transparent background graphics

[Les Smalley]

Do you really require having the cover as a Frame document?  Is there some additional content (title text, revision date, etc.) that can only be handled in Frame?

I think it is better to create the cover as a PDF file directly from an illustration program that supports transparency.  You can add the text info as appropriate and also should be able to match the background (as a layer) and create a full page image of your cover.   I may be naive, but to me, 20% grey should be the same in both the graphic program and in FrameMaker.

If you absolutely much have it as a Frame document, you can import the PDF page as an image into a Frame file, probably as a background image on the page rather than in the flow.  In this case, you would not add the text info in the illustatration, but can "layer" that in the text frame over the image.  Also this image would replace the default 20% grey fill background.

– Les Smalley

--- On Mon, 6/1/09, Ken Poshedly <poshedly at bellsouth.net> wrote:
....
But that's as far as I got on that because now, my boss has assigned me a more pressing project, a revised cover design for this operator manual (for a hydraulic excavator -- REAL hardware). After I researched and assembled a great-looking cover, he held a meeting of the project engineers (with me included) where those who only know how to engineer started picking at and apart the work I had done. Sheesh! (The cover got lots of kudos before the meeting because they never had a tech writer here before.)

So now, I'm trying to modify my cover design, but am running up against a seemingly immovable problem: importing a graphic with a supposedly transparent background that still displays a white background.

My "revised cover" is to be slightly grey (perhaps 20% black tint, using FrameMaker). And the company logo with name is in red (logo) and black (company name in a custom font which I don't know or have).  Oh, and our home office is in China and they do things very differently there and are very slow at responding.

I'm still learning the in's and out's of Paintshop Pro X2, so that's another rocky road, but I think I successfully created a GIF file graphic with "no" background (it displays in Paintshop Pro with a checkered background) but only the red logo and black-lettered company name.

But when I import it, the background is white. I'm trying to keep away from creating a GIF file with a 20% grey background because it's just my luck that it probably won't match the FrameMaker 20% grey cover.

What to do? Please advise.

-- Kenpo in Atlanta