Graphic file format overview?

[Top Spin]

Can anyone point me to a brief overview of Windows graphic file
formats?

I am looking for information on the general structure of each format,
that is, whether it is a bitmap format, vector graphics, format, or
what? Also, about how much space each format might take up for a
similar graphic.

I am trying to learn how to insert graphic objects in a large Word
document that might contain hundreds of graphic images so as to keep
the size down as much as possible.

Some of the images will be generated in Visio. Some other in a musical
notation program called Mozart. Mozart will export images in EMF
format. I think that is a vector graphic format, but I can't find that
out for sure. I believe Visio can also, but I am still researching
that.


--
Running MS Office 2K Pro
with Visio 2002 Standard
PC: HP Omnibook 6000
OS: Win 2K SP-4 (5.00.2195)
Email: Usenet-20031220 at spamex.com
(11/03/04)

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

A couple of articles:

"Description of the guidelines for selecting the appropriate picture format
in an Office XP program"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=320314

Choosing graphics formats
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/DrwGrphcs/GraphicFormats.htm

The latter, however, seems to have vanished. I'll ping author John McGhie to
see what became of it.

 

[jeroen]

EMF is a metafile format, meaning that an EMF file can contain both
vector graphics, raster images and text strings. Word supports it
natively. It is typically used for vector graphics (with text strings),
which will be the case when exported from both Visio and, I'm guessing,
Mozart.

EMF files can get large depending on the content of your graphics, but
the filesize of the whole document will shrink considerably once you
save it in Word's .doc format.

Jeroen Dekker

 

[Mary Lee M]

Thank you, Suzanne - this is the kind of information I am looking for as
well. The graphics in my documents are largely line drawings. Even with
screen shots, JPG does not work well.

 

[jeroen]

For line drawings, WMF or EMF are good file formats. Word's CGM import
filter is pretty good as well. In general, keeping line drawings in a
vector format has a number of benefits over bitmapping them to a raster
image format like TIFF, GIF or - the worst possible choice - JPEG.

Jeroen Dekker