best use of graphics in FM

Wed Mar 21 13:57:39 PDT 2012

First, I very much appreciate the various on-list and off-list replies. I'll try 
a few things myself this evening after getting home (61 miles each way) 
regarding the graphics to see what I can do as a speed test.

Second, I just did some minor edits to a series of FM files created by my 
coworker and tried to create a pdf of the book. And yep, a big glitch occurred 
right near the beginning during distilling. Here's the text from the log file 
created by distiller:

%%[ ProductName: Distiller ]%%
%%[Page: 1]%%
%%[Page: 2]%%
%%[ Error: typecheck; OffendingCommand: pdfmark; ErrorInfo: StOBJ 
--nostringval-- ]%%

Stack:
/StOBJ
{/StOBJ}
/Obj
-dict-

%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%

*****************

Notice that distiller gave up the ghost at or after page 2 of the file during 
the book printing which should have resulted in a 254-page manual. I've done a 
visual check of pages 2 and 3 (the copyright page would be pdf page 2 and page 1 
of the comprehensive TOC would be pdf page 3) and either there's nothing 
obviously wrong or I'm blind.

Could someone explain the cryptography from the log file, specifically line 4 
(Error: typecheck . . .) and what follows it?

-- Kenpo in a hellish place

________________________________
From: Ken Poshedly <poshedly at bellsouth.net>
To: FrameMaker Users List <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Sent: Tue, March 20, 2012 9:59:00 PM
Subject: best use of graphics in FM

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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