11 replies to this topic

[Greg]

I'm experiencing some "fuzzy" quality when I use Illustrator to produce figures and maps to be inserted into word documents. My typical method is to save as a high quality JPG and insert (no scaling)

I find the image looks "fuzzy" (slightly blurry edges and text) when printed, but if I follow this same process from Corel Draw, it looks great.

Illustrator should be able to produce the same, if not a better quality product then Corel, so I'm not sure where I'm going wrong!

Is there a way to insert a vector format (eps or pdf) while retaining compatibility? (These reports occasionally go out via email)

I have tried playing around with my color profiles (CMYK vs. RGB) with no success

Any assistance would be appreciated!

Cheers

[David Medeiros]

Could you go the other way and export your word docs as PDFs, then open and instert the map in AI?

[Greg]

Could you go the other way and export your word docs as PDFs, then open and instert the map in AI?

Well, sure... but the point is to have the final product as a .doc for distribution.
We could just pdf the doc and insert the figures as needed into the pdf, but most of our clients prefer word documents.

[David Medeiros]

Could you go the other way and export your word docs as PDFs, then open and instert the map in AI?

Well, sure... but the point is to have the final product as a .doc for distribution.
We could just pdf the doc and insert the figures as needed into the pdf, but most of our clients prefer word documents.

Why is it neccesary to have a .doc? Just a matter of personal preference? If so you may find that your clients will change thier minds once they get the PDF. PDF's work great for document distribution (it's what they were created for) and they handle embeded graphics far better than Word in my experience.

But I'm sure there is a more complicated solution ; )

[Greg]

Why is it neccesary to have a .doc? Just a matter of personal preference? If so you may find that your clients will change thier minds once they get the PDF. PDF's work great for document distribution (it's what they were created for) and they handle embeded graphics far better than Word in my experience.

But I'm sure there is a more complicated solution ; )

If it were up to me, everything we send out would be pdf, but unfortunately we are submitting these proposals to government and city offices, so their submission guidelines are cast in stone.

I'll keep playing with my JPG settings, my real question is why a JPG exported from Corel would look better then a JPG exported from Illustrator?

[Charles Syrett]

Have you tried exporting from AI, and then resaving the jpg in Photoshop? I'm sure a PSD jpg would work just fine. (I don't think of this as a roundabout method, being a Freehand user -- we always make our jpgs in PSD anyway.)

Charles Syrett
Map Graphics
http://www.mapgraphics.com

If it were up to me, everything we send out would be pdf, but unfortunately we are submitting these proposals to government and city offices, so their submission guidelines are cast in stone.

I'll keep playing with my JPG settings, my real question is why a JPG exported from Corel would look better then a JPG exported from Illustrator?

[Greg]

Have you tried exporting from AI, and then resaving the jpg in Photoshop? I'm sure a PSD jpg would work just fine. (I don't think of this as a roundabout method, being a Freehand user -- we always make our jpgs in PSD anyway.)

Do you mean opening the AI in photoshop, and then saving as a JPG from there? I have not tried that, but I would think Illustrator's jpg functionality should be the same as photoshop? I'll give 'er a shot though!

[Nick H]

I'm experiencing some "fuzzy" quality when I use Illustrator to produce figures and maps to be inserted into word documents. My typical method is to save as a high quality JPG and insert (no scaling) ...

Hi Greg, I don't use it but I suppose that AI must be able to export to an enhanced metafile (*.emf). These import to Word very nicely (here at least). Or am I missing something? Probably .

Regards, N.

[peanut]

I export as png from Illustrator for consumption in Word with excellent results. Usually set the output resolution of the png to 200 dpi.

Rich

[Greg]

I export as png from Illustrator for consumption in Word with excellent results. Usually set the output resolution of the png to 200 dpi.

Rich

PNG is a great suggestion! Why didn't I think of that? It looks much better Thanks Rich!

[Dennis McClendon]

For areas of flat color, such as maps, PNG is a far superior format to JPG. PNG (like GIF) looks for runs of pixels all the same color. JPEG tries to fit what it sees to a pattern, and so introduces artifacts.

[Nick H]

PNG is a great suggestion! Why didn't I think of that? It looks much better Thanks Rich!

Did you have a look at a possible enhanced metafile solution Greg? In an EMF file the vectors should be saved as vectors (where possible).

Regards, N.