inserting Adobe Illustrator graphics, more experience

[henryn]

Folks:

Word 2004 Version 11.2 (050714)
Adobe Illustrator 10
MacOS 10.3.9 fully updated

Last weekend I posted about a discovery I made:

Insert-->Picture-->From File

seems to recognize Adobe Illustrator files, even though .ai files are not
one of the types one may choose with the "Enable" pull-down at the top of
the "Choose a Picture" dialog.

To review, I've discovered that by checking "Link to File" and "Save with
Document" the workflow is reasonably convenient, even for artwork I change a
lot as the text and drawings co-evolve. The graphics are well-behaved on
the screen. There are a few awkwardnesses:

o One must crop the inserted drawing the first time, but it appears that the
size you set at that point remains valid through subsequent updates, I
guess, as long as the overall image size doesn't get larger. On my machine,
the crop tool isn't as stable as I'd like it to be.

o Word sizes "wide" artwork reasonably, apparently for the page width --and
not the current margin setting. (More experimentation...) I wish there was
a bit more user control for special situations.

o The images somehow acquire a slight ivory background color in some
situations. An annoyance, not a fatal flaw. I haven't systematically
looked at which views of the material have this and which don't.

o The Edit-->Links dialog one must use to update individual graphics as one
makes a change in an AI file is non-standard and allows only a fixed column
width for the source file name. So if the source file is buried too deeply
or the name is too long, one may have a problem selecting. Fortunately, it
seems one can activate a particular one in advance by selecting the graphic
in word before going to this dialog. If one had to pick and choose several
among a long list, this could be problematic.

Now, I've just discovered a bit more about how the process works.

....Because I screwed up. I saved an Adobe Illustrator file without "Create
PDF" Compatible File" option enabled. When I tried insert that file I got
the following notice inserted into the file as a graphic:

"This is an Adobe ® Illustrator ® file that was saved without PDF content.
To place or open this file in other applications, it should be re-saved from
Adobe Illustrator with the 'Create PDF Compatible File' option turned
on..."

So Word assumes that .ai files contain PDF "stuff" and when you navigate the
Insert-->Picture-->From File to an Illustrator file, that's what it expects
and you want to happen.

This also strongly implies that the image one sees in the Word file is
derived from scalable PostScript that's in the PDF, and not a bitmap preview
image also included in the Insert'ed file as many people believe. The
result is clearly a bitmap, as a quick scaling experiment with the picture
editing tools clearly demonstrates.

Thanks,

Henry

(e-mail address removed) remove 'zzz'

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Henry:

Useful information

o Word sizes "wide" artwork reasonably, apparently for the page width --and
not the current margin setting. (More experimentation...) I wish there was
a bit more user control for special situations.

If you insert the image "Inline with text" it should size to the "available
text margin", which will be either the page margin, the column margin, or a
table or textbox size, depending on where you put it.

If you insert the image with "Text Wrapping", the size would normally be the
print image size, because you are in the graphics layer, outside the
document margins.

This also strongly implies that the image one sees in the Word file is
derived from scalable PostScript that's in the PDF, and not a bitmap preview
image also included in the Insert'ed file as many people believe. The
result is clearly a bitmap, as a quick scaling experiment with the picture
editing tools clearly demonstrates.

Hmmm... It might be worth heaving that file over to the PC and checking it
before you go much further. If the preview is being constructed using
QuickTime, it will be unreadable on PCs {sob!}.

My understanding of what is "supposed" to happen is that when Word gets hold
of the file, it uses an "Import filter" to bring it in. This import filter
falls back in sequence through a list of the graphics formats it recognises
until it finds one that can handle the content.

It then constructs a "Local Image" of the graphic, which it uses for display
in the document. If the only header it finds in the file is a one-bit TIFF,
that's what it will use. If it finds a readable PDF in there, I guess it
uses that instead.

My understanding is that whatever it finds, it converts internally to PNG
for local display. PNG is of course a bitmap.

