How to bring a Drawing in good quality into Word

[Anonymous]

Hi,

since Publisher is discontinued i am left with an Inventor licence to create drawings for my manuals (Explosion views with callouts for spare part lists, assembly and usage instructions with callouts, arrows, zooms etc). I got a short training for how to do that.

My main problem is to bring a high res (preferably vector) image into a format that MS Word can use.

I tried exporting the dragin to all available formats but the issue is, depending on the zoom level in the drawing when I export the picture there is always not only the drawing "sheet" exportet but also part of the background. This means I need to edit that picture again. -> Highly impractical

I tried exporting as PDF and then importing it as object in Word but the output quality is hellishly bad.

I tried exporting to PDF and then opening it in Illustrator, same story: pixelated like nothing else

I solely relied on Publisher which did its job quite well. Sadly Solidworks Composer is too expensive for us so I am stuck without a solution.

My questions:

1. Can anyone tell me, if there is a good workflow to bring the drawing easily out of Inventor and into word in hi-res?

2. Is there a way (quick and easy one at that) to get an EPS out of Inventor?

3. I need to remove the slightly brownish colour from the drawings (default setting) I think this can be set to white but the best option would be to export a drawing with transparent background. Is that possible?

Thanks

Stefan

[-niels-]

A few quick ideas...:

Maybe you could install an EPS printer and print to file, not sure if the output will be usable.

If you have illustrator, do you also have indesign?
PDF's shouldn't be pixelated too much, maybe you need to set the vector resolution higher when exporting.
(hit "options" before saving a pdf from the Export > PDF menu...)

[mgeurts]

For me works a PDF with de highest DPI (4000). Then make the shot with Snipping Tool. this image I use in my Word docs.

Even with PDF zoomed on 6400% the lines stay straight lines and not become cubes.

Snipping tool is making JPEG but I think that you can save them to other formats as well.

Backgrounds, colors, line weights and part visibility I solve before in the idw.

[mcgyvr]

Any reason you can't just do everything in Inventor and stop using Word?

Or as stated above just use the Windows snipping tool to grab an image right from your Inventor drawing?

Or change the quality of your PDF.. I print to an Adobe PDF printer and using "high quality" setting the output in Word is good quality for sure..

[Anonymous]

-niels-

I will check your suggestions. I wanted to limit any further use of 3rd party software but I have to try different approaches as it seems.

First I could not see any options for the DPI settings in the Export options menu. It turned out that Inventor crsahed and always showed a different menu (DWG setting). Odd enough but restarting the PC solved that issue. So I will check what you have suggested. Thank you very much!

Stefan

[Anonymous]

mgeurts

Now that the PDF export options show the correct menu (Inventor crashed) I will try you approach too of course. Depending on the results with the EPS printer. I am usually not a great fan of screenshots for my manuals because of the DPI limitation (in case the files are needed to be printed in some larger scale) but it sound like a quick solution. I tried making a PDF and copy-and-pasting the image to Word. It has a black background for whatever reason but does not look so bad otherwise.

Until Autodesk integrates Publisher functionality into their Presentation environment I will be stuck here doing it "the clumsy way" at least it is a solution for being able to continue to work.

Thanks!

Stefan

[Anonymous]

macgyvr

The main reason is that the company uses Word as standard. We provide the documents also to smaller foreign partner companies and therefore we cannot use more sophisticated and better software solutions than Word. I wish it would be different but that is the main reason.

I will try the suggested approaches and see what fits best.

Thank you!

Stefan

[Cris-Ideas · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I use lot of inventor drawings in word (user manuals) and really have no problems getting good quality (I accept it, and I am pleased with the result).

What I do is I set up sheets in idw and images about the size they should have in word (dimensions in real life units mm, not i pixels, points or something else) I use sheet size as a reference or I do a sketch on the sheet to have exact reference.

Than I export to pdf using "export" function. I use 400 DPI setting for pdf.

Than I open this PDF in Photoshop Elements, crop appropriately end in the end save as PNG with max compression.

Than directly drop to word.

This way I have small files with good quality.

See the example.

Cris.

[Anonymous]

-Cris-Ideas-

Thank you very much for your input and the sample. It looks like a proper way to go. I will change my workflow towards that and see how I get along.

All in all, everything requires a lot of fiddling around so there is now real professional solution there anymore for technical writers within the Autodesk portfolio.I will have to learn to live with it, even if it is a major drawback and a huge step backwards. As I can see I am not alone with the problem here. The question is, will we be heard or irgnored because our group is too small.

Anyways I highly appreciate the help from you guys so far. You all have been very helpful and kind by sharing your workflow and taking your precious time in replying.

Thanks a ton ot all of you!!

Stefan

[Cris-Ideas]

Hi,

From what I know there are people in Autodesk that really care about how the software behaves. But this approach seems not to be recognised by the corporation it self.

There are countless obvious bugs and drawbacks in the software that are know for years but they are totally ignored.

We must also face the fact that Autodesk is only interested in its profit and it will do as little as possible to get it.

During past years users are getting less and less for ever more money they must pay.

The only way to make Autodesk do anything it to push, to go public with bugs and to supply Support Cases every time you encounter something that is not working or is working bad, publish videos on youtube. Generally do everything that may them feel ashamed for how bad this software is and make the realise that it must be better to stand up the competition of other companies.

Cris.

[Anonymous]

Hi,

what you said are my sentiments exactly. There are a lot of people active in the forums, Users and Autodesk exployees. Most of the time I needed help I got it within a day or two. The pity is, as you wrote too, the the upper management and the ones that are in touh with the end users seem to live on different planets, distance-wise. Som issues seem to be well known but are not adressed. Problem is, for the main issue: Publisher replacement / getting it functions into Inventor there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel as far as I can see it.

Currently I am drawing arrows as parts and add them to the assembly. You can imagine the workflow if you want to change direction of the arrowheads etc. I will stop here before it will be even more off-topic.

Again, thank you all for your input/thoughts.

Stefan