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Development Corner: Image Formats

by Sally Cox  

When it comes to adding images to websites, PowerPoint presentations, or eLearning projects, you will likely be given JPEGs, GIFs, or PNGs. Let's review the three most common image formats and why/when to use them.

JPEG

JPEG is short for "Joint Photographer's Experts Group." It is one of the most popular formats used on the web and in eLearning. JPEG compression (the act of making the image as small as possible while retaining as much quality as possible) is "lossy" compression, which means every time you save an image as a JPEG, it loses quality.

 

The first image above is a JPEG taken with my iPhone. In the second image, I have opened the file in Photoshop and zoomed in on the child's face.

 

 

 

  

 

The little squares you see in the closeup image are called "pixels." Every time you save an image as a JPEG, it loses some quality by throwing out pixels. So if you are editing an image in Photoshop, always save it as the native format first, which is a PSD (Photoshop Document).

 

In the Save As dialog box in Photoshop, choose "Photoshop" as the file format. This saves as a PSD and preserves all details. Then after you finish your edits, do another Save As and choose "JPEG." The original PSD remains fully intact.

 

The image below is an example of the same photo saved multiple times as a low-quality JPEG. Notice that that there is a squarish effect happening and details are lost. This effect is known as "JPEG artifact."

 

 

 

JPEGs use the "RGB colorspace," which has more than 16 million colors. This allows for beautiful continuous-tone images with fluid gradations and a full range of colors. It's a good choice for continuous-tone, but does not allow transparency or animation.

GIF

The "Graphic Interchange Format" (GIF) works in the "Indexed colorspace," so its color palette is quite limited--just 256 colors. GIFs do, however, support transparency and animation (the once-hated animated GIF is making a comeback; I see it every day on Facebook). The oldest format on the web (created in 1989), GIFs are saved as "lossless" compression.

In the image below, I have saved the image as a GIF and it contains just 256 colors. You can see that the image has lost some of its detail.

 

 

Here is an example of an image containing just 8 colors--all detail is gone and the image has a "posterized" effect.

 

 

 

GIFs are perfect for "flat color," i.e., logos or flat design graphics that don't have gradations or continuous-tone (remember: only 256 colors). 

 

PNG

 

The "Portable Network Graphic" was created (approved as a web standard in 1996) to provide high quality continuous-tone but also allow for transparency and animation.

PNGs are saved in the RGB colorspace, so they have the full range of 16 million+ colors. What I like best about PNGs is the ability to save transparency, which I use every day in my workflow. I save my graphics as high-quality PNGs and allow transparency (a checkbox I choose in Adobe Illustrator when I export a graphic to PNG).

In a recent project I wanted to use an image of a headset, and I needed the background to be transparent. I opened the image in Adobe Illustrator and set the Export PNG options to High Quality and set the Background Color to Transparency.

 

 

 

Thanks to the Transparency option, I had the freedom to overlay the headset on the green background shown below.

 

To Recap:

	JPEG	GIF	"PNG"
COLORS	16 MILLION +	256	16 MILLION +
TRANSPARENCY	NO	YES	YES
ANIMATION	NO	YES	YES
CONTINUOUS-TONE	YES	NO	YES
FLAT COLOR	NO	YES	YES

 

***
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Already Own Adobe's Technical Communication Suite? Adobe Offering Awesome Savings on TCS5 Annual Subscription

All existing customers of Adobe Technical Communication Suite, Adobe FrameMaker and Adobe RoboHelp are eligible to take advantage of a limited promotional offer from Adobe. You can purchase subscription licenses of Adobe Technical Communication Suite 5 at 40% off for an entire year.

While you still have plenty of time to order TCS5 and enjoy the 40% discount, Adobe has indicated that the offer ends sometime in July. 

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Create ePubs Using Adobe FrameMaker and Adobe RoboHelp

I recently presented a 60-minute webinar for Adobe where I demonstrated how to use the Adobe Technical Communication Suite and take Adobe FrameMaker content to Adobe RoboHelp to ePub in mere minutes.

