problems pasting Adobe Illustrator graphics into Word

[henryn]

Folks:

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

It's baaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!!!!!

This issue is, oh, 4 years old. I thought it gone away, but...

I make a simple sketch in Illustrator, something like an uncomplicated map
or flowchart -- lines and labels, no colors, nothing fancy. I select and
copy it to the clipboard. I put the cursor where I want it in Word, select

Edit->Paste Special...->Picture

_Sometimes_ the sketch pastes and renders perfectly in Word.

_Sometimes_ the sketch shows up with a bad case of the jaggies in Word.

I cannot figure out what makes the difference.

Yesterday, I did this with "Figure 37" and it copied-and-pasted perfectly.
Today, I made minor changes to "Figure 37" in Illustrator and the result in
Word is jaggy.

Illustrator offers clipboard format preferences: You may choose PDF or AICB
(Adobe Illustrator Clipboard Format) or both or neither. Yesterday, I'm 99%
certain the selection was "PDF". Today, I tried all combinations and none
produces non-jaggy results.

(Yes, I have discovered a foolproof method of inserting Illustrator
sketches: Export them as TIFFs from Illustrator and import them to Word
using

Insert->Picture->From File...

but this requires significantly more steps for each sketch, takes _much_
longer, and produces intermediate files to manage. By the way, in
experiments I did several years ago, only TIFF format seemed to work for
this purpose.)


Extra Credit Question: If I switch to "Normal" view in Word, place the
cursor where I want it, and execute

Edit->Paste Special...->Picture

Then, for a reason I do not understand, Word switches to "Page Layout" view
in the process of performing the paste operation. Well, whatever, yup,
there's Figure 37, all jaggy. I switch back to "Normal" view: Figure 37
disappears! Go back to "Page Layout" view and it reappears. Figure 36 and
Figure 38 show up in both views. For 10 extra points, what is with this?

Maybe this isn't Extra Credit after all...

Does this indicate I am overlooking an implicit or non-obvious graphic mode
choice in Word? In "Mode A" pasted graphics show up in both views and are
rendered correctly. In "Mode B" the graphics show up jaggy in "Layout" view
and not at all in "Normal" view. (Or something like that.) Does this
observation ring any bells? What kind of graphics are visible in "Page
Layout" and not visible in "Normal"?

Your suggestions are very welcome. I _really_ need to finish this document.

Thanks,

Henry

(e-mail address removed) remove 'zzz'

 

[mmmmark]

Folks:

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

It's baaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!!!!!

This issue is, oh, 4 years old. I thought it gone away, but...

I make a simple sketch in Illustrator, something like an uncomplicated map
or flowchart -- lines and labels, no colors, nothing fancy. I select and
copy it to the clipboard. I put the cursor where I want it in Word,
select

Edit->Paste Special...->Picture

_Sometimes_ the sketch pastes and renders perfectly in Word.

_Sometimes_ the sketch shows up with a bad case of the jaggies in Word.

I cannot figure out what makes the difference.

Yesterday, I did this with "Figure 37" and it copied-and-pasted perfectly.
Today, I made minor changes to "Figure 37" in Illustrator and the result
in
Word is jaggy.

Illustrator offers clipboard format preferences: You may choose PDF or
AICB
(Adobe Illustrator Clipboard Format) or both or neither. Yesterday, I'm
99%
certain the selection was "PDF". Today, I tried all combinations and none
produces non-jaggy results.

(Yes, I have discovered a foolproof method of inserting Illustrator
sketches: Export them as TIFFs from Illustrator and import them to Word
using

Insert->Picture->From File...

but this requires significantly more steps for each sketch, takes _much_
longer, and produces intermediate files to manage. By the way, in
experiments I did several years ago, only TIFF format seemed to work for
this purpose.)


Extra Credit Question: If I switch to "Normal" view in Word, place the
cursor where I want it, and execute

Edit->Paste Special...->Picture

Then, for a reason I do not understand, Word switches to "Page Layout"
view
in the process of performing the paste operation. Well, whatever, yup,
there's Figure 37, all jaggy. I switch back to "Normal" view: Figure 37
disappears! Go back to "Page Layout" view and it reappears. Figure 36
and
Figure 38 show up in both views. For 10 extra points, what is with this?

Maybe this isn't Extra Credit after all...

Does this indicate I am overlooking an implicit or non-obvious graphic
mode
choice in Word? In "Mode A" pasted graphics show up in both views and are
rendered correctly. In "Mode B" the graphics show up jaggy in "Layout"
view
and not at all in "Normal" view. (Or something like that.) Does this
observation ring any bells? What kind of graphics are visible in "Page
Layout" and not visible in "Normal"?

Your suggestions are very welcome. I _really_ need to finish this
document.

Thanks,

Henry

(e-mail address removed) remove 'zzz'

Copy and paste is _never_ the best solution to inserting graphics in any
application, particularly Word. I don't use Illustrator on my Mac, but I do
on a PC at work and even there, copy and paste is spotty and dangerously
unpredictable.

You'd be further ahead using TIFFs like you said. Even if it takes you
longer, it won't let you down in the end. We also use .jpgs and .pngs in
Word with mostly success.

I've given up on .eps files in Word unless something changes.

YMMV.

-Mark

 

[Elliott Roper]

Folks:

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

It's baaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!!!!!

This issue is, oh, 4 years old. I thought it gone away, but...

<snip>
You have my sympathy. I spent over an hour this morning trying to get
an eps with a Preview that Word would accept.

(Yes, I have discovered a foolproof method of inserting Illustrator
sketches: Export them as TIFFs from Illustrator and import them to Word
using

Insert->Picture->From File...

but this requires significantly more steps for each sketch, takes _much_
longer, and produces intermediate files to manage. By the way, in
experiments I did several years ago, only TIFF format seemed to work for
this purpose.)

Yep, and tiffs are still rasters. Word seems to downrez everything as
soon as you look at it sideways. It was for this reason I was looking
for an eps with preview that actually worked in Word. And one that
would work on a PC too. A colleague had been given an eps logo from
Illy that he could neither view nor print on his PC.

Extra Credit Question: If I switch to "Normal" view in Word, place the
cursor where I want it, and execute

Edit->Paste Special...->Picture

Then, for a reason I do not understand, Word switches to "Page Layout" view
in the process of performing the paste operation. Well, whatever, yup,
there's Figure 37, all jaggy. I switch back to "Normal" view: Figure 37
disappears! Go back to "Page Layout" view and it reappears. Figure 36 and
Figure 38 show up in both views. For 10 extra points, what is with this?

Dunno, but I saw something similar. Once I finally got an eps with
preview that appeared in Word (Photoshop 5 EPS as offered by Freehand
10's export, after the file had been through Illy and OmniGraffle), I
found that any attempt to resize the picture in Word caused the graphic
to disappear. It would still print to Ppppp...postscript printers but
its presence on screen was only detectable by clicking where it should
have been. Its bounding box would appear.
Then I discovered that I could make the preview re-appear by switching
to normal view and back to page view. Sometimes the first attempt would
show a cropped version of the preview at the original scale, but
flicking between normal and page view again magically made it work
properly.

