Re: FrameMaker Native Graphics to RTF - Reply

[jeremy@xxxxxxxxx (Jeremy H. Griffith)]

On Thu, 08 Apr 1999 17:55:30 -0500, "Craig Ede" <craig.ede@medtronic.com> wrote:

>Yes, I can do something similar to your rshift-prtsc in my UNIX 
>environment using snapshot (v3.5.1), but that really doesn't solve 
>the problem of how to convert files with such graphics on a large 
>scale. For that, mif2rtf looks like the best, if rather expensive, 
>answer since it will export FM native graphics to WMF format in 
>the resulting RTF file.

The WMFs are sharper because they are vector, rather than bitmap,
images.  This also means they will look better when printed.

>The GIFs I get from a conversion to HTML via FM5.5.6 are all 72 dpi 
>and rougher than I would like. Besides, I then have to import them 
>into the Word doc.

If you should need GIFs, for the Web (or PNG, or JPEG, or a few
others), the FDK app part of mif2rtf lets you export your graphics
as bitmaps too, at *any* DPI you want to set.

>The question I have about mif2rtf is: Can one edit the WMF results 
>of a mif2rtf on the same element level at which they were established 
>in FrameMaker? That is, if I draw a simple, unfilled box as one part 
>of a graphic image in FM, can I resize that box (or any other element 
>of the image) in the WMF in Word without changing the other elements 
>in the WMF?

Yes.  However, there are a few caveats.  First, Word's picture editor
is a rather poor tool, with inexplicable missing features; if you have
a choice in the matter, edit in Frame.  Second, there are several Frame
drawing capabilities that are not present in Word's WMF.  For example,
if you have any rotated text, it will appear correct in Word (mostly),
but the moment you edit it, it will unrotate itself, and cannot be put
back using Word's tools.  Object grouping is a missing concept; if you
assemble a triangle in Frame out of three lines, you won't be able to
move them as a group in Word, just individually.  Likewise, WMF does
not allow filling of such grouped objects, only of single polygons.
Curves become a sequence of line segments that cannot be reshaped well.
This is not an artist-friendly environment to work in.

>Are any of you mif2rtf-sters able to enlighten me on this point?

I hope that gave you some idea.  If you want to send a sample file
with a bunch of drawings, we'll convert it, so you can play with them 
yourself and find out whether you can do whatever it is you have in 
mind.  Please .zip the .mif, include referenced graphics, and keep the 
.zip under 500K.

-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.
   (jeremy@omsys.com)     http://www.omsys.com/
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