best use of graphics in FM

Wed Mar 21 05:29:17 PDT 2012

My take on your questions:
1. SnagIt from TechSmith, which is integrated into the FM interface. 15-30
seconds or so if you use automated naming.
2. No, you should take the time to do it right the first time.
3. Quality of the document has a direct relationship both to how customers
view the company and its products, and likely reduces calls for support.
And... the quick and dirty method only works for the current writer. It'd
be really hard for any other writer to maintain or change.

Art Campbell
          art.campbell at gmail.com
  "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52 Vincent and
a redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson
                                                      No disclaimers apply.
                                                               DoD 358

I support www.TheGrotonLine.com, hyperlocal news for Groton MA.

On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 9:59 PM, Ken Poshedly <poshedly at bellsouth.net>wrote:

> FrameMaker 8.0 on a PC with Windows XP Professional
>
> Except for bloated file sizes, in the long run, does it really matter if
> you reference graphics or if you embed them inside your publications?
>
> My coworker is a guy who was tech pubs manager at another heavy equipment
> company but was convinced by our employer to move south from PA for this
> job. He comes for a primarily graphics background, having started a long
> time ago as a pen-and-ink tech illustrator. His writing skills are fair at
> best, but he considers himself an authority on tech pubs because he had
> been the manager of his group. And our company never did fulfill its
> promises to him if he left his previous employer.
>
> While we do get along pretty well, we do differ on this aspect of
> FrameMaker graphics -- to embed or to reference?
>
> We are the only two tech writers -- with no tech pubs manager -- and we
> work in metro Atlanta, Georgia, for a multinational Chinese company in
> which the Chinese engineers in Shanghai and elsewhere over there write the
> original documentation for heavy machinery in the Chinese language (taking
> as long as they want), then send the stuff to a group of kids in their 20s
> (sorry, but I'm way past that age) in Shanghai who are not even allowed
> anywhere near the machinery but simply translate the stuff as best they can
> into "Chinglish". The machinery and their books are then put on ships and
> my coworker and I are then told we have two weeks to "Americanize" the
> Chinglish stuff. That means reformatting, reorganizing and rewriting the
> stuff for American heavy equiment owners.
>
> Thus, we have next to no time to do things correctly. And I've been told
> over and over that for the most part, "technical writing" does not exist as
> a profession in China and it is simply assigned to anybody and everybody.
> Their books look absolutely beautiful and they know how to mimic our page
> layouts, but it all breaks down when one tries to use the books to actually
> operate this extremely dangerous machinery because the terms, grammar,
> punctuation, etc., are all so inconsistent, incorrect and well, you get the
> idea. And the U.S. president of the company is only here in the U.S. for
> about 4 years and follows ONLY the Chinese methods. (For one thing, no
> salary increases; you simply stay at your starting level or quit. And, by
> the way, very few if any promotions. I'm there 3 years and looking to move
> on.)
>
> Unfortunately, at his prior location, another FM user (more knowledgeable
> than my coworker) showed my coworker what I call a "hack" to get a document
> done in a fraction of the time that it would ordinarily take. Specifically,
> he uses "PrintScreen32" to take screen shots of existing graphics in the
> Word or pdf Chinglish books we get from the home office and then pastes
> them directly into his FM document. No muss, no fuss -- and no record of
> any filename or any other details about any of the graphics in his
> documents.
>
> He also does this with text blocks (sometimes entire pages) from the
> Chinglish books and simply pastes those text blocks into his FM documents.
> The results are  horrendous because no real editing can be done (and errors
> in the original text abound). He simply creates small FrameMaker text
> blocks over incorrect words or sentences and types in the few words or
> sentences needed to fix something. So his FM documents are pretty much
> "pictures" of text with white boxes of corrected words that give his pages
> that "ransom-letter look".
>
> This method allows him to "complete" a document much faster than doing it
> what I call "the right way".
>
> I, on the other hand, have no problem with taking screen shots and saving
> them as legitimate graphics with an art control numbers (as listed in an
> Excel file created just for this purpose) that can be either referenced or
> embedded in other documents. It's true that my method takes a few steps
> more (thus more time), but the result is a findable graphics that can be
> reused over and over. (I also know how to copy text and properly paste it
> in an FM document.)
>
> Many of our graphics are used again and again, and many are one-timers.
> Plus, embedding pert near 100 or 200 graphics in a document tends to create
> a humongous filesize. For instance, a 225-page manual done by my coworker
> as described above (that I've had to completely redo correctly with edits
> throughout following its technical review) and that has over 200 embedded
> graphics and text blocks was about 800 megabytes in size. I routinely get a
> warning that there may not be enough computer memory to open the document,
> but it does open, taking about 45 seconds or more. He says that it is poor
> software and refuses to admit that his way is stupid. The file is smaller
> since I've redone it.
>
> So the questions are:
> * Does anybody here have a fast way of saving screenshots as legit
> graphics for later reuse, and if so, what is your method and how many
> seconds would you say it takes?
> * Am I being too controlling on this matter? (I suspect yes.)
> * If I'm not too controlling in this, are there any other arguments I can
> use to bolster my side of the story?
>
> Th-Th-That's all folks!!
>
> -- Kenin Atlanta
>
>
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