I should add that Mac Word handles PICT previews with more aplomb than
it does for TIFF previews, but that is not an option for my PC totin'
colleagues.

Maybe this isn't Extra Credit after all...

Does this indicate I am overlooking an implicit or non-obvious graphic mode
choice in Word? In "Mode A" pasted graphics show up in both views and are
rendered correctly. In "Mode B" the graphics show up jaggy in "Layout" view
and not at all in "Normal" view. (Or something like that.) Does this
observation ring any bells? What kind of graphics are visible in "Page
Layout" and not visible in "Normal"?

Your suggestions are very welcome. I _really_ need to finish this document.

I'm with mmmmark. Take the extra time to insert picture from file.
Clipboard is always flaky, and Word's dealings wit the clipboard are
flakier than most. Also, if what you are doing is not going to high
quality printing, TIFF will be less trouble than eps.

Another good tip is to get the picture the exact size and dpi you need
in the final doc before you let it anywhere near Word. That's what I
meant about Word downrezing if it looked at it sideways.

Arrange these words in correct order:
Breakfast Dog's Complete.

Do you notice that the latest Illy has an export to Microsoft Word
option? It flattens eveything out to PNG. I think Illy knows when it is
dealing with a spoilt troublesome child.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Henry -

Re your 'extra credit' question, see inline below;

Extra Credit Question: If I switch to "Normal" view in Word, place the
cursor where I want it, and execute

Edit->Paste Special...->Picture

Then, for a reason I do not understand, Word switches to "Page Layout" view
in the process of performing the paste operation. Well, whatever, yup,
there's Figure 37, all jaggy. I switch back to "Normal" view: Figure 37
disappears! Go back to "Page Layout" view and it reappears. Figure 36 and
Figure 38 show up in both views. For 10 extra points, what is with this?

When you paste the image in its natural format it is being pasted as an
InLine object, when you 'Paste As Picture' it is pasted with Text Wrapping
applied. Note the *black* square handles around the image frame in the first
case as opposed to the *hollow* square handles in the second case.

Maybe this isn't Extra Credit after all...

Does this indicate I am overlooking an implicit or non-obvious graphic mode
choice in Word? In "Mode A" pasted graphics show up in both views and are
rendered correctly. In "Mode B" the graphics show up jaggy in "Layout" view
and not at all in "Normal" view. (Or something like that.) Does this
observation ring any bells? What kind of graphics are visible in "Page
Layout" and not visible in "Normal"?

Normal View only renders InLine objects, whereas Page Layout View renders
both InLine as well as those with Text Wrapping applied. Objects with Text
Wrapping applied can be dragged to anywhere in the document, but InLine
objects can only be situated in a line of text - they are treated as a
'character'.

Your suggestions are very welcome. I _really_ need to finish this document.

Thanks,

Henry

(e-mail address removed) remove 'zzz'

HTH |:>)

 

[henryn]

CyberTaz:

Thanks for your post on this thread:

Hi Henry -

Re your 'extra credit' question, see inline below;


When you paste the image in its natural format it is being pasted as an
InLine object, when you 'Paste As Picture' it is pasted with Text Wrapping
applied. Note the *black* square handles around the image frame in the first
case as opposed to the *hollow* square handles in the second case.

Just when I thought my glasses were strong enough, you give me a tiny
distinction like this to look for. <grin> I've experimented with an object
already in a document, changing it back and forth between in-line and
wrapped -- at least I _think_ I've done so, it is a bit difficult to tell.

Sorry to belabor the point, but: You use the word "paste" for two
alternatives, but I only know about one:

If I paste Illustrator clipboard contents into a Word document using plain
old Edit-->Paste, I always see on the text contents of the sketch pasted, so
that is NOT an alternative.

If I use Edit-->Paste Special..., I never see more than two choices:
"Unformatted Text" is one, and the results are indistinguishable from plain
old Edit-->Paste, so that's also NOT an alternative.

In other words, the only way I know how to get the Illustrator graphic
pasted is to use Edit-->Paste Special... and choose "Picture".

Did you mean the distinction between Edit-->Paste Special...-->Picture and
Insert-->Picture-->From File?


All this would make more sense if we had more control over object processing
from, starting with preference settings about how we want objects to be
inserted in the document from the start.

Normal View only renders InLine objects, whereas Page Layout View renders
both InLine as well as those with Text Wrapping applied. Objects with Text
Wrapping applied can be dragged to anywhere in the document, but InLine
objects can only be situated in a line of text - they are treated as a
'character'.

Sorry, I would call that "Abnormal View" if certain items are omitted from
view without mention.

Is there a possibility that some subtle difference at the instant the paste
operation _sometimes_ inserts the clipboard contents as in-line and
_sometimes_ inserts the clipboard as wrapped?

 

[henryn]

Elliott:

Thanks for your post on this thread:

<snip>
You have my sympathy. I spent over an hour this morning trying to get
an eps with a Preview that Word would accept.

Did you discover any trick? I usually end up with some superstitious
workflow that involves sacrificial animals, patting parts of my body or the
tree outside, and mumbling arcane formulae.

Please say more about "eps with preview". Do you mean the distinction
between what you see in the Word document window and what is printed? I
guess the Word screen shows the preview, right, and the eps goes straight
through to the printer. Or...?

Yep, and tiffs are still rasters. Word seems to downrez everything as
soon as you look at it sideways.

My take on this is Word is trying to be helpful. Unfortunately, it doesn't
always succeed. Unfortunately, we don't know enough about its method to
feed it the right material.

It is very strange to me that sometimes the cut-and-paste works, sometimes
not. I can't put my finger on anything distinctive in sketches that work
and slightly modified versions that don't.

It was for this reason I was looking
for an eps with preview that actually worked in Word. And one that
would work on a PC too. A colleague had been given an eps logo from
Illy that he could neither view nor print on his PC.

You are using Word as a portable vehicle for viewing a graphic? I've seen
it done, but the results are often, ummm, unpredictable.

Dunno, but I saw something similar. Once I finally got an eps with
preview that appeared in Word (Photoshop 5 EPS as offered by Freehand
10's export, after the file had been through Illy and OmniGraffle), I
found that any attempt to resize the picture in Word caused the graphic
to disappear. It would still print to Ppppp...postscript printers but
its presence on screen was only detectable by clicking where it should
have been. Its bounding box would appear.
AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGG

Then I discovered that I could make the preview re-appear by switching
to normal view and back to page view. Sometimes the first attempt would
show a cropped version of the preview at the original scale, but
flicking between normal and page view again magically made it work
properly.

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGG AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGG

I should add that Mac Word handles PICT previews with more aplomb than
it does for TIFF previews, but that is not an option for my PC totin'
colleagues.

I assume you are saying this because you need to interoperate with our less
fortunate cousins on PC's, not out of any particular sympathy for them.

I'm with mmmmark. Take the extra time to insert picture from file.
Clipboard is always flaky, and Word's dealings wit the clipboard are
flakier than most. Also, if what you are doing is not going to high
quality printing, TIFF will be less trouble than eps.