Cheers

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Henry -

There are a few awkwardnesses:

o One must crop the inserted drawing the first time, but it appears that the
size you set at that point remains valid through subsequent updates, I
guess, as long as the overall image size doesn't get larger. On my machine,
the crop tool isn't as stable as I'd like it to be.

Are you referring to 'cropping', 'resizing', or both? I'm unclear also on
what you mean by "unstable". AFAIK, either should remain set in Word unless
you change the settings. Changes to the linked file shouldn't determine
anything other than what displays within the boundary set in the doc. Or am
I missing your point altogether?

o Word sizes "wide" artwork reasonably, apparently for the page width --and
not the current margin setting. (More experimentation...) I wish there was
a bit more user control for special situations.

I believe John addressed this quite well.

o The images somehow acquire a slight ivory background color in some
situations. An annoyance, not a fatal flaw. I haven't systematically
looked at which views of the material have this and which don't.

This could be related to what Illy calls the Artboard, similar to
Photoshop's Canvas. As with other images the graphic is contained within a
rectangle which may appear to be transparent in the creating app, but is
still filled with pixels. Most destination apps will interpret those pixels
as white unless the image file includes a clipping path. If I am correct
about Word treating the AI file as a PNG (see below) you may be able to use
the Set Transparent Color tool in Word to get rid of those peripheral
pixels.

o The Edit-->Links dialog one must use to update individual graphics as one
makes a change in an AI file is non-standard and allows only a fixed column
width for the source file name. So if the source file is buried too deeply
or the name is too long, one may have a problem selecting.

In case you may not have noticed, if you select one of the items in the
list, the full path displays directly below the list, itself, adjacent to
the Source File: label.

Now, I've just discovered a bit more about how the process works.

...Because I screwed up. I saved an Adobe Illustrator file without "Create

PDF" Compatible File" option enabled. When I tried insert that file I got
the following notice inserted into the file as a graphic:

"This is an Adobe ® Illustrator ® file that was saved without PDF content.
To place or open this file in other applications, it should be re-saved from
Adobe Illustrator with the 'Create PDF Compatible File' option turned
on..."

So Word assumes that .ai files contain PDF "stuff" and when you navigate the
Insert-->Picture-->From File to an Illustrator file, that's what it expects
and you want to happen.

Not really. The AI native format w/o PDF compatibility option appears *not*
to be an image file format. Although this is not technically accurate, think
of the 'bare' AI format as being more like postscript. IOW, the exact same
thing happens in InDesign if you attempt to place an AI that hasn't been
saved with the PDF option.

This also strongly implies that the image one sees in the Word file is
derived from scalable PostScript that's in the PDF, and not a bitmap preview
image also included in the Insert'ed file as many people believe. The
result is clearly a bitmap, as a quick scaling experiment with the picture
editing tools clearly demonstrates.

I'm not sure where the idea of a 'bitmap preview' comes from, but most
anymore (I believe) are TIFF. Illy, however, appears to use PDF for the
preview/thumbnail to deliver a graphic rendering of the AI file content to
the destination application. I'll try to find out more about this through
the Adobe Forum if I can. Either way, it seems that it is up to the
destination app to interpret the file as it 'chooses'... Photoshop looks at
the AI file as PDF, whereas it is interpreted by Word as PNG (I'm basing
this on the fact that once the file is inserted into a doc you can use the
Set Transparent Color tool which is not active when you select a PICT).

Thanks,

Henry

(e-mail address removed) remove 'zzz'

Regards |:>)

 

[henryn]

Hullo John:

Thanks for your response on this thread:

Hi Henry:

Useful information



If you insert the image "Inline with text" it should size to the "available
text margin", which will be either the page margin, the column margin, or a
table or textbox size, depending on where you put it.

If you insert the image with "Text Wrapping", the size would normally be the
print image size, because you are in the graphics layer, outside the
document margins.

