Unglue shifts components in imported EMF graphic

[LurfysMa]

When I insert an emf graphic created by a musical notation program
(Insert | Picture | From file...) it comes it as a grouped graphic.

If I ungroup it (Ctrl+Shift+U), all of the components are broken out,
but some of then shift slightly in the vertical direction so that the
notes are no longer in the right places on the staff.

Is this Visio or the notation progtam screwing up?

 

[Chris Roth [ Visio MVP ]]

It might be Visio. A metafile is 100% *within* the selection rectangle, but
Visio draws lines so that they are centered on that rectangle. So when you
ungroup, things might shift by 1/2 linewidth.

Is the difference you are seeing about this size, or is it bigger?

You might try selecting all the notes and then pressing an up or down arrow
key. This allows you to nudge the selected shapes in a particular direction.
Hold Shift to make the nudge-distance even finer.

To make selection of notes easier, you might first Shift+Click-Select all of
the staff lines and group them together (Ctrl+G). Then it will be easier to
"not select" them, if that makes any sense.

--

Hope this helps,

Chris Roth
Visio MVP

 

[LurfysMa]

It might be Visio. A metafile is 100% *within* the selection rectangle, but
Visio draws lines so that they are centered on that rectangle.

Why? Can this be disabled?

So when you
ungroup, things might shift by 1/2 linewidth.

If I understand you, that sounds like a tiny shift -- 1-2 pels?

Is the difference you are seeing about this size, or is it bigger?

The graphic is a music staff (treble clef) with 5 notes (C D E F G).

The staff lines are about 5/64" wide (tall) as are the notes. When the
graphic is originally imported (and grouped), the notes are perfectly
centered in the spaces (D & F) or on the lines (C E G).

After the ungroup, all of the notes as well as the treble clef sign
are shifted down 3/64". The F, for example, which used to be perfectly
centered on the second line of the staff, is now partly in the space
where the F used to be but slightly lower.

I suspect that it is something other than Visio centering lines. If I
scale the original image so that the notes are 1/4" high and then
ungroup, the notes shift downward 3/16".

I also tried importing the graphic into CorelDraw. It wouldn't even
load it, complaining that is was an "invalid format".

I also noticed that the notes are also shifted to the right by about
1/4 note width.

 

[Chris Roth [ Visio MVP ]]

It sounds like your music app is serving up weird stuff. Does it have a
variety of graphic formats available for export. Maybe you can try a few
different ones, although I suspect most of them would be bitmap, which is
probably not what you want.

--

Hope this helps,

Chris Roth
Visio MVP

 

[LurfysMa]

It sounds like your music app is serving up weird stuff.

Yes, I suspect that as well.

Is there any place that I can send the EMF file to have it checked?

Does it have a
variety of graphic formats available for export. Maybe you can try a few
different ones, although I suspect most of them would be bitmap, which is
probably not what you want.

Yes, it has several bitmap formats, but I am hoping to use vector
graphics if I can get it to work.