Publication: Making Book or Large Publication

Various tips, tricks and known issues

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lpaatero
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Joined: Fri May 21, 2004 12:20 pm
Location: Finland

Publication: Making Book or Large Publication

Post by lpaatero »

This is still draft...

There are few steps in making diagrams for publication effectively:
  • 1. Test graphic formats for good quality before making big work. Quality of end-result depends on exact combination of software, so it would be best to test combination before doing big work.
    2. Test resulting file size when creating PDF. Some tool combinations may produce quite big PDFs.
    3. Add diagrams into file, so that all diagrams can be exported as single action. This makes it easier to regenerate diagrams if needed.
1. Graphic Format for Diagrams

Test graphic board format before creating diagrams and doing layout work. While GOWrite exports high-quality images, different programs have different capabilities to handle formats, so results can vary a lot.
Printing houses may have different capabilities and strong opinions on which formats should be used (to get good quality). Typically EPS is good bet, but often WMF(EMF) and SVG are also good candidates.

2. Result Size
When doing PDF, it makes sense to check also how PDF size grows depending on diagram graphics type and graphic options. Major factor in size is the way fonts are encoded into diagram. Two basic options exists in vector formats.
  • - Text as set of vectors (settings "for printing"). This encodes text as any other vector graphics in diagram. This ensures fonts look always the same and GOWrite can make predictable precision adjustments, while graphics file size may be large. However text in computer screen may not look good, if anti-aliasing is not used, so on-screen result depends on viewing program.

    - Text as such, and information (name) of proper font (settings "for screen"). This creates small graphics file and good quality for all on-screen viewing programs, when it works properly. However this requires that font mapping works. Also font size and positioning may not work always due to different programs having different interpretation of positioning and size of font.
When exporting diagrams fonts handling can be adjusted from "Export Graphics Settings" -> "Options" dialog. Depending on used programs, any of vector formats (EPS, SVG, WMF) may give small file with good quality.

3. Exporting All Diagrams
For small number of diagrams copy-paste is very fast, so it is good way to get started.
When there are lots of diagram, copy-paste may not be the fastest way. Alternative is to use "export" -> "all diagrams", which creates a file for each diagram in game. Then import diagrams into layout program.

If working with OpenOffice, it is possible to export all diagram as OpenOffice graphics in one OpenOffice document. This is very fast way of working, as only one OpenDocument file needs to be opened.

More information
GOWrite help http://gowrite.net/help/publishing/overview.html contains more information on publication creation.
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