Control diagram image resolution for RTF export (EA v14.0)

[markuss]

Hi all,

due to requirements of our development process we must export our model to PDF. This can be easily done by using RTF template. EA then saves the model to RTF format, which we open in Word and then "Save As...PDF".

Since we have updated to EA 14, we find that association arrows are completely missing or ending abruptly. The problem is not present in the RTF document opened in word, it occurs upon converting to PDF with word. Using the Windows 10 Print to PDF feature displays the images fine. However, we do these exports frequently, so every extra step hurts a bit.

The problem does also not occur if we copy/paste the images into the word document. We suspect that the problem is related to the resolution that EA uses when creating the RTF.

Is there any way to control the image resolution for exported diagrams in RTF export?
Has anyone else faced this problem and knows a solution?

Thank you very much for your replies!

[Geert Bellekens]

have you tried setting the image type to bitmap instead of metafile?

Geert

[markuss]

Thank you very much Geert, it is always good to know that you are around :-D

I did not try that but now I did, and unfortunately it does not help. Thanks for the tip anyway, it was definitely worth a try.

Is there any way to control the resolution / DPI for the image export?

[Eve]

My foggy morning memory is telling me that there used to be an issue with either horizontal or vertical lines going missing. If it's the issue that I half remember changing the renderer may solve the problem.

There is an option to set scaling for images inside documents. I think it was only 15.1 that it was introduced though.

[markuss]

Thank you Eve! Maybe our issue is different, so far I have only seen diagonal lines which are missing completely or ending "in nomansland".

"Changing the renderer" means "change format from metafile to bitmap" - right? I have done this already and it did not help.

We could update to EA 15 but to be honest we are a bit hesitant. We hardly got used to the UI changes and rearrangements in EA 14, and so far we had a steep learning curve with every new major release. But I will take this into consideration.

Thanks again,

Markus

[KP]

"Changing the renderer" means "change format from metafile to bitmap" - right? I have done this already and it did not help.

No. On the Preferences dialog, Appearance page, there is an option "Renderer" with choices Basic, Enhanced 1 and Enhanced 2. See which works best.

[markuss]

Thank you. I tried all Renderes, but it did not make a difference regarding my problem. But thank you for pointing me to it. I see that there are several other options to play with. I will continue my investigation.

Thanks to the Sparx support for not telling me: "This is a MS word problem" and for providing new proposals fast. Stay healthy!

[markuss]

SOLVED

Thanks to the hints about Preferences->Appearance, I now found a working configuration which exports diagrams properly from EA -> RTF (MS Word) -> PDF using MS Word's "Save As.." operation:

Code: [Select]

Renderer: Enhanced-2
Image Quality: High
GDI Plus Metafiles: Checked
After playing with border widths, renderers and image quality, I found this configuration is working fine for me. I have not tested other combinations, but in my impression checking "GDI Plus Metafiles" was the significant change. At least, toggling this setting and leaving the other settings unchanged makes my problem appear/disappear.

Thanks again!

[Eve]

Glad it's solved.

FYI:
Renderer and Image Quality options are used when EA draws to a bitmap (including the screen)
GDI+ Metafiles is obviously for when a metafile is saved.

Documentation can use either depending on your options.

Normal metafiles depend heavily on the renderer used for them. I'm not aware of anywhere that uses GDI+ metafiles without actually using GDI+ to render them. If GDI+ isn't available they usually fall back to normal, in which case everything seems to have its own renderer.