As I've replied to mmmmark, the workflow really suffers if the document is
evolving -- you spend more time with the process than doing the usually
minor changes to each as the document and sketch evolve

Another good tip is to get the picture the exact size and dpi you need
in the final doc before you let it anywhere near Word. That's what I
meant about Word downrezing if it looked at it sideways.

Yes, for TIFF, I use the highest quality export, I forget which, which means
I suffer from LARGE intermediate files, which impose an additional load on
the system and my management of it.

Arrange these words in correct order:
Breakfast Dog's Complete.
Sorry?


Do you notice that the latest Illy has an export to Microsoft Word
option? It flattens eveything out to PNG. I think Illy knows when it is
dealing with a spoilt troublesome child.

No, I haven't upgraded, but it is nice to know after years of griping to
both vendors, one has actually done something about this issue.

Thanks,

Henry

 

[henryn]

Mark:

Thanks for your post on this thread:

Copy and paste is _never_ the best solution to inserting graphics in any
application, particularly Word.

Copy and paste is a fundamental part of the computing model, kind of like
brakes are a part of the automotive model.

There _is_ a lot of support behind the scenes for using the clipboard,
currently known to the tekkies as "pasteboard".

I don't use Illustrator on my Mac, but I do
on a PC at work and even there, copy and paste is spotty and dangerously
unpredictable.

In my experience, things like this are usually better on Macs.

You'd be further ahead using TIFFs like you said. Even if it takes you
longer, it won't let you down in the end.

No, but it slows me down in the process. It is _very_ tedious, especially
if the document and the sketches are co-evolving and the sketches need to be
changed often.

We also use .jpgs and .pngs in Word with mostly success.

I did my experiments with alternative file formats several years ago. I
recall that .jpg did not work very well. I don't recall if I did .png.

 

[henryn]

Folks:

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

Two people on this thread suggested using Insert->Picture to work around
unpredictability of using Copy&Paste from Adobe Illustrator ("AI") into
Word.

If the text and the graphics are reasonably stable, this approach makes
sense. For one thing it works reliably! So it is worthwhile dealing with
TIFF intermediate files -- or maybe some other format.

But if the document content and sketches are co-evolving a lot --a very
common scenario for the work I do-- then the overhead of editing in AI,
saving to an intermediate file, and importing into Word quickly becomes far
too tedious.

OK, I decided to experiment a little with Insert-->Picture-->From File and I
discovered:

Word recognizes an AI (.ai) file as containing a picture!!!!!!

The .ai file format is not listed in the Enable choice, but .ai files icons
are --surprise-- shown in full-color (not greyed) in the
Insert-->Picture-->From File dialog. So, I choose the AI file and hit the
Insert button.

Even more surprising:

Word does the Right Thing (mostly) with the contents of an .ai file!!!!

Astounding!

Thus far in my experiments, the contents of the AI composition frame
(Artboard) are rendered with no jaggies in the Word document. Material
outside the composition frame is ignored, as it should be, and contents of
the AI file in currently invisible layers are also ignored. The Word
document grows very little. The result prints on a PS printer just as it
should, too.

I'm experimenting with an AI sketch developed as an overlay to some other
material. The AI file weighs a hefty 12MB, but the simple sketch actually
inserted in an otherwise empty Word document weights 48KB (that's "K") so
clearly there's nothing besides the sketch itself being transferred, and
Word is doing Exactly The Right Thing in this regard.

Further above, I said "...Right Thing (mostly)...". So far there is only
one extra operation required: The sketch arrives in Word with a bounding
box the size of the original AI Artboard. Usually my sketches are smaller
than a full Word page, so in all these cases, I must manually crop them.

Now, what about those two options in the Insert-->Picture-->From File
dialog:

[ ] Link to File

[ ] Save with Document

I would expect checking the first one will mean that Word keeps a record of
the specified file. When I select Edit-->Links-->Update Now, the contents
of all (selected) linked files are re-imported. That's exactly what
happens, so far at least, so most of my complaint about using
Insert->Picture is addressed! OK, I'll keep all my sketches paged-sized
and crop them as a final step, no problem, it seems quite worthwhile.

Oh, sorry, I need to state tow more _preliminary_ conclusions All the
experimentation I've described demonstrates that

Word "knows" everything necessary to interpret AI files!

Or, at least, Word can clearly work with AI export mechanisms to do a pretty
good job. And:

Word's clipboard import is clearly uncoordinated with its file import.

Or, "The left and right hands..."

-----

Can my preliminary results described here be confirmed by further experience
and by others? Please, folks, try this and post what you find.

One final issue: What's the full story behind the options on the
Insert-->Picture-->From File dialog? Does selecting both

[x] Link to File

[x] Save with Document

mean that the result of linking is stored with the document, so, for
example, the fully updated document can be separated from the supporting
artwork? And, also, what about the options in the Edit-->Links-->Update Now
dialog:

Update: [ ] Automatic [ ] Manual [ ] Locked [ ] Save Picture in document

How do these relate to the two options listed above, and how do ALL these
options interact? How is "automatic" enabled? (Right now it is greyed out
for me.) Some of these issues are addressed in the help topic

Control how linked objects are updated

but on first glance it appears that some of the wrinkles may not be.

Thanks,

Henry


(e-mail address removed) remove 'zzz'

 

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

Hi Henry:

Good detective work

True, the "Clipboard" is not involved in Insert>File... However, the
"Import Filter" is involved in both Insert>File and in Copy to Clipboard...

Your results depend heavily (in the case of .ai and .ps and .eps files) on
the patch level of Word and the patch level of QuickTime and/or having
Illustrator updated.

I understand the wheels fall off again if you take the OS up to Tiger :-(

Insert>File sucks the data from the original file into the import filter for
that file format. There, it is converted, depending on what's in the file.
In the case of .ai, which the system would report as "printable", the filter
would probably convert only the header component. Which it would probably
store in PICT. Which will reliably mean the picture then won't display in
Windows Word

Insert>File takes the data from the picture file, encapsulates it, and
embeds it in the baggage section of the Word document (it sits in that
fabled container below the final paragraph mark as a binary blob).

"Link to File" stores the file name, path, and date-time along with the
binary blob. Each time you open the document, Word attempts to resolve the
file path. If it can, it checks the timestamp on the picture file it finds
there. If the external file is more recent, Word re-imports the binary data
while attempting to hold your size specification unchanged. It doesn't
always succeed: if you have changed the size of the external picture Word
will attempt to cope but it does not always produce the nicest result.

If Word can't find the picture file where it is supposed to be, it simply
uses the copy it retains in the document. If the picture later becomes
available (say, because you reconnect to the network) it will update it then
if it needs to.

"Save With Document" gives you the option of NOT storing the picture binary
in the Word document. This sucks the picture from the external file every
time the document is opened, every time the picture is displayed or printed.

This is a "brave" setting. If it's just for yourself, or when you are
surrounded by fellow documentation professionals who routinely deal with
external pictures, it works just fine. It then has the advantage of
dramatically reducing the file size, and hence improving the speed and
reliability of Word during editing.

