Last Modified: Nov. 29, 2001

To be honest, we are not too far along in codifying how we make line art for OMKT documents. We have a dream of some day establishing a nice-looking collection of clip art that we'll all share. We also want to establish some conventions for text, arrows, colors, and the like.

Tools to Create Line Art

We'd prefer that you use Visio to create line art. However, some renegades still use FrameMaker's own drawing tool to do this and that's okey-dokey, too.

Exporting Visio Files

Since time began (1994, Open Market founded as a Delaware corporation), we've been arguing about how to store line art drawings. There are three relevant formats:

VSD

Visio stores line art in a native Visio format called VSD.

Screen-Resolution GIF

Browsers do a nice job displaying screen-resolution GIFs (or JPEGs). High-resolution GIFs are wasted on the screen and consume far too many bytes.

WMF

Acrobat really doesn't display or print screen-resolution GIFs very well. For better results in a PDF file, you need to store images as WMFs.

To save a Visio file in WMF, just do the following:

1. Select and group all the objects in your drawing before saving.
2. In the "Save As" dialog box, choose "*.wmf (Windows Metafile)" from the file format drop-down list.

To save a Visio file in screen-resolution GIF, just do the following:

1. Select and group all the objects in your drawing before saving.
2. In the "Save As" dialog box, choose "*.gif" from the file format drop-down list.
3. Another screen appears. In this screen, specify the following options:
   • background color (default)
   • transparency (no transparent color)
   • resolution (screen)
   • size (no wider than seven inches)
   • data format (non-interlaced)
   • color translation (normal)

Importing Line Art Into FrameMaker

So the 64k question is, "How do you import line art so that it works well in HTML and in PDF?" There are a couple of answers:

• You can simply import every line art image as WMF. Then, we converting to HTML, let WebPublisher convert your WMFs into GIFs. Sometimes, this even works.
• If you don't have many line art images, you can simply import WMFs into your FrameMaker file, then at HTML production time, reimport the images, wiping out the WMF versions and taking the GIF versions instead. This is a little painful, but works very well.
• If you have a lot of line art images and you are comfy with UNIX, you can try a little trick.

The Trick

Suppose you created a Visio file named flow.vsd and you exported that file to flow.wmf and flow.gif. Now do the following,

1. In a UNIX shell, issue the following command:

   
   ln -s flow.wmf flow
   

2. Using FrameMaker, import flow.
3. When you need to create HTML, change the link by issuing the following UNIX shell command:

   
   ln -s flow.gif flow
   

4. Reopen your FrameMaker file. FrameMaker will have imported the GIF file.

If you are going back and forth between PDF and HTML (which is often the case), then it is a pain to keep issuing all those silly ln commands. To get around this, ask Barry to create a short shell script that will allow you to flip the links automatically.