Based on minimal experimentation, it appears the default is "Text Wrapping"
because it seems independent of the current margin settings in a single
column document.

But.... I don't see any way of controlling which one of these occurs at the
time of insertion. (Of course, one may change it after the fact.) There's
no control in the Insert-->Picture-->From File process to pick one of these
types. No such control in the Edit-->Links dialog. Nothing in Preferences,
either.

Hmmm... It might be worth heaving that file over to the PC and checking it
before you go much further. If the preview is being constructed using
QuickTime, it will be unreadable on PCs {sob!}.

I suppose so, but I recall right now that I've been working on this document
for, oh, two years, and it is intended to solve problems going back over 40
years, so I can't take the time at the moment to experiment. After the
document is done I'll come back and review the issues. You can nag me to
do so starting in about a month.

My intuitive guess is that the artwork insertions will be fine on the PC.

My understanding of what is "supposed" to happen is that when Word gets hold
of the file, it uses an "Import filter" to bring it in. This import filter
falls back in sequence through a list of the graphics formats it recognises
until it finds one that can handle the content.

That certainly makes sense. It is a bit mystifying that .AI is not on the
list of file types offered in the Insert-->Picture-->From File dialog, but
great that .AI files clearly are accepted and parsed for usable graphic
content.

There must be an "AI filter" for Word. (Should try this experiment on a PC,
too, eventually. I think did try it some years ago, and it worked the same.)
This filter would know exactly what to look for, and my recent experience
tells us what it is: PDF-compatible content. Maybe at this point the PDF
input filter takes over the job?

It then constructs a "Local Image" of the graphic, which it uses for display
in the document. If the only header it finds in the file is a one-bit TIFF,
that's what it will use. If it finds a readable PDF in there, I guess it
uses that instead.

Right, that's the modification to current theory that is suggested by my
recent experience.

My understanding is that whatever it finds, it converts internally to PNG
for local display. PNG is of course a bitmap.

Could be, don't know. It should not make a difference. Except: since Word
has picture editing tools, one would expect to be able to use them on
imported graphics.

Based on minimal recent experimentation, but a lot of experience over the
years:

I'm considering the image I see just after a normal insertion using
Insert-->Picture-->From File, or a subsequent update of a linked file of my
AI artwork. These always look very vectorish and not bitmappish on the
screen. But the moment I use any of the picture editing tools (other than
"crop") it seems these graphics look much more bitmappish.

How about this theory: Word is capable of inserting and rendering external
graphics using vector tools if the original artwork is in vector form.

However, Word's picture editing tools (excepting "crop") don't speak vector,
so if you use them, Word converts the image to a bitmap-type representation.
Serves you right, since you can reasonably be expected to get the artwork
right before you do the insertion. Secondary editing would always be
second-best.

Extending this to what I observe for importing from AI via copy-and-paste:
Sometimes the resulting images are "nice" and sometimes they get jaggy, so
it may be that the paste operation _sometimes_ triggers a conversion to a
bitmap representation. This would depend on, well, I dunno, but Word
clearly tries to do The Right Thing with imported graphics.

If we knew more about the parameters of doing "The Right Thing" it might be
possible to use copy-and-paste largely or totally avoiding the conversion.
That would be best.

Thanks,

Henry

 

[CyberTaz]

But.... I don't see any way of controlling which one of these occurs at the
time of insertion.

Unfortunately true. PCWord provides an option to set the default insertion
method to whatever style of wrapping you prefer, but MacWord doesn't.

Regards |:>)

 

[henryn]

CyberTaz:

Thanks for your post on this thread:

Hi Henry -




Are you referring to 'cropping', 'resizing', or both?

I mean cropping. Imported graphics arrive in page-size frames, of which
only a bit is one of my sketches. Easy enough (but see below) to pick up
the cropping tool from the Formatting Palette and move the top center of the
frame down and the bottom center up. I usually leave the sides alone
unless the sketch was badly centered in the first place, in which case I
pull in the right and left sides as much as necessary to center the object
with the help of the center align button.