In a corporate setting, I would never even try it. The document would last
a matter of days before someone copies it to a different folder or emails it
to someone, only to discover that it arrives without its pictures.

Link to File works fine: It works regardless of what the user does. [NOT]
Save With Document is asking for trouble. I don't even do that at home,
because *I* have a pathetic track record of emailing documents without their
pictures....

The problem with the Clipboard is in controlling what goes in and what comes
out. When you "Copy" to the clipboard, the source application normally
places its default format on the clipboard, and maybe a selection of
alternatives. When you "Paste", the recipient application has to "think
quick" and "catch" whatever arrives. If it can't understand the default
format, it will ask for one of the alternatives, and may convert THAT to one
of its preferred formats. In Word's case, many "pastes" are converted to a
raster format that gives the best chance of working if the document is
subsequently sent to a PC. But in this case, I think Word is unable to
handle the AICF so the PostScript information is gone forever...

Cheers

Folks:

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

Two people on this thread suggested using Insert->Picture to work around
unpredictability of using Copy&Paste from Adobe Illustrator ("AI") into
Word.

If the text and the graphics are reasonably stable, this approach makes
sense. For one thing it works reliably! So it is worthwhile dealing with
TIFF intermediate files -- or maybe some other format.

But if the document content and sketches are co-evolving a lot --a very
common scenario for the work I do-- then the overhead of editing in AI,
saving to an intermediate file, and importing into Word quickly becomes far
too tedious.

OK, I decided to experiment a little with Insert-->Picture-->From File and I
discovered:

Word recognizes an AI (.ai) file as containing a picture!!!!!!

The .ai file format is not listed in the Enable choice, but .ai files icons
are --surprise-- shown in full-color (not greyed) in the
Insert-->Picture-->From File dialog. So, I choose the AI file and hit the
Insert button.

Even more surprising:

Word does the Right Thing (mostly) with the contents of an .ai file!!!!

Astounding!

Thus far in my experiments, the contents of the AI composition frame
(Artboard) are rendered with no jaggies in the Word document. Material
outside the composition frame is ignored, as it should be, and contents of
the AI file in currently invisible layers are also ignored. The Word
document grows very little. The result prints on a PS printer just as it
should, too.

I'm experimenting with an AI sketch developed as an overlay to some other
material. The AI file weighs a hefty 12MB, but the simple sketch actually
inserted in an otherwise empty Word document weights 48KB (that's "K") so
clearly there's nothing besides the sketch itself being transferred, and
Word is doing Exactly The Right Thing in this regard.

Further above, I said "...Right Thing (mostly)...". So far there is only
one extra operation required: The sketch arrives in Word with a bounding
box the size of the original AI Artboard. Usually my sketches are smaller
than a full Word page, so in all these cases, I must manually crop them.

Now, what about those two options in the Insert-->Picture-->From File
dialog:

[ ] Link to File

[ ] Save with Document

I would expect checking the first one will mean that Word keeps a record of
the specified file. When I select Edit-->Links-->Update Now, the contents
of all (selected) linked files are re-imported. That's exactly what
happens, so far at least, so most of my complaint about using
Insert->Picture is addressed! OK, I'll keep all my sketches paged-sized
and crop them as a final step, no problem, it seems quite worthwhile.

Oh, sorry, I need to state tow more _preliminary_ conclusions All the
experimentation I've described demonstrates that

Word "knows" everything necessary to interpret AI files!

Or, at least, Word can clearly work with AI export mechanisms to do a pretty
good job. And:

Word's clipboard import is clearly uncoordinated with its file import.

Or, "The left and right hands..."

-----

Can my preliminary results described here be confirmed by further experience
and by others? Please, folks, try this and post what you find.

One final issue: What's the full story behind the options on the
Insert-->Picture-->From File dialog? Does selecting both

[x] Link to File

[x] Save with Document

mean that the result of linking is stored with the document, so, for
example, the fully updated document can be separated from the supporting
artwork? And, also, what about the options in the Edit-->Links-->Update Now
dialog:

Update: [ ] Automatic [ ] Manual [ ] Locked [ ] Save Picture in document

How do these relate to the two options listed above, and how do ALL these
options interact? How is "automatic" enabled? (Right now it is greyed out
for me.) Some of these issues are addressed in the help topic

Control how linked objects are updated

but on first glance it appears that some of the wrinkles may not be.

Thanks,

Henry


(e-mail address removed) remove 'zzz'

--

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]

If I paste Illustrator clipboard contents into a Word document using plain
old Edit-->Paste, I always see on the text contents of the sketch pasted, so
that is NOT an alternative.

It depends on *exactly* what you copy form AI. If I select an _ungrouped-
path & paste to Word, I get the text just as you say. But if I *group* the
path first, then copy, the image pastes into Word using the Edit>Paste
command (for clarification, I am using AI CS2, v.12.x, on OS X 10.4.4). I
believe this directly relates to McGhie's point:

Although I tend to believe that it depends more on the status of the copied
content at the time of copying rather than the format of the file the
content is in. I have neither the technical insight nor expertise to put
this out as fact, however.

If I use Edit-->Paste Special..., I never see more than two choices:
"Unformatted Text" is one, and the results are indistinguishable from plain
old Edit-->Paste, so that's also NOT an alternative.

In other words, the only way I know how to get the Illustrator graphic
pasted is to use Edit-->Paste Special... and choose "Picture".

Did you mean the distinction between Edit-->Paste Special...-->Picture and
Insert-->Picture-->From File?

No, sir. I meant simply the difference between Paste & Paste Special. Insert
is a wholly different operation. Perhaps version of AI could make a
difference?

All this would make more sense if we had more control over object processing
from, starting with preference settings about how we want objects to be
inserted in the document from the start.


Sorry, I would call that "Abnormal View" if certain items are omitted from
view without mention.

But you are opining from the position of a graphic artist, not from an
editorial viewpoint. Remember, Word is a *word processing* environment, and
your beautifully designed graphic is still an intruder in the text flow.
Normal View is primarily geared toward handling text with maximum speed &
efficiency.

Is there a possibility that some subtle difference at the instant the paste
operation _sometimes_ inserts the clipboard contents as in-line and
_sometimes_ inserts the clipboard as wrapped?

I believe it may depend on the nature of what is being pasted, but I'm not
100% sure of that.

Regards |:>)

 

[henryn]

Hullo again, John:

Thanks for your post on this thread:

Hi Henry:

Good detective work

Sound effect: Sigh of Relief.

True, the "Clipboard" is not involved in Insert>File... However, the
"Import Filter" is involved in both Insert>File and in Copy to Clipboard...

Right, that would make sense.

Your results depend heavily (in the case of .ai and .ps and .eps files) on
the patch level of Word and the patch level of QuickTime and/or having
Illustrator updated.

I understand the wheels fall off again if you take the OS up to Tiger :-(

Hmmm, maybe I'll try it on a more up to date machine, just to see the wheels
fall off.

Insert>File sucks the data from the original file into the import filter for
that file format. There, it is converted, depending on what's in the file.
In the case of .ai, which the system would report as "printable", the filter
would probably convert only the header component.

I don't know what you mean by "printable", but it is clear that the filter
is doing a pretty good job at extracting the proper data.

