Re: Frame 5.1 GIF and Grey Box Question

["Thomas Michanek" <thomas.michanek@xxxxxxxxx>]

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From: "Melanson Richard" <richard.melanson@vsea.com>
> I have a problem that has me scratching my head. Here is the info, I am 
> authoring in Framemaker 5.1, and using FrameViewer to display the Frame 
> files. We have recently updated our files and I wanted to change the type 
> of graphics we use from .pcx to .gif  So I used PaintShop Pro Version 4.14 
> to batch convert the .pcx files to .gif files. Then I went into the 
> Framemaker 5.1 files and saved them as .mif files. then I went into the 
> .mif files using WordPad and did a search and replace for all the 
> references to .pcx and changed them to .gif. I kept the exact file names, 
> just the extension was different when PaintShop Pro did the conversion. 
> Now when I re open the .mif files Framemaker 5.1 states that it cannot 
> display the imported graphic and will just display a grey box, BUT Frame 
> knows that the graphic is a .gif, Frame says so in the properties. AND I 
> can use Framemaker 5.5 or 5.5.6 to open the .mif files and the graphics 
> display just fine in the later versions. I must keep the Frame files as 
> 5.1 files so that the FrameViewer 5.1 licenses that we have can be used. 

You didn't specify your platform, but I can see two possible causes that
were bugs in FM 5.1 (and corrected in FM 5.5):

- Black-and-White GIF files are gray boxes in FM 5.0x/5.1x for Windows:
  see http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/c8b6.htm
- FrameMaker 5 supports the GIF 87a, but not GIF 89a format. 
  FrameMaker 5.5 supports GIF 89a format:
  see http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/ae4a.htm

That is, either save your GIF files in full color mode, or in GIF 87a format.
(I believe you can control these options in PaintShop Pro.)


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Thomas Michanek, [Michagon], Linkoping, Sweden
       FrameMaker/UNIX/MIF/scripting expert
EMAIL: mailto:Thomas.Michanek@telia.com
WWW:   http://go.to/framers , or go directly to:
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