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Subject:Re: TIF or GIF? From:"Dick Margulis" <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Wed, 17 Jan 2001 13:33:45 -0500
Jim,
It depends. TIFF is a lossless compression method. GIF is a lossy compression method, as is JPEG. So if there is any possibility that you will have to open up a graphic and modify it, you should at least keep a TIFF copy on file, even if that is not the format you put in the document.
Also, if there is any chance that the graphic will be reused in, say, a marketing document, you should know that GIFs cannot be imported into PageMaker, even if they work in FrameMaker. You may also find that the reproduction quality on paper leaves much to be desired, but that depends on the resolution at which you create the GIF in the first place.
I am curious as to why you don't mention JPEG. In many cases a JPEG compresses better than a GIF, depending on the nature of the illustration. For screen shots with text, JPEG would generally not be a good choice, but for some other types of graphics it would. Again, the original should be retained as either a TIFF (for raster images) or an EPS (for vector images).
HTH,
Dick
Jim McCallan wrote:
>I've been looking at the graphics we use in FrameMaker 5.6 for use in PDF,
>HTML, and paper manuals. I've seen some improvements in quality when using
>GIF instead of TIF, and the end file size of the PDF is smaller as well.
>Are there any draw-backs to using GIF's in manuals for hard print? We
>import the graphics by reference currently, but are looking at making our
>FrameMaker files more portable by copying the graphics into Frame instead of
>importing by reference. We generally print the paper copies at 600 dpi. Any
>thoughts?
>
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