Acrobat 6 Scrambling Visio Drawings

[alphabasher]

Hello all. Am new to this forum. Have done a search for possible solutions, but found none. Forgive me if this repeats a previous thread.

Here's the problem:

Working on a HUMONGOUS project that calls for converting several hundred MS Word documents to PDF format. Each Word document includes one imported Visio flow chart. Flow charts range from simple to highly complex. When converting to PDF, about 9/10 of the time the Visio drawings are scrambled. Normally, boxes remain in the correct place, but text and arrows are scattered in a completely random fashion. Text is also much larger than the drawing before conversion. Since these documents are Web-bound, my only solution has been to convert the Visio drawings to JPEG, and then import them into MS Word. This, however, is time consuming and not very efficient, since most of the documents are frequently revised. I've tried tweaking Acrobat, but nothing seems to help.

Can anyone offer a possible solution, or at least point out the root cause.

Thank you.

Lynda

 

[Eggles]

How are you getting the Visio drawings into Word? How are you converting the Word doc to PDF?

If the answer to the first question involves OLE, and the answer to the second uses the 'Export to PDF' function in Word, I am not surprised you are having problems.

Since the second is perhaps easier to solve I will suggest a solution here first. The default 'engine' for conversion of a Word doc to PDF is PDF Writer, which is unable to handle any graphics in the Word file (hence a possible cause of your screwed up Visio charts).

Do you have a copy of Acrobat Distiller? If you don't and you expect to successfully convert all these Word docs with Visio graphics to PDF, you won't be able to and will continue to have the problems described.

If you DO have Distiller (what version?), then when you are ready to make the PDF, choose Distiller as your printer, select the appropriate job options* under the Properties button, and click OK.

* appropriate job options will depend on the intended output - since you mentioned web-bound (but are people likely to print them?) then if you have Distiller V5, then choose 'eBook' from the default list of job options, as it provides a good compromise between smaller file size for web display but better printing results than if you choose the 'screen' setting.

If you don't have Distiller, and only have access to PDF Writer, then you will continue to be disappointed with the graphics.

 

[Eggles]

Lynda

I only realised after I had posted my reply that you mentioned Acrobat 6 in the title of your post. Which may mean much of what I said is not relevant.

However, before I reword my reply, please answer the questions I asked - how are you getting the visio charts into Word? How are you making the PDF?

 

[alphabasher]

Eggles,

Thank you for replying. I am using Acrobat 6 Professional.

Have tried cutting & pasting from Visio to Word and importing the Visio doc via Insert. Same results each way.

As for conversion of Word to PDF, I have tried (1) using the conversion routine from within Word, (2) printing to Acrobat, and (3) converting Word to PDF from within Acrobat. None of the above combinations have produced consistently satisfactory results.

Hope this helps to clarify the problem.

Lynn

 

[Eggles]

Hey - I'm a 'Lyn' too (but with one 'n')

I don't have Visio on my current computer, so I cannot check this - but are the any alternatives for saving/exporting the Visio chart in another format apart from the native one? I'm thinking in terms of a graphic format. Is it possible to save as a WMF? which would be the best choice as it is the Microsoft vector format that would be acceptable to Word. Although it is possible to save Visio charts themselves as PDFs I am not sure if PDFs are acceptable to Word as an insertable graphic format - I think it depends on the Word version. If WMF isn't available, try TIF or even GIF (assuming you don't have too many colours in the chart).

But the only way I would contemplate getting the visio chart in any format into word would be via insert>picture>from file. NOT copy/paste and NOT insert object (because the latter doesn't work with postscript).

So the way I would do this if you can save the vsio file in another format would be to insert it into the Word doc and then use the two-step method (always the safest) of creating the PDF i.e. print to file using Distiller as your printer, and then opening the PRN file formed from Word (you will need to click on the dropdown list of 'distillable' file types in Distiller when you try and open the Word postscript file) and then select your job options (I would still recommend eBook) and then distill.

I will be interested to hear of any choices in file formats that you can save/export those visio files.

 

[alphabasher]

Eggles,

I shall try the approach you recommended. Thank you very much.

To avoid scrambling the Visio images, I've been converting them to jpegs from within Visio, and then importing them into the Word documents. While this yields satisfactory results, using any format other than Visio is not a good long-term solution. These documents are ISO Process Descriptions, which are undergoing audit and near-constant revision. Inevitably, by converting the Visio files, I'm creating much more work for myself down the road.

I will let you know how it turns out.

 

[Eggles]

Why are you choosing JPG as the file type to save your Visio charts? JPG is suitable for images such as photos, which have continuous tone colours. A flowchart - even if you use a few colours in it - is more suitable to save as a GIF. But neither JPG or GIF are the most suitable formats for graphics if they are to be subsequently converted to PDF. Much better if possible to save as a TIF if you can, as Word will radily accept TIFs and it is a format that will readily convert to PDF.

What other file formats can you save/export the flowcharts as?

 

[alphabasher]

The flowcharts are 8-1/2 x 14 and multicolored. In a bow to economy, I opted for JPEG vice TIF. The JPEGs have caused no problem whatsoever. Any format other than native Visio is unsuitable because, to be frank, the creators of the Visio charts are too lazy (read indifferent) to clean up their original drawings. They simply resubmit the original drawings sans an semblance of attention to detail. Thus, I find myself correcting the same errors ad nauseum.

 

[Murgle]

I had a similar problem to this, with connectors becoming disassociated with shapes etc.. - I managed to get around it by grouping all of the objects in the visio, inserting into Word and printing to Distiller - don't know if this helps any!


Ahhhhh, I see you have a machine that goes Bing!