Help on resizing text boxes and general image techniques

Question

Using CS2.
I have two basic questions.  One has to do with getting the best vector images (with text) that I can for placement in InDesign documents.  The other has to do with the specifics of working with text boxes in FW.
The easiest way for me to produce vector images has been by using PowerPoint.  I do all the graphics work and then save it as a gif.  I do cropping in a graphics tool (Irfanview, PS) and then insert or place the image.  As long as there is no resizing, things work well.  I'm not sure how things like DPI are controlled using this technique but I'm assuming that also would be done with the graphics tool.  I know Irfanview allows for the dpi to be specified during resizing.
The problem starts to show up when the gif object is resized.  Things get distorted and I lose the crispness of the image contents.  I'm certainly not an expert on graphics however I've been thinking I either need to 1) make the actual size of graphics in PP the size of the final placed image so there is no resizing (just some cropping) or 2) to work in a tool like FW where (I'm assuming) there are better capabilities to resize vector graphics.  My sense (again, not an expert) is that the process I'm using converts to vector graphics in PP to a bitmap image in the gif and that resizing doesn't work as well for bitmaps as for vector objects.  Do I have that right?
Moving on to question 2:
Can text boxes be resized in FW without distorting the text?  Can their size be seen when originally drasing them?  Perhaps spoiled by PowerPoint, I like to set the width of vector objects (e.g. rectangle) and the width of the text that will fill it to the same size.  (I know PP has the ability to put borders on text boxes but when working in FW I need to work with 2 objects, the rectangle and the text box).  Say I have a rectangle that is 81px wide.  Can I set a text box to 81px wide without distorting the text?
I tend to want to control actual object sizes so I can get good spacial alignment.  For example, I tend to set the width of a text object to an odd number of px so that any line coming out of the text object aligns well with the text.  I must admit that it may be time for me to use a different technique in FW (e.g. more alignment of multiple objects vs. knowing dimensions and seting locations).  Does my approach need improvement?
Thanks for any advice
Tom

Answer 1

As I wean off of PP I've started looking at FW and Illustrator (I have both).  I've done a logo or two in FW and have used it to build some simple web graphics (e.g. buttons, menus).  It can, as I recall, be a little more complex than what I need in this case.
Since PP is not a graphics program, its drawing capabilities are very limited. As a consequence, any graphics application will have many more features than you're used to seeing and more than you need for any one project.
I did a little experimenting with Illustrator and my first impression is that it will work better for me for this work.  It seems a little more intuitive.
Is a general guideline to use FW for web-destined graphics and Illustrator for what I used to do in PP?
Your suggested guideline is good. Also, note that if you make a logo or vector graphic in Illustrator (saving as .ai format), you can import that into Fireworks and work with it as a vector object there. FW can import and use, just not create, .ai objectes and files.
FW has some vector tools, they are tucked away under Window > Others > Path. Since FW is intended for producing Web graphics, it is a hybrid application, capable of both vector and photo/image editing. Given that it has some of both, it necessarily doesn't have everything that Illustrator has nor everything that Photoshop has. It has most the features of both of those programs, as long as the feature is useful for a Web graphics designer. For pure photo editing Photoshop has the edge; for pure illustration, Illustrator has the edge. Both Photoshop and Illustrator support color profiles and other features important for print that Fireworks does not. All are good programs, but there are reasons to prefer one over the other depending on what kind of graphics you need to create or work with and what your intended use of the work is. (But any of them will be superior to PowerPoint! )
I'm not sure I can unravel the mystery with the text box resizing.  I suspect theres an option selected.  Knowing it can be done is enough for me to do some homework.
Maybe...don't think of text boxes at all. You have text objects. The object has a bounding box that is determined by the underlying definition of the font, but it isn't in a text box. (Sometimes swooshs will extend beyond the defining box of a character in the font, but that is another issue). The bounding box for the text object is similar to the bounding box of a circle or a star or an irregular shape. There's a reference box for the dimensions, but the text is not inside some other independent container.
To resize, select the text object and change the font size either using the Properties palette or using the scale tool to drag on a corner of the scaling outline (different from the bounding box, and I don't know why, sorry).
I think that,with Illustrator, you can define text boxes (or other shapes) and fill them with text. *searches* Ah.. Like these: http://school.tatoland.com/illustrator/aitype.html
cheers!
Lorraine