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> We're pulling our hair out right now, trying to get this done with the
> wrong software -- and bouncing between Mac and Windows applications. Feh!
I work mostly in Windows, but I used to support a Mac group.
I would be surprised if Illustrator could not import a bitmap. Most
drawing packages can. (I use CorelDraw for this under Windows).
Of course, you could just import the graphic and draw the callouts in
Frame, but that probably would not be easy to take to HTML.
Certainly Photoshop can convert to grayscale and resample the image
to get a good reduction. This won't give you the best possible output
for print, however. It's best to have the application send a color
image to a black and white printer than to reduce it first. This is
because the printer has a much higher resolution to select dithering.
Same goes for image reduction.
Of course, Photoshop is overkill for something this simple. I don't
know inexpensive Mac software, but there simply must be something!
I think this could be a time to use Frame's conditional
text. Set up a condition for HTML and a condition for print.
Mark the GIF version for HTML. Mark the fullsize bitmap that you
scale in Frame and the markups as print.
When you work with draw-program callouts over bitmap-program
graphics, you do have a problem of file multiplication. To manage it
right, you want to keep the original captured screen bitmap. Then you
want to keep the Illustrator file with the captured screen and the
callouts. Then you'll have to track the GIF file for the HTML
version.
In Windows, I cut the file clutter using OLE. I OLE embedded the
Paintbrush file in a CorelDraw graphic, which I OLE embedded in the
Frame file. Frame then wraps the OLE file in a special file that it
tracks. It kept my file management totally within the Frame book
structure. I also didn't see any performance penalty. This was on a
486-DX250 with 8MB RAM running Frame 4, CorelDraw 3, and Windows
Paintbrush.
Using OLE in Frame kills the cross-platform links, however.
I hope I haven't rambled to far off track. If you have specific
questions, please mail me.
David Mitchell David's Web Spot
mitchell -at- sky -dot- net www.sky.net/~mitchell/index.html
GTW s+:- v+++ W++$>++++ po--- b++ e++ u-