I'm unclear also on what you mean by "unstable".

The tool itself is jittery. Sorry, but that's what it is, jittery or
unstable as I move it. Flickers. Easy to miss the drag handles and, at tht
point, reverts to some other kind of pointer.

AFAIK, either should remain set in Word unless
you change the settings. Changes to the linked file shouldn't determine
anything other than what displays within the boundary set in the doc. Or am
I missing your point altogether?

This point isn't worthwhile chasing as I should do more experimentation to
see what actually happens. I did note that sketch excursions a bit outside
the AI "artboard" --that's the boundary-- are shown in Word, but independent
items way outside the artboard are not. But that's very, very preliminary.

I believe John addressed this quite well.

Right. Well, I still wish there was more control.

This could be related to what Illy calls the Artboard, similar to
Photoshop's Canvas.

Could be, but there's no fill inside the Artboard. And this is the only
case I've found a tint or cast added behind the graphics -- in every other
use, the background of the graphics is transparent.

As with other images the graphic is contained within a
rectangle which may appear to be transparent in the creating app, but is
still filled with pixels.

Right. In a vector graphic, though, there are no such pixels, unless at
some point a conversion is done.

Most destination apps will interpret those pixels
as white unless the image file includes a clipping path. If I am correct
about Word treating the AI file as a PNG (see below) you may be able to use
the Set Transparent Color tool in Word to get rid of those peripheral
pixels.

OK, thanks, I'll try that next time I see it.

As I remarked, this isn't a fatal flaw -- the discoloration helps frame the
sketches... fortuitously. But I could do without it.

In case you may not have noticed, if you select one of the items in the
list, the full path displays directly below the list, itself, adjacent to
the Source File: label.

I didn't see that. D'oh! That helps.

But I don't understand why a standard file selection box couldn't be used
here so users could adjust the three columns as necessary. It is extra
work to programmers to do a custom, fixed column-width scrolling box here.

Not really. The AI native format w/o PDF compatibility option appears *not*
to be an image file format. Although this is not technically accurate, think
of the 'bare' AI format as being more like postscript. IOW, the exact same
thing happens in InDesign if you attempt to place an AI that hasn't been
saved with the PDF option.

I'm not sure of the distinction or if we really disagree. There are two
general cases: either you save with PDF compatibility or not. If you
don't, contents comprehensible only to AI is saved. If you do, the file
contains at least something other apps can use.

These distinctions get really crazy, since there are all sorts of
this-file-contains-this-format-and-that-format combinations. Maybe it would
be better to talk about vector versus bitmap. (But some files contain
both...)

I've done a small amount of similar work with sketches from AI to InDesign,
but so little I don't recall the results. I don't recall any problems.

I'm not sure where the idea of a 'bitmap preview' comes from, but most
anymore (I believe) are TIFF.

I'm not sure either. It seems to be the impression of a lot of people that
there's an extra representation in each file that's bitmapped, even if
there's also a vector (i.e., PostScript) representation that looks great on
a PS printer.

Illy, however, appears to use PDF for the
preview/thumbnail to deliver a graphic rendering of the AI file content to
the destination application.

Not sure about that, if the PDF compatibility is disabled.

I'll try to find out more about this through
the Adobe Forum if I can.

Good idea. I'd join you there... if I wasn't so pressed for time. Post
back here, or contact me offline, please.

Either way, it seems that it is up to the
destination app to interpret the file as it 'chooses'...

I think there is a kind of negotiation between what the source application
provides and what the target app can interpret. It's even possible for the
the target app to have a range of bad to great choices and pick a suboptimal
one for the user's purpose -- for reasons known only to the software folks.

Photoshop looks at
the AI file as PDF, whereas it is interpreted by Word as PNG (I'm basing
this on the fact that once the file is inserted into a doc you can use the
Set Transparent Color tool which is not active when you select a PICT).

