Recommended graphic file format for single-sourcing from Frame to Robohelp?

[rebecca officer]

Hmmmm. My experience is with WinXP (hey, if it works don't break it). I
did test prints of screen captures as pngs and high-quality jpegs. The
pngs were *much* sharper, esp when printed out. 
 
Then again, I was capturing text-heavy GUI screens, not webpages, and
it was WinXP. 
 
Probably be a good move to do your own tests. I'll keep this in mind
for when we eventually come into this century and get Win 7.
 
Cheers
Rebecca

>>> On 16/01/12 at 16:48, John Sgammato <jsgammato at IMPRIVATA.com>
wrote:


With all due respect to my colleagues on this forum, IMO the line
between JPG and other formats is no longer as neat as it once was. Many
screenshots in Win 7 require gradients that JPG handles well. IMO
anything that a photo can handle might not be so far removed as you
might think from basic screen captures, We are no longer in the cartoony
Win 3.x world. 
And since AFAIK FrameMaker still imports eleventyhundred colors with
every .PNG file, I do not see why a PNG with its headaches is superior
to the no-longer-extant difficulties of the .JPG format.
Craving enlightenment…
john
 

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Grant
Hogarth
Sent: Saturday, January 14, 2012 7:01 PM
To: Virginia Morgan
Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: Recommended graphic file format for single-sourcing from
Frame to Robohelp?

 
I always vote for PNG.  The files may not be the smallest, but I've
never had anything in the past decade choke on them (not display/corrupt
display (either unreadable or artifacts)/Fail (as in crash)).

JPEG is fine for Photos, and SVG for line graphics.  PS is fine if
you've got the time to render it.
GIF is for icons.  
BMP/WMF/EMF should be discontinued.

You may want to invest in a graphics converter.  The two best (IMO) are
FastStone Image Viewer (or just Image Converter) and IrfanView.

Grant

On 1/13/2012 3:23 PM, Virginia Morgan wrote: 
Hello Framers – 
 
It has been several years since I have been part of this group, so I
apologize if this topic has been covered extensively somewhere (if so, 
please feel free to point me to it). I have recently resumed my
Technical Writing career at a software development company that uses
FrameMaker to create its documentation. All the legacy manuals were
delivered with the products as hyperlinked PDF files (not really meant
for printing due to length, although one could do so and they are
formatted correctly for that). 
 
The company recently purchased TCS3, and would like to single-source
Frame files to online help using Robohelp. I have been trying to find
out what would be the best graphic file format  to use for this
multi-purpose moving forward. Some background: All legacy images, which
are primarily screenshots with some flowcharts, were .tif files, RGB
color, 96 dpi (again, intended for on-screen viewing). Using TCS3 moving
forward, is there a better/clear recommendation for what graphic file
format would produce the best results? 
 
I have been searching the web for a few days and can’t seem to find any
information on this particular aspect of single-sourcing using the new
TCS3. Does it not matter, i.e., does one just set up Robohelp templates
to convert .tifs to .jpgs or similar? 
 
All information is very much appreciated. Thank you, and I am happy to
be back to this forum!
 
Virginia Morgan | Technical Writer
TAKE Solutions, Inc.
O 512.735.4316 | M 512.426.8323 
virginia.morgan at takesolutions.com
   

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