Re: Embedding CAD drawings

["Dov Isaacs" <isaacs@xxxxxxxxx>]

Lisa,

With regards to AutoCAD files ...

Yes, FrameMaker "can do" OLE. If properly installed, AutoCAD can and
will "play" the OLE game with FrameMaker. It worked on my system
between FrameMaker 6 and AutoCAD 13 under Windows 2000 for the limited
experimentation I have done. FrameMaker has worked flawlessly with OLE
links that I have done with Microsoft Excel. What gets "iffy" about OLE
is that it is strictly one of those "it takes two to tango" types of 
facilities. If one or another of the applications does not work exactly
the same way, then the OLE facility becomes unreliable.

I would seriously question you insistence on not only using OLE for this
particular purpose, but also embedding.

OLE's biggest asset is in terms of keeping "container documents" (such 
as a FrameMaker document) in synchronization with contents (such as a
complex technical drawing) from  "specialized applications" (such as
AutoCAD) as those contents are modified independently of the container 
document. Thus, in this scenario, every time you opened a FrameMaker
document with OLE LINKS to AutoCAD drawings, the latest updated version
of those drawings would appear in the document.

Using OLE to EMBED places a full (in this case, AutoCAD) object into the
container (in this case FrameMaker) that is independent of the original.
Changing the original does not reflect itself in changes in the embedded.
And in the case of embedding a bunch of AutoCAD drawings (or for that matter
PowerPoint slides or other graphic intensive OLE objects) into a 
FrameMaker document, you will quickly end up with a very large, unwieldy
multi-megabyte FrameMaker document. The collective experience of most 
FrameMaker users is that this is not particularly recommended (vast
understatement (8^)>  )!

It is also true that in using OLE embedding or linking, graphic fidelity
may possibly suffer compared to how the same graphic content would appear
when sent to the "printer" since the data passed from the OLE "source"
may be resolution dependent. In the case of using OLE to link dynamic data
such as out of an Excel spreadsheet, this is usually not an issue. For
fairly static data, our recommendation is to "print" from your target
application (in your case, AutoCAD) to the Acrobat Distiller printer instance,
creating high quality PDF with all fonts embedded, crop the resultant
page(s) in Acrobat, export EPS (PostScript 3) with fonts embedded and 8-bit 
TIFF previews, and import EPS by reference into FrameMaker. Create PDF
from the FrameMaker document and do all printing from Acrobat.

        - Dov

At 3/21/2001 06:24 AM, Lisa Bronson wrote:

>Does anyone know how to successfully embed (not link) Autocad files in
>FrameMaker?  I have given up trying, and instead use a work-around where I
>bring the files through InterLeaf (which we are converting from), and then
>use Filtrix to convert them to Frame mif files.  It takes some time, but by
>doing it this way, the graphics can be edited in FrameMaker, which is
>imperative with our manuals.
>
>One of my coworkers spent a considerable amount of time experimenting with
>these files.  Sometimes he was successful; other times, the operation would
>fail, for no apparent reason we can see; sometimes an embedded graphic
>would work, only to fail later.  It has been very frustrating, to say the
>least.  He then called tech support.  The support person also said that OLE
>is a Microsoft feature, which works best with Microsoft applications, and
>that it does work *sometimes* in Frame, you just have to "play" with it.
>
>This answer is totally unacceptable.  First of all, their user manual
>*says* that this application can do OLE.  Second, since Microsoft is the
>giant in the the software industry, it seems it would only make financial
>sense for Adobe to make their product "play" well with theirs.
>
>Tech support's only other suggestion was to go to the user-to-user forums.
>So, here I am.  Can any of you wonderful users give us any suggestions on
>making embedding Autocad drawings in FrameMaker work consistently?
>
>If you don't mind, please respond directly to me at lisa.bronson@ipaper.com
>instead of, or in addition to, the list.
>
>Thanks!
>
>Lisa Bronson
>Associate Technical Writer
>Evergreen Packaging Equipment
>Cedar Rapids, Iowa
>319-399-3239


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