transparent background graphics

[Reng, Dr. Winfried]

Hi Ken,

It's not very difficult to get images with transparent background
in FrameMaker. What you have to do:
o Only if you have a raster image: Create a mask in Photoshop/
  Corel PhotoPaint/Paintshop Pro. Everything outside of the mask
  will be transparent in the final PDF file.
o Save the image (raster or vector) as EPS.
o Import the image in FrameMaker.
o Select the image and set "Fill" to "None" (via the tools palette).
o Create a PDF file.

That's it.

Best regards

Winfried

> -----Original Message-----
> From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com 
> [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of 
> Ken Poshedly
> Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 3:42 AM
> To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
> Subject: transparent background graphics
> 
> Well, first, thanks to all for your tips to help me get a good TOC 
> generated. I'm still working on that one, and while it hasn't 
> happened so far, I did find that several graphics pasted into some 
> reference pages from another document by my (not-so-FrameMaker-savy) 
> coworker resulted in prompts to find the path to them each time some 
> of these files were opened.
> 
> After I deleted those graphics from the reference pages and 
> re-imported them correctly, no more prompts for them.
> 
> 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 
> manal (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