Which it would probably
store in PICT.

Whatever it is, it seems to be no longer a vector format. But it is pretty
good.

Which will reliably mean the picture then won't display in
Windows Word

That's easy enough to check. Word 2002 SP-2 on XP good enough? Yep, the
sketches imported by the method I described look fine. Again, obviously
not a vector format, but it looks pretty good even at 200%, which is good
enough.

My only complaint is that the background is rendered as a slightly dingy
shade of grey instead of the original white. There's no reason for this to
happen, I wish it didn't, but it is hardly a fatal flaw.

Insert>File takes the data from the picture file, encapsulates it, and
embeds it in the baggage section of the Word document (it sits in that
fabled container below the final paragraph mark as a binary blob).

Right, the data would have to go _somewhere_.

"Link to File" stores the file name, path, and date-time along with the
binary blob. Each time you open the document, Word attempts to resolve the
file path. If it can, it checks the timestamp on the picture file it finds
there. If the external file is more recent, Word re-imports the binary data
while attempting to hold your size specification unchanged. It doesn't
always succeed: if you have changed the size of the external picture Word
will attempt to cope but it does not always produce the nicest result.

Right, that's what I would expect, except for the size part. I never
specify a size for the image in Word. Word seems to want to do that for
itself. Seems to me that an image that's wider than the current margins is
automatically scaled fit within the margins.

If Word can't find the picture file where it is supposed to be, it simply
uses the copy it retains in the document. If the picture later becomes
available (say, because you reconnect to the network) it will update it then
if it needs to.

I hope so!

"Save With Document" gives you the option of NOT storing the picture binary
in the Word document. This sucks the picture from the external file every
time the document is opened, every time the picture is displayed or printed.

I guess you are saying that "disable" means "NOT storing".

This is a "brave" setting. If it's just for yourself, or when you are
surrounded by fellow documentation professionals who routinely deal with
external pictures, it works just fine. It then has the advantage of
dramatically reducing the file size, and hence improving the speed and
reliability of Word during editing.

Yeah, right, but thus far the direct AI import method I've described seems
to use very little storage. I don't have figures, but it seems to me that
importing via a TIFF intermediate tends to bulk up the Word file very
quickly.

In a corporate setting, I would never even try it. The document would last
a matter of days before someone copies it to a different folder or emails it
to someone, only to discover that it arrives without its pictures.

Right, agreed. I ran across this very recently with a non-tech user who
couldn't unzip the image files I sent her separately.

Link to File works fine: It works regardless of what the user does. [NOT]
Save With Document is asking for trouble. I don't even do that at home,
because *I* have a pathetic track record of emailing documents without their
pictures....
Right.


The problem with the Clipboard is in controlling what goes in and what comes
out. When you "Copy" to the clipboard, the source application normally
places its default format on the clipboard, and maybe a selection of
alternatives.

Yes, I've in the past instrumented the Clipboard --now, technically, the
"pasteboard"-- and been quite surprised at the number of alternative formats
it contains at any given time. I think the record number I recall is 9.

When you "Paste", the recipient application has to "think
quick" and "catch" whatever arrives. If it can't understand the default
format, it will ask for one of the alternatives, and may convert THAT to one
of its preferred formats.

Well, certainly there's a process by which Word decides what to do. You,
the user, can even affect the process by choosing "Edit-->Paste Special".
I'm certain you are only offered a subset of what's on the clipboard.
Obviously Word wouldn't be expected to understand each format it finds, but
in my experience the number of choices is usually only two or three.

In Word's case, many "pastes" are converted to a
raster format that gives the best chance of working if the document is
subsequently sent to a PC. But in this case, I think Word is unable to
handle the AICF so the PostScript information is gone forever...

We know _something_ occurs at this step, that's for sure. And I'm sure that
Word has the best of intentions. But it is frustrating to not have more
control over the process.

This does not explain why one version of Figure 37 copies and pastes from AI
to produce a crystal-clear Word graphic at one point in time and a slightly
modified version of Figure 37 --or the exact same source at a different
time-- results in a low-res, very jaggy Word graphic. The same path in the
same versions of AI and Word under the same OS should produce similar
results each time.

Thanks!

Henry

Cheers

Folks:

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

Two people on this thread suggested using Insert->Picture to work around
unpredictability of using Copy&Paste from Adobe Illustrator ("AI") into
Word.

If the text and the graphics are reasonably stable, this approach makes
sense. For one thing it works reliably! So it is worthwhile dealing with
TIFF intermediate files -- or maybe some other format.

But if the document content and sketches are co-evolving a lot --a very
common scenario for the work I do-- then the overhead of editing in AI,
saving to an intermediate file, and importing into Word quickly becomes far
too tedious.

OK, I decided to experiment a little with Insert-->Picture-->From File and I
discovered:

Word recognizes an AI (.ai) file as containing a picture!!!!!!

The .ai file format is not listed in the Enable choice, but .ai files icons
are --surprise-- shown in full-color (not greyed) in the
Insert-->Picture-->From File dialog. So, I choose the AI file and hit the
Insert button.

Even more surprising:

Word does the Right Thing (mostly) with the contents of an .ai file!!!!

Astounding!

Thus far in my experiments, the contents of the AI composition frame
(Artboard) are rendered with no jaggies in the Word document. Material
outside the composition frame is ignored, as it should be, and contents of
the AI file in currently invisible layers are also ignored. The Word
document grows very little. The result prints on a PS printer just as it
should, too.

I'm experimenting with an AI sketch developed as an overlay to some other
material. The AI file weighs a hefty 12MB, but the simple sketch actually
inserted in an otherwise empty Word document weights 48KB (that's "K") so
clearly there's nothing besides the sketch itself being transferred, and
Word is doing Exactly The Right Thing in this regard.

Further above, I said "...Right Thing (mostly)...". So far there is only
one extra operation required: The sketch arrives in Word with a bounding
box the size of the original AI Artboard. Usually my sketches are smaller
than a full Word page, so in all these cases, I must manually crop them.

Now, what about those two options in the Insert-->Picture-->From File
dialog:

[ ] Link to File

[ ] Save with Document

I would expect checking the first one will mean that Word keeps a record of
the specified file. When I select Edit-->Links-->Update Now, the contents
of all (selected) linked files are re-imported. That's exactly what
happens, so far at least, so most of my complaint about using
Insert->Picture is addressed! OK, I'll keep all my sketches paged-sized
and crop them as a final step, no problem, it seems quite worthwhile.

Oh, sorry, I need to state tow more _preliminary_ conclusions All the
experimentation I've described demonstrates that

Word "knows" everything necessary to interpret AI files!

Or, at least, Word can clearly work with AI export mechanisms to do a pretty
good job. And:

Word's clipboard import is clearly uncoordinated with its file import.

Or, "The left and right hands..."

-----

Can my preliminary results described here be confirmed by further experience
and by others? Please, folks, try this and post what you find.

