TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
I am on the digest so I hope I am not too late with a comment. I have
worked with Master Documents with pictures included and I believe you can
avoid the red X problem in future with the following tips I have picked up
along the way.
1) Always open any Word document from Word - never from Windows Explorer.
(Or - always open Word documents the same way all the time.)
I got red Xs at some point in the past and was given this tip to avoid this
problem. Something to do with Word's orientation - finding out where it is
at. I don't quite understand this one but it is one of those where - it
works, just do it and you won't have problems!
2) I have always had all my sub documents in one directory, say /MANUAL and
then all graphics in a sub directory to that, say /MANUAL/GRAPHICS. This is
a necessary tidiness when I was working on several different manuals at one
time. I learned to not use the /d when inserting the picture. In Word 2000
it is "Insert and Link". Thus, your field code should read: {INSERT PICTURE
"GRAPHICS\\picture.bmp" \* MERGEFORMAT} (Same as Steve Hudson pointed out
yesterday - link, don't embed.)
I don't believe there is an easy solution to your problem right now - that
is, no one-click solution for a clean-up. When I had red Xs, I pressed
Alt+F9 to show Field Codes. I could then type in the correct location and
remove /d easily, either manually or with the replace function. If you do
press Alt+F9 right now, you may see some locations as "picture.bmp" and
some as "SERVER\\DIRECTORY\\picture.bmp". This illustrates how Word has
been disoriented in the location of the DOC file and its inserted graphics.
You can then just manually correct what is between the double quotes to
suite the correct location. Once you do this and once you become consistent
in how you open your Word files, you should not have any red Xs any more.
Oh, don't forget to press F9 within each Field Code bracket set to update
any changes you make! Sometimes, but rarely, you can make all your changes,
close the document, then re-open. The codes should be accessed once again,
this time picking up the correct info. This doesn't always work for some
reason so I just use F9 to be on the safe side.
I have just left the company where I had documents I could use to
substantiate all my statements and now I am starting all over again all by
myself so I am drawing on memory. I have worked with Master Documents up to
525 pages in size with graphics. As long as I worked with the files in a
structured and rigid manner, I really didn't have problems with them. I
also did my corrections to each file individually and never, ever in an
open, expanded Master Document. (Again reiterating what Steve Hudson
wrote.) That would have brought my pc and Word to its knees - or lower! I
hope this helps you out.
One final tip - I don't agree with Steve Hudson that your problem has to do
with Adobe as you describe it. Your problem is in Word. I can warn you
about the size of the graphics however. I had a 200 Mhz, 128 Mb RAM, 500 Mb
virtual memory pc that could not handle converting a 500+ Master Document
with 70 Mb graphics to a PDF file. After several weeks of discussion back
and forth with colleagues, I was convinced it was a size problem and I
decided to convert all the 24-color BMP graphics to .PNG with Paint Shop
Pro 6. I reduced that pile to 2 Mb!!! THEN my pc could do the PDF
conversion in less than an hour. Just a warning if you are going to start
linking tons of graphics.
*** Deva(tm) Tools for Dreamweaver and Deva(tm) Search ***
Build Contents, Indexes, and Search for Web Sites and Help Systems
Available 4/30/01 at http://www.devahelp.com or info -at- devahelp -dot- com
A landmark hotel, one of America's most beautiful cities, and
three and a half days of immersion in the state of the art:
IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
