[USNA91]

I use my PB at work, and since M$ has deemed it unnecessary to port Visio to the Mac, I've had to go with OmniGraffle (Very nice diagrams, but so far a PITA compared to Visio. Time will tell.)

Anyway, I'm a bit miffed because when I export the OG drawing to Word, it comes out extremely fuzzy; not anywhere near as sharply as Visio does.

I've tried it in OG format, Visio format, and JPG. All the same. Does anyone have any idea what I'm missing? I cannot imagine that this is actually a limitation.

If it is, I'll be getting my money back from Omni, that's for sure!

Thanks!





Sorry for all the threads. I'm bored at work!

[philm]

You need a format which will retain the vector information - JPEG won't do this for example. Copy and paste should work, but this fails between OG and Word. Not sure, but I think there are some aspects of Quartz graphics which Word does not support.

Export to PDF should work, but Word does not import PDFs correctly (they 'bitmap' for some reason). However, Word works fine with EPS files, so I suggest you try to export in this format and then drag into Word.

[skipjack]

Originally posted by philm:
Copy and paste should work, but this fails between OG and Word.

I copy and paste often and it works just fine for me.

[USNA91]

Originally posted by philm:
However, Word works fine with EPS files, so I suggest you try to export in this format and then drag into Word. [/B]

I tried that, and got a rectangle full of garbage with a message saying that the file had been saved without a thumbnail.

[USNA91]

Originally posted by skipjack:
I copy and paste often and it works just fine for me.

Do your diagrams have text in them with a font size of 10 or so?

Mine do, and when I copy and paste the results make me think my contact lenses have fallen out....

[skipjack]

Originally posted by USNA91:
Do your diagrams have text in them with a font size of 10 or so?

Mine do, and when I copy and paste the results make me think my contact lenses have fallen out....

I guess that means the print is too small?

I just looked at the last thing I did (Excel chart copied and pasted into OmniGraffle to put in some graphics and text) and I was using font size 12.

One of the things I did before that had PDFs (SnapZPro screen shots) dropped into OmniGraffle with some labels in font size 8 and 9 and the copy and paste into Word looks almost exactly like the item in OmniGraffle. ("Almost exactly" because the graphic size in Word is smaller than the page width in OmniGraffle, so it's a little smaller.)

I've been doing a "select all" and then "copy". I agree that using "import" in Word sometimes creates fuzzy diagrams, so I don't do that anymore.

[USNA91]

Originally posted by skipjack:
I guess that means the print is too small?

I just looked at the last thing I did (Excel chart copied and pasted into OmniGraffle to put in some graphics and text) and I was using font size 12.

One of the things I did before that had PDFs (SnapZPro screen shots) dropped into OmniGraffle with some labels in font size 8 and 9 and the copy and paste into Word looks almost exactly like the item in OmniGraffle. ("Almost exactly" because the graphic size in Word is smaller than the page width in OmniGraffle, so it's a little smaller.)

I've been doing a "select all" and then "copy". I agree that using "import" in Word sometimes creates fuzzy diagrams, so I don't do that anymore.

Maybe "select all" will work better.

It's not just the text. The lines are also fuzzy. It comes out looking like a bad fax.

I'm wondering if making the diagram on a larger scale and then scaling it down in Word may work? I'm used to working within an 8.5" x 11" framework in Visio, and maybe that's not the best idea in OG.

I really want to figure this out, not only because it's the only flowchart program I know for Mac, but also because I find the diagrams to be "warmer" in terms of the shadow drops and so forth. MUCH nicer than Visio. I just want it to go into Word as sharp as it appears in OG!

[Mithras]

While we're at it, does anyone else get their text in Omnigraffle looking really horrible sometimes?

Example: I make a text box with 10pt Helvetica. Looks fine while I'm editing the text. But once I de-select the textbox, it looks all aliased.


Anyone else get this?

[skipjack]

Originally posted by Mithras:
While we're at it, does anyone else get their text in Omnigraffle looking really horrible sometimes?

Example: I make a text box with 10pt Helvetica. Looks fine while I'm editing the text. But once I de-select the textbox, it looks all aliased.[/IMG]

Anyone else get this?

So far, this hasn't bothered me. I just write the reports, I don't have to grade them, and if they look good enough and are explained well enough, I'd guess the teachers barely look at the illustrations ...

So, I haven't tried this, but how about adjusting the "Shadow" inspector? By default, it seems to be set almost halfway between sharp and full shadow.

Edit: I just put some random text in a new document, and the Shadow for text is set about three quarters toward full shadow. Personally, I can't see the difference unless I enlarge it to 400%, but I'm almost blind, so it may be noticable to you younger people.

[larkost]

Just to come back to the original question: The problem with importing into Office apps is that they are very limited in what sort of vector formats they will take. Namely they will only import WMF (Windows Media Files)... they will also take EPS's but don't actually display the EPS images, but rather require an encapsulated bitmap preview (they will print the EPS fine).

Sadly, OmniGraffle does not support WMF, nor does it place previews in EPS's. There has been a long-standing conversation on the OmniGraffle mailing list about this, and a number of workarounds proposed (using GraphicsConverter to add the EPS preview, or exporting high-resolution jpegs), but there is no perfect solution.

Now this is only a problem because Microsoft has not created importers for PDF or true EPS files. Note that OpenOffice, Pages, Keynote, and even TextEdit support both of these. From the very limited chatter back from the OmniGroup, WMF might be in consideration for the next version of OmniGraffle, and that would solve the problem completely. No-one has actually said anything solid, so this is in the unconfirmed-rumor category, but it is a possibility.

[philm]

Originally posted by USNA91:
I tried that, and got a rectangle full of garbage with a message saying that the file had been saved without a thumbnail.

This is how it behaves. The file is saved without a preview unfortunately. It will print OK though so this might not be an issue.

[JKT]

Originally posted by Mithras:
While we're at it, does anyone else get their text in Omnigraffle looking really horrible sometimes?

Example: I make a text box with 10pt Helvetica. Looks fine while I'm editing the text. But once I de-select the textbox, it looks all aliased.


Anyone else get this?

Yup, it happens to me too. I haven't worked out why, but as I haven't needed to use OG for a while, I haven't needed to. Does the latest 3.2 rc version solve it?

Btw, as has been mentioned, this is really an issue with MS Office (still) being really bad at supporting graphics formats. Although it'd probably be a cold day in hell, as well as e-mailing OmniGroup about this, it is worthwhile complaining to MS too.

[lupin]

I export to PNG at resolution 288 dpi and this works great. In the Omnigraffle mail lists there are discussions about this and PNG export seems to be the recommended path.

[sworthy]

Originally posted by lupin:
I export to PNG at resolution 288 dpi and this works great. In the Omnigraffle mail lists there are discussions about this and PNG export seems to be the recommended path.

Yes! This works perfectly. Thanks for the tip, I've been having issues myself.

[philm]

Originally posted by lupin:
I export to PNG at resolution 288 dpi and this works great. In the Omnigraffle mail lists there are discussions about this and PNG export seems to be the recommended path.

Using this method you lose the vector information of course, which may or may not be an issue.