Re: inserting Adobe Illustrator graphics, more experience

Hi Henry:

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

On 26/3/06 3:05 AM, in article C04AB866.178D4%henryn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
"henryn" <henryn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

There must be an "AI filter" for Word.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don't change Size, Shape, or Colour :-)

Cheers
--

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

John McGhie <john@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

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