VISIO, WMF, and PNG

[Alan Litchfield]

Joseph,

Hi, seems Visio graphics are the flavour of the month :)

Just to summarise what has been said on the list over the last couple of weeks.

1. Visio uses an internal file format and is not a graphics format, as such
2. Visio native files are best not used in FM
3. The Visio files then need to be exported in some suitable format.

Now, relating to your specific enquiry:

4. The standard output formats that Visio uses are problematic for a number of
reasons:
4a. PNG is a raster image format, meaning that it uses pixels to create an
image and is therefore going to print as a pixellated image. It was only ever
intended that this image format was to be used onscreen, not for print
purposes. So onscreen it will probably look ok but printed, pretty bad (and
sure, someone will chime in and say "hey mine are ok" which won't help you);
4b. WMF supports both raster and vector based art but the format is not well
documented and specific files, for example from Visio, may have inclusions
that create problems when the file is printed. For example, stray lines
appearing between vectors, or fonts that are not correctly specified in the
WMF file and display incorrectly when printed. In general, and depending on
your situation, WMF is ok. However it is not guaranteable that WMF will always
work.
5. So, what has been suggested on this list, and is an approach I use, is to
print your Visio file to PDF and import that into FM.

Therefore, I would say not to use PNG. Instead use PDF.

Alan

-- 
Alan Litchfield MBus (Hons), MNZCS
AlphaByte
PO Box 1941, Auckland
http://www.alphabyte.co.nz