FrameMaker and Illustrator EPS files

[Steve Rickaby]

FrameMaker 7.0, Mac, Illustrator CS2

I have a chapter opener decorative EPS which is about a 4.5 MB Illustrator file and is imported onto the chapter opener master page. Because of FrameMaker's paucity of text effects, the simplest way to implement the required design [a 180 point reversed-out chapter number with a drop shadow] seems to be to overlay the chapter number(s) on the decorative graphic in Illustrator, which demands a different chapter opener graphic, and so master page, for each chapter and appendix. This is neither elegant nor space-efficient.

If I overlay the chapter number on the graphic in Illustrator and import it into FrameMaker by reference, it looks great. However, to save space, I thought it ought to be possible to create the chapter numbers separately and overlay them onto the decorative background in FrameMaker [one 4.5 MB background file instead of 27 of them]. When I do this, though, the chapter number EPS appears in a white frame that not only obliterates the underlying decorative EPS, but, startlingly, causes text on the body pages to wrap to avoid it. This occurs even when the fill of the number graphic is set to none in Illustrator, and is unaffected by grouping of the two graphics and moving them to the back relative to the text frames.

I appreciate that all I am seeing in FrameMaker are the EPS previews, but the same is true of actual PDFs created from the document..

Why it this, and is there a way around it?

-- 
Steve