Does FM crash on Large files on a regular basis?

[nancy carpenter]

I'm on the digest, so this reply might be out of sync with others. 

I convert Visio drawings to a windows metafile and import them by 
reference. I've never had a problem with that.


Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2009 09:55:43 +1300
From: Alan Litchfield <alan at alphabyte.co.nz>
Subject: Re: Does FM crash on Large files on a regular basis?
To: "Combs, Richard" <richard.combs at Polycom.com>
Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com, orlyz at marvell.com
Message-ID: <8DA6BA3F-1C33-4830-89B1-DF416CF63ADB at alphabyte.co.nz>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes

I would second Richard's recommendation. I would also add that when I 
have printed Visio files to PDF in the past I often get strange 
printing problems show up (depending on the version of Visio). These 
have been lines that appear in the printed output, text that truncates 
or disappears, fonts that get lost, lines that don't print...

Yes the file output filters in Visio are problematic, and the print 
engine seems to parse the file data in strange ways too. So I open the 
files in Illustrator and check that lines are lines and not skinny 
boxes, delete all the strange bounding boxes and masks that Visio 
creates, make certain that all the fonts are of the same variety and 
that text lines are long enough,... In general fix the errors that 
Visio creates. Then use the pdf in Frame and all is good thereafter.

If there are a large number of files the process doesn't take as long 
as it sounds since most of the problems tend to be replicated in each 
of the files.

Alan

On 9/01/2009, at 9:42 AM, Combs, Richard wrote:

> Sent too soon. I also meant to recommend an alternative workflow for
> Orly. Instead of importing native Visio files as OLE objects (either
> linked or embedded), print the Visio files to PDF and import that into
> FM.
>
> I think that's a better solution than Art's suggestion of exporting 
> to a
> graphics format -- Visio's export filters don't have a very good
> reputation, but it can certainly print to your Adobe PDF printer.
> Actually, if you have a recent version of Acrobat, and it was 
> installed
> after Visio, you'll have Adobe's "make PDF" plugin in Visio.
>
> Importing PDF into FM works beautifully. You can probably even get 
> away
> with embedding the PDFs instead of importing by reference -- the file
> size will probably be much, much smaller and imported PDF is light- 
> years
> more stable than OLE objects.
>
> Whatever you choose to do, scrapping OLE will be a big improvement.
>
> HTH!
> Richard
>
>
> Richard G. Combs
> Senior Technical Writer
> Polycom, Inc.
> richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
> 303-223-5111
> ------
> rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
> 303-777-0436
> ------

Nancy Carpenter
Lead Technical Writer
GENCO Supply Chain Solutions
100 Papercraft Park
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15238