Arbortext Newbie - Images

[MichelleStokes]

Hello all! I am a newbie to the Arbortext/IsoDraw environment, still in training. I have a question about graphics/images and what the industrybest practices are for handling sizing and resolution. Do you create one file and let the publisher DTD handle this or is this handled with style sheets? Or do you create a file for each output (web vs print)and give it an audience attribute? Is vector vs raster prefered? Where can I get information on this subject? This is a big gray area for me and since we are just starting to move to this platform, I want to make sureI'm on the right path. Any advice is appreciated.

[LynnHales]

Michelle,

Part of your answer will lie in who you are authoring for. Most of my work has been within the world of the DOD. In that, we've basically provided one graphic for page and electronic display.

Though vector most likely has (and I am not a graphics expert by any means) more advantages, most graphics provided for DOD manuals are raster. The type of graphic will depend on the customer.

However a good place to see what graphics may be provided is to see what graphic types are allowed in the DTD.

As to this being a grey area, it's not really, it is just a very thick fog.

Lynn
---- Michelle Stokes <-> wrote:
> Hello all! I am a newbie to the Arbortext/IsoDraw environment, still in training. I have a question about graphics/images and what the industry best practices are for handling sizing and resolution. Do you create one file and let the publisher DTD handle this or is this handled with style sheets? Or do you create a file for each output (web vs print) and give it an audience attribute? Is vector vs raster prefered? Where can I get information on this subject? This is a big gray area for me and since we are just starting to move to this platform, I want to make sure I'm on the right path. Any advice is appreciated.
>
>
> -----End Original Message-----

[ptc-953343]

Another option depends on the tools you have. If you are using PE you
can set it up to create the appropriate format on the fly when
publishing. This allows you to link and manage the IsoDraw file and
not have to worry about the various formats you might want if you are
producing both web and PDF output.

..dan

[AndyEsslinger]

Michelle,



The site where I got the attached PDF is no longer available except from a dot-MIL domain, but it may provide useful info - especially if you deal with the DoD.. I know it was useful for me when I started.



* If you can make one graphic work for your customer in all outputs (web, print, etc.) then you will be ahead of the game. Any on-the-fly conversion is a pain and usually not available with the basic Arbortext Editor/Print Composer that I have to use.

* Vector graphics are much better, faster, and cleaner than raster, but I have never seen a good raster-to-vector conversion..Better to start with and stay with vector graphics..

* Vector graphics such as CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile) created with IsoDraw work great as long as you do not try to "convert" a huge raster graphic into a cgm by embedding it as a hot-spot. The raster part of CGM is intended only as a sort of "thumbnail" raster component, not as primary CGM content.


Hope this helps,
-Andy
\ / Andy Esslinger LM Aero - Tech Order Data
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