
above tip
When creating pdf's from a doc
with linked graphics using a relative path, you first have to save the pdf
in the same directory as the Word file and then move it somewhere else. If
you try saving it somewhere else first, the pictures don't come out.
If you disagree
with these ideas - or have other relevant points, experiences, or ideas +/-,
please e-mail me
!
Ideas for new "Tip of the
month" subjects are very welcome, too!
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