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Adobe FrameMaker: Nested Lists

by Barb Binder

A recent FrameMaker student contacted me with a numbering dilemma:

I am working with a two-level list. The first level uses numbers and the second list uses letters. The numbers start out correctly, as do the letters; but when I go back to numbers, things get wacky. What is going on? Here's what my list looks like:

The obvious problem is that the numbers are increasing incorrectly, but why? The numbered list is picking up from where the lettered list left off. The letter "e" is the fifth letter of the alphabet. When FrameMaker sees the <n+> in the next paragraph, it adds one to the counter value and displays a 6.

The trick is to look at the numbers as columns. I'll sketch them out on paper. This one is fairly straightforward and just needs two columns of building blocks along with the series label. Here's how numbering properties should look for each of these paragraph formats:

Series Label. The series label tells FrameMaker that these two paragraph formats are part of the same numbering series. While I used S for a series of steps, any uppercase letter will work as a Series Label.

List 123. The <n+>. building block in the first column will add one to the current counter and display the result as a number followed by a period. The < =0> building block resets the second column counter back to 0 for each new sub-list, but the space says not to show the 0.

List abc. The < > holds the counter value in the first column (it won't increment), but the space says not to display the value. The <a+>. in the second column adds one to the current counter value (which was reset to 0 in the previous paragraph) and displays the result as a letter.

The result?

Note: Setting up just these two tags assumes you are using another paragraph to restart the numeric counter. For more information on restarting lists, see "Adobe FrameMaker: How to Restart a Numbered List."

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Looking to learn FrameMaker? We offer both beginner and advanced FrameMaker training.

Adobe FrameMaker: Including Chapter Numbers in a Table of Contents

by Barb Binder

I received the following question from one of my Adobe FrameMaker students:

I am making a table of contents (TOC) for my book. When I create the TOC, everything looks fine except I lose the Chapter numbers. For example, the TOC displays "How to cook an egg" instead of "Chapter 1 How to cook an egg." How do I get the same numbers that I use in my individual chapter titles to appear in the TOC?

In FrameMaker, the generated files (i.e., TOC or index) store their structure information on the Reference pages. If you want to use the chapter numbers from the book files, all you need to do is make one quick edit to the TOC reference page within the book's TOC file:

1. Open the table of contents file. In the image below, the three chapter titles are missing their chapter numbers.
   
2. Choose View > Reference pages.
3. Navigate to the TOC reference page.
4. Locate the paragraph that controls the chapter titles. In my book files, I named my titles ChapterTitle. The tag I was looking for was ChapterTitleTOC.
   
   
   
   Note: You can click each building block until you find the tag you need to edit. The tag name will appear in the lower left corner of the status bar.


5. Click in front of the building block and type Chapter <$Chapnum>: followed by a space.
   
   


6. Choose View > Body pages.
7. Save and then Update the book.

FrameMaker reads the new instructions on the reference page, and adds the word Chapter, the chapter number and the punctuation/spacing in front of the original chapter titles.

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Looking to learn FrameMaker? We offer both beginner and advanced FrameMaker training.

Adobe FrameMaker 11: Get Miffed

by Barb Binder  

I received another great question from one of myFrameMaker students: 

Hi Barb... A real quick question. I have FrameMaker version 9.  I downloaded the trial for 11 to take your class. My 30 day trial ends today. I attempted to open my FrameMaker 11 files using FrameMaker 9 but can't. Suggestions?

You just need to save the FrameMaker 11 files into a format that FrameMaker 9 will understand. FrameMaker uses a format called MIF for this situation. According to Adobe, "MIF (Maker Interchange Format) is a group of ASCII statements that create an easily parsed, readable text file of all the text, graphics, formatting, and layout constructs that Adobe FrameMaker understands. Because MIF is an alternative representation of a FrameMaker document, it allows FrameMaker and other applications to exchange information while preserving graphics, document content, and format."

The very flexible MIF format can be used in a variety of advanced situations, including as a way to interface with database publishing applications. For you, it's going to be the way you save a file in a format that can be opened by an earlier version of the software.

Here's how you create a MIF:

1. Open the file in FrameMaker 11.
2. Choose File > Save as > Save as Type > MIF 7.0
3. Be sure to change the extension of the file to .MIF
4. Close the file in FrameMaker 11
5. Open the .MIF file in FrameMaker 9
6. Choose File > Save as > Save as Type > Document 9.0
7. Be sure to change the extension back to .FM

That should do it! Let me know how it goes.

