Can I change text in a tiff using Illustrator?

Question

I have a layout for an ebook with some important black and white bitmap illustrations in tiff., 300 dpi. These has appeared ok on print, but not on screen, reading the same pdf-file. This is partly because there are texts in fontsize 5-6 pt. People tell me I have to convert the drawings, or at least the text, to vector graphics.
Question is now - since at the moment I have CS6 avaiable - can I open these tiff.s in Illustrator, change the text to vector and then save in a format, that can be inserted in the Word2010 layout? (You might wonder why I use Word, but it was a question of economy, when the project was started up). Or are there other ways? Thanks for any answers!

Answer 1

Hi, here are some more details:
I´m working on a layout-job, that involves both Adobe CS and Microsoft Word, and since I haven´t found any forums that comprises both, I´m putting my questions here and have been very grateful for the help I already got from your answers. These are some precise details of my task:
The layout is for a revised and extended edition of a book, previously published twice 10-20 years ago, first in danish, later in english. I wasn´t involved in these. The new layout that I make is made in Word 2010, set up in a template made for the purpose. The book is being prepaired both for paper and for ebook publishing, and as far as the printed paperbook I have no worries concerning the illustrations, since they have already been printed in a satisfyingly good quality. The problem is how to present clear and readable illustrations for the e-book.
The material I was given consists of the complete english book-layout made in PageMaker 6.5 plus all the illustrations as separate TIFF-files with english texts. These TIFF´s have been inserted in my new Word layout, and then some of these texts do not appear with a satisfying clearness in the test PDF´s I make from the Word layout (PDF being the first format we have chosen for the upcoming ebook). The illustrations in question here are (originally handmade) black and white line drawings (ink), mostly geometric figures with the english texts (appr. 5,5 to 9 pt). The texts were – using Photoshop - added (not by me) to scanned copies of the original danish-texted drawings. These scans were saved as TIFF´s, typically 600 dpi, onelayered,  bitdepth is 1 – and these TIFF´s are the ones I need to improve and at the same time make a seceond set with danish texts.
The attached TIFF is a section of the most problematic of these drawings (the complete drawing is 1,2Mb). As for the size, the diameter of the largest ring should in the end layout be appr. 1,7 cm, which is eqiuvalent to the original size of the TIFF. In AI it opens up smaller, in PS it opens up bigger – for some reason? Of course e-book readers have the possibility of zooming in, but in 1:1 the illustrations should look somewhat ok, don´t you think? (Here I tried to insert my TIFF, but get the message "content not allowed" - what could be wrong? The file is not over 200 Kb)
So these are the steps: 1) Improving/altering the TIFF´s, maybe change the format to something compatible with Word2010. - 2) Inserting the drawings properly in Word. – 3) Convert to a good quality PDF within an acceptable filesize.
My questions right now are: 1) Will it be enough to replace the unclear texts with bigger and/or screenfriendly fonts, using Photoshop again, - or 2) do I need to change to vectorized texts, using Illustrator or other software like Corel Draw. 3) How to keep the quality through the process of being exported/inserted to Word and subsequently converted to pdf?
My experiences with PS and AI up till now are: The process of vectorizing my illustrations or part of them, seems a long a winding one, let alone the trouble with inserting EPS-files in Word. I have made som attempts with WMF, but the files I get are simply much too big (20Mb+). EMF, exported from AI and in Word converted to a Microsoft Office Drawing Object is the best I have made, but the file is still rather big, the section alone is 5,6Mb. (I would prefer not more than 2Mb). Other suggested formats that I don´t get any satisfying results with are PNG and JPEG. EPS is unreadable (we have already discussed this) in Word, and looks ok when I reach the final PDF made with PDFCreator, but using Acrobat Pro there is a black field where the EPS should be.
Any suggestions?