Inserting screen captures into topics

[WindyWindy]

I found good information on Peter Grainge's Site regarding images:
http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/images/images.htm

I'm using RoboHelp 6 and want to generate printed documentation having lots of screenshots.
I think, the best image format to use would be PNG.

May be I missed something, but using RoboHelp's Screen Capture tool, screen captures can be directly copied into a topic. But then this is always a jpeg which has always ugly graining around the icons and text. Even when copying and pasting an image from somewhere, it alway becomes a jpg and not a gif as stated in RoboHelp's help.

Of course I can save the screen capture in the format I want in RoboScreenCapture tool, but I like the feature of directly copying the screen shot into the topic, especially when there is the need of doing hundreds of screenshots.

How can I configure that when pasting an image into a topic it becomes a PNG?

Thanks for the help
Joerg

[Peter Grainge]

quote:

---

May be I missed something, but using RoboHelp's Screen Capture tool, screen captures can be directly copied into a topic.

---

Unless this changed in RH6, it is best to save the image first rather than paste it in. You can save it in the format you want, give it the title you want and avoid confusing the database which some people find happens, particularly when pasting in large numbers of images. Copying in may look more attractive at first site but files like image001.xxx become a pain when you want to use an image again, compared to a well named file. with hundreds of images, I would regard that as even more important.

It's a trade off between quick creation now and easier maintenance later.

I don't think I recommended PNG as some people find it causes various problems. See these forums.

RH pastes as GIF for me and I tried a number of ways to change that but could not. Before looking at the help I thought there was a way and your findings sort of confirm that. Can't find it right now though.

[WindyWindy]

It seems that RH6 decides itself which format to choose:
- taking/copying and pasting a screenshot becomes a jpg.
- copying and pasting a gif from a pic application or even Word becomes a gif

It did not experience problems using png that were created in RoboScreenCapture, so may be that was an issue in previous RH versions?

I find PNG good choice, as there is no quality loss like in jpg, and is not limited to 256 colors in the picture as in a gif.

I get best results in printed documentation, even after resizing not using the external Resize tool, and can be used in the HTML Help later on, as browser can handle this format.

One downside: the Resizer tool does not support the PNG format, which surprises me a bit...

[Peter Grainge]

I didn't say the people who experienced the problems were just the authors. :-)

I believe it can cause end users problems with some printers, admittedly rare.

If it works for you then use it but my feeling is it is not a popular format. Anyone please feel free to contradict me, it would be good to know.

With RH6 as well, copying a screenshot goes in as a gif on a second PC. Something is nagging me that there is a way of changing that but can't find it right now. It's not via a setting that I can see.

[ewriter]

I've used png as a graphics format in RoboHelp without problems for a quite a while. IE (certainly up to version 6--not sure about version 7) has a problem with transparent png files so that may be what some folks are talking about. That said, I don't use RH to insert files (I edit in Dreamweaver and use SnagIt and Photoshop for graphics), so RH may have an additional issue with that format. Otherwise, png's display and scale well, and contain additional information in the header that may be of use.

[Newsgroup_User]

I'm not entirely sure that the problem with transparency in PNG files is a
flaw in IE... a colleague on a list I subscribe to was grumbling about not
being able to view PNG files with transparency.. the transparency didn't
work. I created one in Paint Shop Pro and the transparency DID work, even in
IE. So I think it may be possible that there's some difference in the method
various graphics tools use for creating transparency in PNG files.

Mike
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"ewriter" <webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:es9ot7$5oj$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> I've used png as a graphics format in RoboHelp without problems for a
quite a
> while. IE (certainly up to version 6--not sure about version 7) has a
problem
> with transparent png files so that may be what some folks are talking
about.
> That said, I don't use RH to insert files (I edit in Dreamweaver and use
SnagIt
> and Photoshop for graphics), so RH may have an additional issue with that
> format. Otherwise, png's display and scale well, and contain additional
> information in the header that may be of use.
>