Don't know about that, but I'll take a look next time I'm there.

thanks,

Henry


(e-mail address removed) remove 'zzz'

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello once again!

Pardon the random

snips

Three suggestions re the Cropping Tool which may help:

1) Zoom in first to make the handles easier to get hol of,
2) Hold down the Cmd (⌘) Key while dragging... The "jittery" behavior is
because of an invisible underlying Grid that the edge of the cropping box
jumps to. The Cmd Key allows you to override the default 'Snap to Grid'
behavior,
3) If you prefer, turn on the Drawing Toolbar, click it's Draw button &
select Grid. Remove the check for Snap to or adjust the setting to something
more comfortable.

Imported graphics arrive in page-size frames

Have you tried resizing the Artboard to more closely approximate the
dimensions of the drawing? I've found the same as you - if the Artboard is
sized as Letter the image comes over in a Letter-sized frame, no matter how
small the amount of content within. Downsizing the Artboard results in a
correspondingly reduced frame. I've also had success selecting a drawing in
the AI window & simply dragging it to a Word doc window.

Don't feel bad - it's easy to miss

What I found is that if the PDF Compatible check *isn't* used the 'raw' AI
format file is what gets saved. With the check in place the file is saved as
a dual-format file which includes the PDF. As we both apparently surmised
the target app actually reads the PDF and you are limited to whatever
features that program offers to determine how the PDF is interpreted. Word
obviously offers fewer options than programs such as Photoshop.

I blame Adobe on this lack of clarity... The option should be more clearly
labeled to the effect of "Include PDF Preview".

Regards |:>)

 

[henryn]

Cybertaz:

Thanks for your email:

Hello once again!

Pardon the random

No problem!

Three suggestions re the Cropping Tool which may help:

1) Zoom in first to make the handles easier to get hold of,
2) Hold down the Cmd (⌘) Key while dragging... The "jittery" behavior is
because of an invisible underlying Grid that the edge of the cropping box
jumps to. The Cmd Key allows you to override the default 'Snap to Grid'
behavior,
3) If you prefer, turn on the Drawing Toolbar, click it's Draw button &
select Grid. Remove the check for Snap to or adjust the setting to something
more comfortable.

OK, great, I'll try those suggestions.

Would it be unduly provocative to comment that the default settings might be
chosen differently?

Or that the prospect of figuring out how to create and maintain a set of
personal settings for this and numerous other "issues" is much too daunting?

Never mind.

Have you tried resizing the Artboard to more closely approximate the
dimensions of the drawing?

Right. In the past, I've been making small sketches, maybe occupying from
1/10 to 1/3 of a printed page. As it happens, in the last couple of days, I
made a series of sketches that filled the artboard. I also have one master
AI file that's about 36 x 36 inches. I tried to expand the artboard to get
better control over what shows up in Word, but it is a bit difficult to
control things via this method. (Might be easier if I had more processing
power -- that master file weighs 80mb and bogs down AI.)

Filling the artboard seemed to provide slightly better results, but nothing
spectacular.

A slight sort-of digression: Consider a situation in which your are setting
out to describe some physical or mechanical process in steps, and you want
to use mixed text and drawings to do it.

Disassembling a carburetor? Solving a Rubik's Cube? Doesn't matter much as
long as we assume very simple and reasonably small sketches suffice. (Say,
3" or 4" squares.) Suppose the process breaks down naturally into, say, 20
steps.

Most naturally, I think one would sit down at Illustrator, open a new file,
and start sketching. Sketch the first step, move over a few inches on the
artboard, do the second, and so on. No worry about the artboard -- you've
got an essentially infinite-sized sketchpad. Just make sure you can find
everything and put each sketch in sequence.

So, at some point, these sketches go into your Word document.
Copy-and-paste would be most natural, but that doesn't work reliably, as
we've discussed. So ... do you distribute your 20 sketches into 20 files,
which you try to name as descriptively and as flexibly as possible?

