Picture quality reduced to final published product

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Riccardo Schiavone
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Joined: Sat Apr 28, 2018 12:23 pm

Picture quality reduced to final published product

Unread post by Riccardo Schiavone »

I entered a picture in H&M, I had to resize it to fit into the page.

this is what it looks like in H&M
https://photos.app.goo.gl/WEdB7zrupYGaTfyA7

If I publish with .chm the quality goes down to unintelligible
https://photos.app.goo.gl/HMQNzDZdVaHLmpa58

And If I publish with pdf, it does not appear at all in the page
Simon_Dismore
Posts: 205
Joined: Thu Jul 13, 2017 2:57 pm

Re: Picture quality reduced to final published product

Unread post by Simon_Dismore »

What was the picture file format (e.g. bmp, gif, jpg, png, tif, etc.) before you imported it to H&M? ? Can you post a link to what you imported?

If the files were originated in a vector graphics package, it might be possible to import them to H&M as "SVG", which would maintain high fidelity so long as your readers are using modern browsers that support it.

If that doesn't help I suggest you explain your starting conditions and goals in general terms so that Tim and Alexander can give you the best possible advice. Using the XY model, I mean start at step 1, not step 3.

Hope this helps
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Tim Green
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Re: Picture quality reduced to final published product

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Riccardo,

Your original image is nearly 13,000 pixels wide and you are trying to zoom it down to 1,000 pixels. Even with a good resizing algorithm that is difficult, but trying to do it with the fast algorithm that must be used when you are publishing a project is expecting magic. :wink: Also, when you publish to PDF the full original image will be published to your PDF, bloating the size of the file.

In a case like this you really need to resize the image physically in a graphics program using a good resize algorithm. Not necessarily all the way down, but so that the resizing in Help+Manual does not need to be more than a factor of 2 or so. That leaves you some leeway for zooming in PDF.

You can do that directly with Impict from the Help+Manual editor:
  1. Right-click on the image and select Picture > Edit with Impict
  2. Right-click on the image in Impict and select Resize and Effects. Then choose the Resize Image option and you will be able to choose from a large selection of high-quality algorithms to do the resizing.
  3. Save the image in Impict, then return to Help+Manual.
  4. Right-click on the image in the editor and select Picture > Reload to load the edited version.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
Riccardo Schiavone
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Apr 28, 2018 12:23 pm

Re: Picture quality reduced to final published product

Unread post by Riccardo Schiavone »

Ok thanks, so elaborating from this topic:
I have a Manual that will include several thousands of drawings.
not all of those drawings can put as pictures in the manual, and actually, they should not.

So I've read that when I put a link to a pdf drawing to a page, the .chm file shall be having all those drawing in its same folder (which is not the best solution).

Is there any other way to have the pdf files at least organized under subfolders (and not in the same folder as the .chm file)?

What if I use another format (pdf, webhelp, word, etc) do I get to put the pdf files under subfolders?

Thanks

Regards

Riccardo Schiavone
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Tim Green
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Re: Picture quality reduced to final published product

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Riccardo,

The problem here is a bug in Microsoft's CHM system that has existed ever since it was released with Windows 98. Microsoft has not fixed any bugs in CHM since then, and has really not updated anything at all. The system is still as it was when it was released, warts and all... :?

This bug prevents links to any external files from working if they are not in the same folder as the CHM. This is because CHM doesn't understand relative paths. You can work around it by using a file link and including the ENTIRE path of the link, including the drive letter (e.g. d:\...), but most often you don't know that. The CHM skins in the Premium Pack add-on have a workaround for this: There I have included an automatic script that gets the local path and rewrites local links to full absolute paths including the drive letter. Then you can manually store your PDF files in a sub-folder and enter normal relative paths to them in the file links in your topics. The script in the skin will then make this work. The file names must NOT include any spaces, accented characters or other non-alphanumeric characters.

The other alternative is to put the PDF files on the Internet and use web links instead. Provided your users will have an Internet connection that is really the best solution, because it also means you don't need to distribute your big package of PDF files, most of which will not probably be viewed by every user.

Otherwise you do have to put the files in the same folder as the CHM file, for which you can thank Microsoft... :roll:
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

Private support:
Please do not email or PM me with private support requests -- post to the forum directly.
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