One final issue: What's the full story behind the options on the
Insert-->Picture-->From File dialog? Does selecting both

[x] Link to File

[x] Save with Document

mean that the result of linking is stored with the document, so, for
example, the fully updated document can be separated from the supporting
artwork? And, also, what about the options in the Edit-->Links-->Update Now
dialog:

Update: [ ] Automatic [ ] Manual [ ] Locked [ ] Save Picture in document

How do these relate to the two options listed above, and how do ALL these
options interact? How is "automatic" enabled? (Right now it is greyed out
for me.) Some of these issues are addressed in the help topic

Control how linked objects are updated

but on first glance it appears that some of the wrinkles may not be.

Thanks,

Henry


(e-mail address removed) remove 'zzz'

 

[Elliott Roper]

Elliott:

Thanks for your post on this thread:

Did you discover any trick? I usually end up with some superstitious
workflow that involves sacrificial animals, patting parts of my body or the
tree outside, and mumbling arcane formulae.

My technique exactly. The phase of the moon is possibly relevant too.

Please say more about "eps with preview". Do you mean the distinction
between what you see in the Word document window and what is printed? I
guess the Word screen shows the preview, right, and the eps goes straight
through to the printer. Or...?

Yes, Word always shows the preview on screen, and sometimes prints it.
The eps goes to the the printer if it is a postscript printer. If you
print direct to PDF Word also sends the preview. (workaround: print to
PDF as postscript, and make the PDF from the .ps in preview.app)

My take on this is Word is trying to be helpful. Unfortunately, it doesn't
always succeed. Unfortunately, we don't know enough about its method to
feed it the right material.

It is very strange to me that sometimes the cut-and-paste works, sometimes
not. I can't put my finger on anything distinctive in sketches that work
and slightly modified versions that don't.

I'd agree with both those observations. There is a lot of black magic
with cut and paste of graphics, not all involving Word.

You are using Word as a portable vehicle for viewing a graphic? I've seen
it done, but the results are often, ummm, unpredictable.

I'm after a foolproof way of providing templates in Word for PC users
to generate copy that will be later placed in InDesign for newsletters,
briefings and brochure type stuff. I want them to have a natural way of
approximating the final product for a first pass at copyfitting without
needing to know or even think about styles and stuff that lie behind
their templates. They'll want to co-operate with one another to get the
story right before the poor muppet who does the typography and the
final layout has to get involved.

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGG

That was the answer to your question above. Not yet fully resolved. I'm
still waiting on the last of snide comments from the victims. There are
so many variations of eps on offer, each with various preview oprtions
that it takes on aspects of epidemeology.

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGG AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGG

I assume you are saying this because you need to interoperate with our less
fortunate cousins on PC's, not out of any particular sympathy for them.

No no. Genuine sympathy. From my tests, Mac Word's favourite eps
preview is definitely PICT. PC Office does not do PICT. Another one it
handles well is DOS preview out of Graffle, but in monochrome.
"Photoshop 5 eps with tiff preview" as produced by Freehand 10 is my
current winner for cross platform predictability.

As I've replied to mmmmark, the workflow really suffers if the document is
evolving -- you spend more time with the process than doing the usually
minor changes to each as the document and sketch evolve I feel your pain.

Yes, for TIFF, I use the highest quality export, I forget which, which means
I suffer from LARGE intermediate files, which impose an additional load on
the system and my management of it.

I have had occasions where Word has refused to accept greater than 300
dpi tiff. I never pursued that for too long, since the large
intermediate file problem.

In your workflow, I think I'd keep the graphics in Illy and paste
screengrabs in Word while the work was in progress, and then endure the
eps hassle once and for all at the end. I get away with that with my
colleagues, although sometimes they are happier with scanned pencil
sketches and leave me to make the finished diagrams in Graffle,
Freehand or Illy. The low tech way is good when you are dealing with
high priced talent whose first love is not fiddling with drawing
programs. More often than not I get faxed back pencilled ribald
comment.

 

[Chris Ridd]

No no. Genuine sympathy. From my tests, Mac Word's favourite eps
preview is definitely PICT. PC Office does not do PICT. Another one it
handles well is DOS preview out of Graffle, but in monochrome.
"Photoshop 5 eps with tiff preview" as produced by Freehand 10 is my
current winner for cross platform predictability.

A while back I wrote a little perl script which adds a DOS-style preview to
an EPS, and found that the only colour TIFF previews that didn't actually
crash Word were ones that were single-plane uncompressed palette images.

If you've got ImageMagick around, then:

convert -compress none -type Palette input.tiff tiffutput.tiff

will convert input.tiff into a TIFF suitable for a Word EPS preview. Graphic
Converter is able to produce a similar sort of TIFF.

Nailing the TIFF onto the front of the EPS as a DOS preview is a simple bit
of perl.

Works for me

Cheers,

Chris

 

[henryn]

CyberTaz:


Thanks for your post on this thread:

It depends on *exactly* what you copy form AI. If I select an _ungrouped-
path & paste to Word, I get the text just as you say. But if I *group* the
path first, then copy, the image pastes into Word using the Edit>Paste
command (for clarification, I am using AI CS2, v.12.x, on OS X 10.4.4). I
believe this directly relates to McGhie's point:

Thanks! I have not done anything like a systematic survey of copy-and-paste
of grouped versus ungrouped graphics, but I will certainly pay attention
now.

if I read this correctly: The presence of grouped objects appears to affect
either what AI puts on the clipboard --the alternative formats AI offers to
Word via the clipboard-- _or_ Word's default choice (what it does for plain
old Edit->Paste), _or_ maybe both.

Word can detect something as detailed as the groupings of the data in the AI
document? Is there a difference between an AI document that's partly
grouped, partly not? Is there a necessity that the entire contents be
top-level grouped?

Although I tend to believe that it depends more on the status of the copied
content at the time of copying rather than the format of the file the
content is in. I have neither the technical insight nor expertise to put
this out as fact, however.

I think technical insight is of secondary importance here. What we are
looking for is a description of how these mechanisms function from a user's
point of view.

What do you mean by "status of the copied content"? Grouping? Content?

No, sir. I meant simply the difference between Paste & Paste Special. Insert
is a wholly different operation.

Sorry, I didn't mean to belabor this point.

Perhaps version of AI could make a difference?

That's what John McGhie asserts, if I interpret his post correctly. From
my point of view, such mechanisms change very slowly over time, and it is
less likely to me that differing versions operate much differently. Well,
they _should_ improve over time, right?

But you are opining from the position of a graphic artist, not from an
editorial viewpoint. Remember, Word is a *word processing* environment, and
your beautifully designed graphic is still an intruder in the text flow.

Actually, I'm not a graphic artist. I wish!

Word has graphic capabilities and so it is fair to discuss how to use them
and how to make them work.

Normal View is primarily geared toward handling text with maximum speed &
efficiency.

Yes, clearly it takes more computing power to produce and maintain a page
view than a text view.

I believe it may depend on the nature of what is being pasted, but I'm not
100% sure of that.

I've got a quarter-baked theory that it may (also?) depend on the exact
point at which the paste is being done. Each place the cursor may be
placed has a potentially unique set of, ummm, I dunno, parameters. One set
of parameters may lead to the graphic being pasted in-line. Another may
lead the graphic being pasted wrapped.