Remember, these are simple sketches. Ultimately, I think it would be best
if you could do all this work in the Word environment. I've tried to use
Word graphics over many years. Although they have improved, I have found
them inadequate.

I've found the same as you - if the Artboard is
sized as Letter the image comes over in a Letter-sized frame, no matter how
small the amount of content within.

Right. I already conceded this point: I'm willing to do the extra steps
required to crop the letterbox-sized frame around a tiny sketch in cases
like this, especially since Word _does_ seem to maintain the cropping size
through link updates, I guess, as long as the overall size of the artwork
doesn't grow. (Guessing -- I have not experimented with this.)

I conceded this unwillingly, because the process is not exactly smooth.
I've already described the cursor problems, which I hope go away
(permanently?) when I apply the adjustments you suggest.

When I adjust the bottom handle upward on a small sketch, the immediate
result is the graphic frame disappears, and I have to scroll the document
(in Page Layout View) manually to find it again. Often, before I scroll, a
ghost frame appears superimposed on the text that's below the artwork. I've
learned to ignore this and it seems to go away harmlessly.

Downsizing the Artboard results in a
correspondingly reduced frame.

Yes, and changing between landscape and portrait layout has the
corresponding effect in Word.

I've also had success selecting a drawing in
the AI window & simply dragging it to a Word doc window.

I _think_ that action is technically equivalent to copy-and-paste. If so, I
would expect that it would work well in one case and fail in the next, as I
have experienced with copy-and-paste between AI and Word.

Don't feel bad - it's easy to miss

Oh well... It helps, but to be completely repetitive: a standard
variable-column display would have done the trick, without the filename
display below the box, which is totally non-standard and non-intuitive.

What I found is that if the PDF Compatible check *isn't* used the 'raw' AI
format file is what gets saved. With the check in place the file is saved as
a dual-format file which includes the PDF.

Thanks! Did you find that the file sizes add up approximately? So a raw
save, a save of raw+PDF, and a save to PDF (print?) compare as one would
expect?

I'm curious partly because I want to have better control over my file sizes.

As we both apparently surmised
the target app actually reads the PDF and you are limited to whatever
features that program offers to determine how the PDF is interpreted.

If an app can do this, so could we, right? So, in theory, I could take a
raw-only AI file and add a completely different PDF to it, and Word would
see the PDF? I'm thinking of possibilities for future experimentation.

Any clue if these are two concatenate files, forks, resources, or what?

Word
obviously offers fewer options than programs such as Photoshop.

I'm OK with that.

I blame Adobe on this lack of clarity... The option should be more clearly
labeled to the effect of "Include PDF Preview".

Hmmm, well, there's a bit of semantic gray in this picture. (Sorry!) This
material doesn't seem like a preview, which I think as a small, limited
representation of the whole. It is an alternative full representation,
right?

That said, I have scratched my head about why Adobe included this option.
Some messages I've seen implied it was so people without AI could see the
contents of your AI files, which seemed a bit odd.

Thanks,

Henry

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Henry:

I can give you more of my "understanding". Please do not hold me to every
dot and comma: Microsoft has not "told" us the precise internal details of
how this works. That's because it's pretty complex and comprised of bits
they wrote themselves and bits they purchased from outside companies, which
arrive with attendant copyright and usage licensing restrictions. The
following is "how I think it works"...

Based on minimal experimentation, it appears the default is "Text Wrapping"
because it seems independent of the current margin settings in a single
column document.

There are two sets of "defaults". If Word believes the arriving object is a
"picture" it uses the "Picture" defaults, otherwise it uses the "Text"
defaults.

Within "Picture" defaults, there is a default for "Shapes" and a default for
"Pictures". "Shapes" are best thought of as "components of pictures". If
you use Word's drawing tools, it is "shapes" that they insert. If you use
Word's "picture editing" tools, they can work only with bitmaps.

