Captured screenshots stretching in browser window.

[csmystic]

Hello.  I'm using RoboHelp HTML 8.0.2.208.  I'm creating an online user manual (exporting as FlashHelp), for which I am capturing many screen shots of my application, and cropping to various sizes (using RoboScreenCapture).  I'm editing the size of the new images, and generally "maintaining aspect ratio" and setting the preferred width to 80%.  When I initially preview the topic and new image, the image is often (not always) stretched horizontally down the screen.  If I close preview, and re-open (without saving or anything), the image is then displayed fine.  The same thing is happening with my generated output file, both while viewing in a web browser, and within a JFrame: When you click on a topic in the TOC, the screen-captured images are distorted and stretched horizontally.  If you simply re-click the topic and reload the page, the displayed image appears fine.  Images in the same topic, further down the page, however, display the same behavior until you re-load with them in the viewing pane.

If there is a fix to this, can it be applied to all of my images?  Thank you!!!

Chris

[Peter Grainge]

If the image is in RH and then you resize it, you need to right click the image and select Reset Size. Could that be it?

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[csmystic]

Thanks Peter, but I don't think that's it.  'Reset' brings the image back to the original size, which in this case is too big for the FlashHelp browser.  It appears that the problem is with the "Preferred Height" setting, which is being captured as a percentage when I set my "Preferred Width" setting to 80%.  When the page first loads, the overall length is not static, so the image is stretched.  Once the page length info is cached, and the image re-loaded, it displays fine.

Maybe a better question for this forum is: What is the best practice for setting RoboHelp screen capture image sizes to achieve the optimal display for users?

[Peter Grainge]

Personally I set up RH so that when I select Edit on the context menu, the image opens in SnagIt. I resize and save it there and on returning to RH it will look stretched until I use Reset Size. Then it all works OK.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Captiv8r]

Hi there

In addition to Peter's fine advice, you should never really choose to present images at anything other than their original size in RoboHelp. The result is almost never what you want and the quality will suffer to a great degreee.

The bottom line is to capture, then scale to the desired size and save. Then import into RoboHelp at the saved size.

Cheers... Rick

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[Peter Grainge]

Yes but sometimes I find the original size is wrong only when seen in the context of the topic and other images. Then I have to resize outside RH. What's the difference between resizing first and importing and the method I described? Yes there may be some deterioration but that's true of either method. The trick is, as I think you mean, not to resize by double clicking the image and resizing there. Using the different resize tool in RH is also OK, or at least, that's what you taught me.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Captiv8r]

Hi Peter

The method you described seems to mean the image is already existing in the topic at the larger and unwanted size. So in your method you have possibly opened SnagIt, Copied the image, maybe saved it and then imported into the topic. Either that or you just pasted from SnagIt into the topic. But you then open SnagIt again, scale it, save it, then reset the size in RoboHelp.

My method assumes the image has not yet been added to the topic. So my method is to capture the image from SnagIt, scale it and save it. Then import into the topic by pointing at the saved image.

Your method would be used for images that already exist in topics. My method is a suggestion for moving forward to avoid issues to begin with on scaling.

Cheers... Rick

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[Peter Grainge]

RICK

The bottom line is to capture, then scale to the desired size and save. Then import into RoboHelp at the saved size.

All I was getting at was that I think it's OK to resize before inserting or after, provided that where you resize after you do so either as I described or using the Resizer tool in the tool box rather than by double clicking the image in RH.

CSMYSTIC

'Reset' brings the image back to the original size, which in this case is too big for the FlashHelp browser.  It appears that the problem is with the "Preferred Height" setting, which is being captured as a percentage when I set my "Preferred Width" setting to 80%.

That suggests you are resizing by using the Size button in the Image dialog so that the image is one size and the display is another size. Can you not resize the image in the way Rick and I are suggesting? That is truly resizing it rather changing its display size.

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See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

[Captiv8r]

Hi Peter

I totally agree with you. After all, resizing is resizing and it really doesn't matter if you resize before insertion or after insertion. It just seems simpler to me if you resize before you even insert, because then you don't have to take the extra step of remembering to reset the size in the page once you have finished with the resizing.

I think the issue here is that we are essentially talking about two different approaches. The correct approach totally depends on where the beginning point is.

If you aren't sure about the size to begin with, or you received a system, page or other document that has the image in it already, Peter's approach is the only real approach you have. Insert, observe, resize, save and reset, observe...

If you already know the size you want, just resize and save before dropping into RoboHelp.

This has been an interesting thread. First I've ever seen where someone suggested Visio produces the "cleanest" resized image. We used to see that Microsoft Word was suggested for that very reason. Folks claimed that viewing the image at the scaled size in Word resulted in a nicely reduced size. They would then screen capture that image for use later.

Cheers... Rick

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[Guest]

New GUI necessitates updated screenshots for a help project. Large screeshots are causing problems which manifest differently in different web browsers, so I've looked to RH (8, HTML) for solutions.

I have yet to see a resized GUI image (graphic that contains text) that is legible, whether using percentage or pixel with maintained aspect ratio. RH forums suggested several 3rd party tools for resizing screenshots. The free app offered a limited choice of 50% or 25%; however, this did not fix the hardcoded height/width attributes in the topics.

Resizing an image (or saving a new screenshot) necessitates resetting EACH occurrence. Another thread provided sample javascript for "eliminating" the width/height attributes for an image--I have not been successful and I realize that this script was intended to be run on the published content, not the source topics. After attempting to remove image attributee in HTML view of topics, RH reinserts the attributes automatically. After attempting to remove just the attribute values, I saw RH adds style formatting and then breaks itself. But RH does not (cannot) identify other occurrences and update all occurrences automatically. These design choices I would choose to behave differently, if any was exposed/available.

OTOH, the right-click Properties > Image Properties > Used In tab is the manual workaround to identify other occurrences if a help project reuses graphics. And the recommended 3rd party tool for resizing images provided a way to view and sort graphics by pixel size, so I was able to find screenshots wider than 600 pixels or taller than 350 pixels (my arbitrary limits based on

http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/

), so that I can manually resize them in yet another 3rd party app: although I've set Paint as my image editor, enabling me to click/edit/crop an image, editing in Paint also loses fidelity--I wonder if Word will work as an image editor. I still need a Reset size script, though; the find and replace need a GUI button for replacing the image height/width on other topics the "Reset size on other topics" script, though: Find and Replace in Files cannot handle line breaks, so if the image attributes span more than one line, they are not found.

Captiv8r is right: "This has been an interesting thread." RH and graphics don't seem to mix--it is very frustrating.Many thanks to Google who found this thread from outside Adobe whereas searches within RH forums yielded discussions about image sizes from 2007.

[Guest]

Hi,

Resizing of screen shots is a problem I've wrestled with also. The way I usually do it is as follows:

• Capture image using paintshop pro and do any cropping or special effects in there but leave size alone.
• Save as a gif
• Then if I need to resize the image I import into Viso which allows me to re-size the iamge with very little loss of resolution prior to re-saving as  a gif.
• For most situations I bring the image into RH at actual size.

[csmystic]

All - Thanks very much for the replies and helpful discussion.  It seems the consensus is to resize the image before import (if necessary, but not recommended).  I was hoping to utilize the '%' variable for "preferred width", however this doesn't seem appropriate unless you are specifically defining the size of your web page, which I am not.  So, I'll have to decide on an appropriate static size for most images and stick with that.  Thank you!!

Chris