I'm dimly aware that Word is implemented as a nested set of "containers"
but, again, the issue is how it operates from a user point of view.

Regards |:>)

Thanks,

Henry

 

[henryn]

Elliott:

Thanks for your post on this thread:

My technique exactly. The phase of the moon is possibly relevant too.

I would like to find out how to make this process more predictable and
less... mystical.

Yes, Word always shows the preview on screen, and sometimes prints it.
The eps goes to the the printer if it is a postscript printer. If you
print direct to PDF Word also sends the preview.

Aha! First step: You're working mostly with files generally containing
both preview and full eps. I'm working mostly with the clipboard
containing... well, lots of alternatives.

"Sometimes"? It would be nice to have more control over this.

(workaround: print to
PDF as postscript, and make the PDF from the .ps in preview.app)

Thanks for that tip! I had now idea that preview.app has that capacity.
I've got an old copy of Acrobat, but it is inconvenient to operate in
Classic.

I'd agree with both those observations. There is a lot of black magic
with cut and paste of graphics, not all involving Word.

The "sending" app offers up what its designers consider the most likely mix
of acceptable/useful formats. I wouldn't expect them to be able to guess
right every time.

But for exactly the same two applications under similar conditions, the
process should work ... similarly each time.

I'm after a foolproof way of providing templates in Word for PC users
to generate copy that will be later placed in InDesign for newsletters,
briefings and brochure type stuff. I want them to have a natural way of
approximating the final product for a first pass at copyfitting without
needing to know or even think about styles and stuff that lie behind
their templates. They'll want to co-operate with one another to get the
story right before the poor muppet who does the typography and the
final layout has to get involved.

Thanks for that description. Your concept makes a lot of sense and fills a
real need.

What I'm after is co-composition (or co-evolution) of graphics and textual
content. I find it easier to write when I can see fairly closely what the
final appearance will be, and that includes graphics.

I don't think I would have the guts to try to do what you are after in the
Word environment. Maybe it is wimping out, but I would be tempted to try a
web-based approach.

That was the answer to your question above. Not yet fully resolved. I'm
still waiting on the last of snide comments from the victims.
LOL

There are
so many variations of eps on offer, each with various preview oprtions
that it takes on aspects of epidemeology.

LOL x 2.


Stepping back: Maybe the "preview--eps model" for graphics just isn't
sufficient! Or maybe we need better tools to manipulate and control the
two alternative representations.

No no. Genuine sympathy. From my tests, Mac Word's favourite eps
preview is definitely PICT. PC Office does not do PICT. Another one it
handles well is DOS preview out of Graffle, but in monochrome.
"Photoshop 5 eps with tiff preview" as produced by Freehand 10 is my
current winner for cross platform predictability.

I have in the past had to deal with serious cross-platform problems, and so
I maintained a completely parallel Word set-up on a PC next to my Mac. That
has eased now, but the issues are never far from my mind.

Yes, TIFF does seem to be the best in my experience for this purpose, but I
think it also requires the largest files, too. For any given snapshot of a
document that isn't a big deal, but when I consider the evolution of a
document over months or years, the burden becomes significant.

I feel your pain.

Thanks! Well, since you do, I'd like to explore this issue a little more:

Sometimes I get the feeling that there are quite different universes of Word
users. Some --maybe most-- users appear to view my concerns as completely
irrelevant, I guess, because _their_ graphics are completely static. I
suppose most people who incorporate graphics in Word are handed a set of
files and told, "Use these."

By contrast, I rarely know even what graphics I'll need when I start my
work, much less what each one will look like. Take your pick: maybe I'm
more of a generalist than most, or I'm a really poor planner.

I have had occasions where Word has refused to accept greater than 300
dpi tiff. I never pursued that for too long, since the large
intermediate file problem.

(I think you omitted the rest of the last sentence, but I can guess.)

"Refused" as in "barfed back"? (What were the exact symptoms?) Or simply
failed to take advantage of higher resolution?

In your workflow, I think I'd keep the graphics in Illy and paste
screengrabs in Word while the work was in progress, and then endure the
eps hassle once and for all at the end. I get away with that with my
colleagues, although sometimes they are happier with scanned pencil
sketches and leave me to make the finished diagrams in Graffle,
Freehand or Illy. The low tech way is good when you are dealing with
high priced talent whose first love is not fiddling with drawing
programs.

Thanks for the suggestion.

It never occurred to me to use screen grabs as place holders. Do you mean
my often-fuzzy copy-and-paste "grabs" or true grab.app operations or their
equivalent?

What about my recently-discovered alternative of using Insert->Picture->From
File with link-to-file enabled? So far, that is reliable --well, more
reliable than copy-and-paste-- and offers automated, mass updates at a
relatively small cost of a final cropping.

More often than not I get faxed back pencilled ribald
comment.

We all need comic relief!

For better or worse, I'm generally working on my own and only have to worry
about downstream users. (Will my final Word file render correctly on their
system? Can I produce good enough PDFs?)

Reduced to the most simple terms, I see graphic and textual context as,
well, the left and right hands of a piano player. One ought to be able to
type a line of text and draw a corresponding sketch, trading back and forth
as the content requires. Maybe I'm just spoiled, or maybe I simply
remember the evolution of Desktop Publishing since the 1980's.

Thanks,

Henry

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Sorry, I would call that "Abnormal View" if certain items are omitted from

But you are opining from the position of a graphic artist, not from an
editorial viewpoint. Remember, Word is a *word processing* environment, and
your beautifully designed graphic is still an intruder in the text flow.
Normal View is primarily geared toward handling text with maximum speed &
efficiency.

Side Note:

Normal View starts making more sense if you read it as "what Word thinks is
normal." It's very reflective of how Word constructs the document from the
various constituent elements.

If you are interested in more on this general topic, see here:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/PagesInWord.html

Daiya

 

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

Hi Henry:

As far as I know, Word will handle PICT, TIFF and WMF as EPS Previews.

You can't do WMF on the Mac, of course.

Word "won't" handle any kind of illustration that contains anything above
RGB (32-bit) colour. You can get away with it in EPS because Word never
tries to display the EPS, it simply passes it through.

But any form of CMYK illustration (48-bit) will not work. And as the other
poster mentioned, if using TIFF for the placable header of an EPS, keep it
down to 8-bit. Black and white is safer...

PC Word will handle EPS without any kind of header (show Image placeholders
so you can see where the damn things are...) but I am not sure that Mac Word
will...

I've had no problems (apart from document bloat) in taking Word up to 4800
dpi using raster graphics, PROVIDED they do not contain more than RGB
colour.

Of course one should be aware that an A4 image at 4800 dpi does result in a
chunky little 500 MB TIFF. I've never tried printing one off the iBook, I
need the result this week. The previous PC had only 256 MB of memory, so it
wouldn't touch them. This one has 4GB and it will do it. Usually today...

Cheers

Elliott:

Thanks for your post on this thread:



I would like to find out how to make this process more predictable and
less... mystical.



Aha! First step: You're working mostly with files generally containing
both preview and full eps. I'm working mostly with the clipboard
containing... well, lots of alternatives.

