Re: Visio drawings and FrameMaker file size

["Becky Swanson" <becky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Several years ago (about 8, I think) I had to import a lot of Visio flow charts
into FM. I believe I did it by saving (or exporting, I think) them from Visio as
.cgm. At the time, FM had a filter that converted the CGM to FM's native format.
So then I had the option of unlocking (Esc g U -- that's a Shift-U) the graphic
in FM and then editing it. It also meant the file size was pretty small,
compared to the raster graphic files. The text stayed text, so you could edit
it, apply Character fonts, etc. The lines were also editable.

I'm trying to remember if you had to go into the fminit file to change any
settings on the filters. It's been a long time. I remeber we changed some
filters for Interleaf, but don't remember if we needed to tweak the CGM filter.

I don't have Visio on this computer (it was for an off-site consult job), so I
can't test the process -- this is all from memory. But I know it worked VERY
well.

If you are importing files by reference, you can simply make updating the
exported .cgm files part of your workflow process. When a drawing is changed,
you save the file, then export to .cgm. If you set up a naming convention that
is easy to follow, such as "filename.cgm" where "filename" is the same as the
Visio file, then you can "automatically" update your FM files. The caution here
is that you should never unlock the CGM file in the FM document and edit it, as
that will convert and embed the file into FM, breaking the original link. (No,
you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Sorry)

Hope that helps. If you figure out the process, you might want to post it. I
normally "test" my solutions before posting them, but I don't have Viso, so I
can't remember if it is "Save As CGM" or "Export". I'm leaning toward "Export".

Best of luck with your project.

Becky Swanson
FrameMaker Trainer
Adobe Certified Expert
www.benchmarkpubs.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sorli Alenka ITWEM1" <sorli@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <framers@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2004 4:51 AM
Subject: Visio drawings and FrameMaker file size


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


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