Re: Visio drawings and FrameMaker file size

[Allen Schaaf <soundbyte@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 08:07 PM 10/9/04, Dov Isaacs wrote:
> At 10/9/2004 02:51 AM, Sorli Alenka ITWEM1 wrote:
> >We have over 100 Visio drawings including text labels that we want to 
> include in our FrameMaker documents. All of our docs are localized into 
> at least 2 other languages. Thought at first we'd include VSD as OLE, but 
> this blows up the FrameMaker file size too much. Is a conversion to GIF, 
> EPS or the like a solution? We'd still want to avoid graphics conversion 
> (if possible), as this would mean we'd have to keep, store and maintain 
> two sets of graphic sources (original drawing in vsd and a converted 
> version which would actually be imported as a reference to FM). Any 
> suggestions on how to make good use and re-use of Visio drawings, knowing 
> we'd want to keep FM file size down? Should we just forget Visio and do 
> the drawings using FM native tool?
> >
> >I've tested and inserted 6 of 100 Visio drawings (each between 35 and as 
> much as 500KB in size) into a FM file, the file size went up from 800KB 
> to 1,600KB. I do not dare think what the files size would be if I did 100!
> >
> >Alenka
>
>
> Unless you have very simple drawings, I don't think you want to use 
> FrameMaker's native drawing tools.

Absolutely agree.

> The most reliable method that we know of for getting Visio graphics into 
> FrameMaker documents is via PDF or EPS saved from PDF. Create PDF from the 
> Visio diagram by printing to the AdobePDF (Acrobat 6) or Acrobat Distiller 
> (Acrobat 4 or 5) PostScript printer driver instance. Make sure you use job 
> options that forces all fonts to be embedded. Then either import the PDF 
> file into the FrameMaker by reference or save an EPS file from the PDF 
> file in Acrobat and subsequently import that EPS file by reference into 
> the FrameMaker document (if using EPS, make sure to request a preview 
> header and for fonts to remain embedded in the EPS).

I spent the time to try every possible option about this as Visio is a big 
deal in the doc set I'm working on.

Every single method I tried left hinky artifacts on the final printed/PDF 
output, even the one suggested by Dov (though it must be said that I might 
not have had the optimal settings for the PDF/EPS route as I'm using 6 at 
work and have 5 at home sooo....) except exporting as .emf and then 
importing those. That works very well and the neat thing for me is that all 
my VSDs are multi-page but exporting to .emf saves them one page at a time 
so I get an auto update when I make a correction to a page.

The other option that I've been told about is to use Dia to import the VSD 
and then from Dia save to PDF/EPS. Haven't tried it yet as I was having 
problems with saving Dia files on a Windoze box.

Ahh, the smell of burning Win2k in the morning.

Well, when I get $3700, I'm buying the newish dual processor G5 with three 
250 Gig drives for an on-board RAID and then running Frame with VMWare 
under FreeBSD on a Mac X-Server. 30 Gigaflops!

There was a recent story about Blue Gene getting ever so slightly ahead of 
the Earth Sciences super computer by using 16,000 CPUs. A sidebar to the 
story talked about the dual CPU X-Servers being used stock (dual gigabit 
NICs on board from the factory) by some people studying fluid dynamics with 
1566 CPUs and getting 25 teraflops or about 70% of Blue Gene for a whole 
lot less money.

After reading this I calculated that 100 of the X-Servers in a cluster 
would put you on the top 500 list at about 150. Three teraflops for 300k!

Anyone want to share a machine like that with me? Emulation no problemo. ;) 
And the 5 terabyte RAID would be mere pocket change at $7k.

By the way, it could be built in one day in three rack cabinets with space 
left over.

Too bad we can't boost the writers like that. Getting the proper input 
would still be the key bottleneck. And, of course getting real reviews....

Best,


Allen Schaaf
Senior Technical Writer
Certified Network Security Analyst and
Intrusion Forensics Investigator - CEH, CHFI

Papageno: "What should we say now?"
Pamina: "The truth, the truth, ...even if it is a crime." 


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