 It went perfectly. Thank you! 

***

Looking to learn Adobe FrameMaker quickly? I teach two live, online classes. Adobe FrameMaker Essentials and Adobe FrameMaker Beyond the Essentials (Advanced).

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Adobe FrameMaker: The Page Count Variable for Books (Part I)

FrameMaker's Page Count variable makes it easy to track (and reference) the page count of a single chapter. The Page Count variable, which ships with FrameMaker, makes it possible to set up page numbers that look like this: 1 of 10, 2 of 10, 3 of 10, etc. Here's how:

1. Choose View > Master Pages.
2. Click within the header or footer frame.
3. Choose Special > Variable to open the Variables pod.
4. Add the Current Page # variable (double click to insert, or click once on the name, and click the Insert button on the Variables pod toolbar).
   
   
   
    
5. Press the [spacebar], type the word of and press [spacebar] again.
6. Finish by inserting the Page Count variable and return to the body pages. 

The Page Count variable works by inserting a reference to the last body page of the chapter. As you add and remove pages via editing, the variable updates.

Easy enough. But what about trying to keep track of the last page of a multi-chapter book? Tune in next week to learn more about that.

***

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

***

Looking to learn Adobe FrameMaker We offer Beginner and Advanced classes.

Adobe FrameMaker: Shading Behind a Paragraph

by Barb Binder

The question of adding shading to paragraph text comes up in my online FrameMaker class every now and then. In the past (meaning FrameMaker 9 and earlier), the solution was always a single-cell table. In FrameMaker 10, you have a choice: you can simply add a background color behind the paragraph text, or use a single-cell table. Which one is right for you?

FrameMaker 10: Adding a Background Color

1. Create a new paragraph format. I called mine Note.
   
   
2. Enable the Background Color checkbox in the Default Font properties sheet in Paragraph Designer and click Update All.
   
   Note: You may have to reduce the line spacing to remove white space between the lines of text within the paragraph.
   
   
   
   The resulting paragraph using Background Color:
   
   

FrameMaker 10 & Earlier: Creating a Single-Cell Table

1. Create a new paragraph format. I called mine Note2.
   
   
2. Select the paragraph and choose Table > Convert to Table.
   
   
3. Select Treat Each Paragraph As: A Cell with the Number of Columns set to 1. Heading Rows should be set to 0.
   
   
   
   
4. Click the Convert button.
   
   
5. Resize the table to fit the column width.
   
   
6. With your cursor still in the table, create a new Table format. I called mine ShadingTable.
   
   
7. Turn off the Table Title, set your Left & Right margins, set all of the rules to None and set the First 1 Row Shading to the color of your choice.
   
   
   
   
8. Click the Update All button.
   
   
9. The result using a single-cell table:
   
   

Comparing the results of both techniques, I think the single cell table looks better. Using a table format, we have control over the cell margins and I think that's going to provide the better solution.

In either case: don't forget to add the lead-in text to your paragraph tag so that it will appear automatically whenever you use that paragraph format. 

***

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

***

Looking to learn Adobe FrameMaker We offer Beginner and Advanced classes.

Adobe FrameMaker: Selectively Using Bold in a Table of Contents

by Barb Binder

I like mixing bold headings in my table of contents with regular weight text, but I don't like the bold leaders and page numbers that go with it:

I just think it looks awkward. My preference is to leave all of the generated paragraph formats in regular weight, and then use a character style to bold just the heading. Here's how:

1. In your table of contents (TOC), use the Paragraph Designer to set up the initial formatting for your text. Leave everything as regular weight.
   
   
2. Create a character format to set the weight to bold. I called mine Bold.
   
   
   
   
   
3. Choose View > Reference pages and turn to the TOC Reference Page.
   
   
   
   
4. On the TOC Reference Page, select the <$paratext> building block for the paragraph formats you would like to bold, and apply the Bold format from the Character Catalog.
   
   
   
   
5. Save your work and return to the Body pages.
   
   
6. Update the TOC to see the change applied.
   
   

 ***

About the author: Barbara Binder is the president and founder of Rocky Mountain Training. Barbara has been a trainer for nearly two decades and has been recognized by Adobe as one of the top trainers world-wide.

***

Looking to learn Adobe FrameMaker We offer Beginner and Advanced classes.