"Sometimes"? It would be nice to have more control over this.


Thanks for that tip! I had now idea that preview.app has that capacity.
I've got an old copy of Acrobat, but it is inconvenient to operate in
Classic.



The "sending" app offers up what its designers consider the most likely mix
of acceptable/useful formats. I wouldn't expect them to be able to guess
right every time.

But for exactly the same two applications under similar conditions, the
process should work ... similarly each time.


Thanks for that description. Your concept makes a lot of sense and fills a
real need.

What I'm after is co-composition (or co-evolution) of graphics and textual
content. I find it easier to write when I can see fairly closely what the
final appearance will be, and that includes graphics.

I don't think I would have the guts to try to do what you are after in the
Word environment. Maybe it is wimping out, but I would be tempted to try a
web-based approach.


LOL x 2.


Stepping back: Maybe the "preview--eps model" for graphics just isn't
sufficient! Or maybe we need better tools to manipulate and control the
two alternative representations.


I have in the past had to deal with serious cross-platform problems, and so
I maintained a completely parallel Word set-up on a PC next to my Mac. That
has eased now, but the issues are never far from my mind.

Yes, TIFF does seem to be the best in my experience for this purpose, but I
think it also requires the largest files, too. For any given snapshot of a
document that isn't a big deal, but when I consider the evolution of a
document over months or years, the burden becomes significant.



Thanks! Well, since you do, I'd like to explore this issue a little more:

Sometimes I get the feeling that there are quite different universes of Word
users. Some --maybe most-- users appear to view my concerns as completely
irrelevant, I guess, because _their_ graphics are completely static. I
suppose most people who incorporate graphics in Word are handed a set of
files and told, "Use these."

By contrast, I rarely know even what graphics I'll need when I start my
work, much less what each one will look like. Take your pick: maybe I'm
more of a generalist than most, or I'm a really poor planner.



(I think you omitted the rest of the last sentence, but I can guess.)

"Refused" as in "barfed back"? (What were the exact symptoms?) Or simply
failed to take advantage of higher resolution?


Thanks for the suggestion.

It never occurred to me to use screen grabs as place holders. Do you mean
my often-fuzzy copy-and-paste "grabs" or true grab.app operations or their
equivalent?

What about my recently-discovered alternative of using Insert->Picture->From
File with link-to-file enabled? So far, that is reliable --well, more
reliable than copy-and-paste-- and offers automated, mass updates at a
relatively small cost of a final cropping.


We all need comic relief!

For better or worse, I'm generally working on my own and only have to worry
about downstream users. (Will my final Word file render correctly on their
system? Can I produce good enough PDFs?)

Reduced to the most simple terms, I see graphic and textual context as,
well, the left and right hands of a piano player. One ought to be able to
type a line of text and draw a corresponding sketch, trading back and forth
as the content requires. Maybe I'm just spoiled, or maybe I simply
remember the evolution of Desktop Publishing since the 1980's.

Thanks,

Henry

--

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

 

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

Hi Henry:

if I read this correctly: The presence of grouped objects appears to affect
either what AI puts on the clipboard --the alternative formats AI offers to
Word via the clipboard-- _or_ Word's default choice (what it does for plain
old Edit->Paste), _or_ maybe both.

Word attempts to convert anything you offer it as a graphic into one or
other of its "native" formats so it can quickly draw and display the images
and so it can compute its position within the text.

On the PC these are EMF and PNG. On Mac Word I think they're PICT and PNG,
but don't quote me on that. Word's native graphics format supports grouping
and layering, so yes, it would make a difference whether the image contained
those elements.

Like any graphics application, Word has limits to how many objects can be
grouped, and to how many "layers" it has in its z-order. I think these
limits are quite low. "Ungrouping" more than a few thousand objects in Word
Draw can take a while I wouldn't want to bet my life on what would
happen to the "ninth" layer in a document.

Word can detect something as detailed as the groupings of the data in the AI
document? Is there a difference between an AI document that's partly
grouped, partly not? Is there a necessity that the entire contents be
top-level grouped?

I think its best to consider a four-dimensional matrix. Three spatial
dimensions and a "quantity". The quantity dimension is normally an binary
integer: so 8, 16, 256, ... 32,767 -- the usual suspects -- tend to be
significant.

The newer the format/version of the source, the more likely it is to contain
widgets the Word converter never heard of. The "larger" the file, the more
likely the friendship is to get a bit tense. And if it's "too complex"
things are going to fall over. For example, getting engineering drawings
into Word can be interesting. Simple ones are not a problem. Medium detail
..dxfs will come in as WMF. More detail demands EMF with its 32-bit integers
to handle the complexity. A full-on CDF -- naaahhhh -- make an EPS out of
it if you must print that thing

I think technical insight is of secondary importance here. What we are
looking for is a description of how these mechanisms function from a user's
point of view.

What do you mean by "status of the copied content"? Grouping? Content?

"Anything the source application stores in its files" is potentially under
consideration. CorelDRAW will store 99 levels of Undo: if it has, don't try
to copy the result into Word

That's what John McGhie asserts, if I interpret his post correctly. From
my point of view, such mechanisms change very slowly over time, and it is
less likely to me that differing versions operate much differently. Well,
they _should_ improve over time, right?

Particularly where the source application is Adobe, which tends to have a
seriously complex internal file format that it jealously guards the privacy
of, the newer the Adobe App, the more likely it is to contain widgets we
have never heard about and have no idea what to do with.

Microsoft is gonna "get them back" with XML... Here you are fellas, it's an
open standard... Enjoy

Actually, I'm not a graphic artist. I wish!

Word has graphic capabilities and so it is fair to discuss how to use them
and how to make them work.

Henry, settle, petal!!! "Normal" view was named back in the days when
computers had a lot less power and WYSIWYG wasn't a lot of use because dot
matrix printers were not noted for their high graphics resolution. It was
intended that this was the view authors would 'normally' work in.

It's been re-named in the next versions of Office (I can't remember what
to...) because most users "normally" work in Page Layout view these days.
It's only us sausage-makers who produce documents above a thousand pages
that use Normal view regularly.

I've got a quarter-baked theory that it may (also?) depend on the exact
point at which the paste is being done. Each place the cursor may be
placed has a potentially unique set of, ummm, I dunno, parameters. One set
of parameters may lead to the graphic being pasted in-line. Another may
lead the graphic being pasted wrapped.

Quite correct If you paste in a table, depending on your version of
Word, most formats will paste "in line with text". If you paste in body
text, formats you have specified to paste "floating" will do so.

There are instances where the pasting destination will affect the format
chosen from the clipboard. Pasting a copy from PowerPoint or Excel that
contains rotated text into Word will cause the Picture format not the XML
format to be pasted, because Word can't handle rotated text.

But the destination does not affect how well the conversion is performed,
only what the image is converted into. Of course some converters will
represent the content of an image better than others: but usually it's
re-sizing that does the most damage. If you paste a vector format then drag
it to resize it, Word may convert it to a bitmap at that point.

It does affect the size: Word will paste at 100 per cent size or scale down
to fit the available space.

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