All bitmaps are considered to be "pictures", but 'some' vector illustrations
are treated as pictures too. I think the main difference is whether Word
has an import filter that can deconstruct the graphics file into its
component parts.

Word can't (in this version) get PostScript to pieces, so PostScript-based
ones are "pictures", the metafile-based ones are "shapes". This won't
change really soon, because PostScript describes only the "appearance" of
things, it does not contain their "properties". I understand there are
moves underway to extend PostScript so it can contain object properties that
enable the components of a picture to remain as "shapes" that have
properties and behaviours. But it hasn't happened yet.

The 'shapes' group are all very similar to CGM (Computer Graphics Metafile)
which has at last become an ISO standard. Every company has done its own
thing with CGM, but it underpins PICT on the Mac and WMF and EMF in Windows.
Basically, the file contains mathematical formulae that produce lines, dots,
boxes, circles and triangles. However, each of these artefacts can contain
a sometimes extensive property sheet that describes its attributes,
abilities, and behaviours. For example: an "arrow" is a composite of a
square and a triangle: as a group, it can have a name, a hyperlink, display
text, alternate text, and dynamic rollover behaviours.

So basically what happens is that when Word sees a graphic, it throws it at
the import filter, which says "Is this something like CGM?" If it is, Word
converts internally to a "display" format Word can display and manipulate:
PICT on the Mac or EMF on the PC (very similar formats). It preserves the
original as a binary blob in the document, which it uses for printing.

If the import filter can't treat the file as CGM, it then calls it a
"picture". Again, it preserves the original information as a binary blob.
But again, it must produce a format that Word can display: in this case, it
rasterises the image and stores PNG as the display format.

But.... I don't see any way of controlling which one of these occurs at the
time of insertion.

You're right. It's there on the PC but they left it out of the user
interface on the Mac. I guess if you knew where, you could edit the .plist
concerned to set the defaults, because the mechanism is there in Word 2004,
but they took the steering wheel off on the Mac.

My intuitive guess is that the artwork insertions will be fine on the PC.

Our *experience* is that in many cases they WON'T be, so I strongly suggest
that you TEST this before you come back here in a month saying you have this
document that works just fine on the Mac but none of the images will display
on the PC

There must be an "AI filter" for Word.

What I was trying to say above is that there is only "one" import filter.
It determines whether the incoming binary blob is a "document" or a
"picture". If it's a "document", it decides whether it's a Word, Excel, or
PowerPoint document. If it's a "Picture" the next choice it makes is
"Vector or Raster?". It then runs either a RIPper or a Renderer, and feeds
it a set of configuration parameters that tune the conversion for the
detected incoming format.

How about this theory: Word is capable of inserting and rendering external
graphics using vector tools if the original artwork is in vector form.

However, Word's picture editing tools (excepting "crop") don't speak vector,
so if you use them, Word converts the image to a bitmap-type representation.
Serves you right, since you can reasonably be expected to get the artwork
right before you do the insertion. Secondary editing would always be
second-best.

PDF, PostScript and AI are all handled by the same filter that pulls in CGM,
EMF, WMF, DXF etc. The difference is simply in the way the filter maps the
attributes of the primitives to its internal primitives, and whether or not
it can retrieve the properties for each.

Extending this to what I observe for importing from AI via copy-and-paste:
Sometimes the resulting images are "nice" and sometimes they get jaggy, so
it may be that the paste operation _sometimes_ triggers a conversion to a
bitmap representation. This would depend on, well, I dunno, but Word
clearly tries to do The Right Thing with imported graphics.

Basically: When you "edit" an image, or drag it around, Word fires up the
"Filter" if it needs to access the innards of the graphic. If you do
something Word cannot accomplish by "scaling" the image, it will rasterise
it, and you get the jaggies.

If we knew more about the parameters of doing "The Right Thing" it might be
possible to use copy-and-paste largely or totally avoiding the conversion.

Don't change Size, Shape, or Colour

Cheers
--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410