Importing Visio diagrams into Framemaker

Question

Hi all, I am considering using framemaker9 as my main documentation tool, and using visio2003 as my diagramming tool.
As such, I will be importing the visio diagrams into framemaker by reference so that any mods to the visio diagrams will be automatically reflected in the framemaker document.
The questions I have is:
1. Which file format is the best to use for the importing? Should I save the visio diagrams in PDF or SVG format? I would prefer a format which provide the most resolution.
2. When I have more than 1 page in a visio file, I noticed that there is no way for me to choose which page to be imported when importing in SVG format. However, with PDF, a dialog box would pop up to allow me to select which page in the visio file to be imported. Is this a bug in framemaker or have I missed some step in the process of importing SVG file?
3. When importing some graphics/diagrams into an anchor frame, is there a way to make the imported graphics/diagrams automatically adjust its size to fit into the anchored frame area? If so, what are the steps?
TIA
BTW, I am just an engineer trying to document my work.

Answer 1

framethrower,
A PDF might be the most portable and reliable option for rendering; however, I find PDF generation to be a bit cumbersome when there are many images to deal with. I use Visio frequently and have had good success using the WMF format. All vector qualities of the original image are maintained and it looks OK on the screen. Naturally, it prints perfectly. I also like how the final image size automatically adjusts to the exact dimensions of the artwork, regardless of the original canvas size. Some caveats:
- WMF is Windows only
- Fonts are not embedded. If you distribute the image in any format besides a PDF, the target computer will need to have any fonts that you used.
Otherwise, I'd suggest it as an option. I have a macro set up in Visio that saves a copy of an image as WMF, so I can refresh my WMF version with a click. I've pasted the basic macro text below. Note that this macro also saves a PNG version as well. It may be possible to adjust it to save a PDF version, I'm not sure. In any case, over the long haul, it saves much time over doing the manual Save As.
Russ
Sub Save_as_PNG_WMF()
    Dim path As String
    Dim newpath As String
    Dim length As Integer 
    ' Get the document path 
    path = Application.ActiveWindow.Document.FullName 
    ' get the length of the path, to be used for truncation 
    length = Len(path) 
    ' change our filename to have a wmf extension 
    newpath = Left(path, length - 4) 
    newpath = newpath + ".wmf" 
    ' save the wmf
    Application.ActiveWindow.Page.Export newpath 
    ' do the same for png
    newpath = Left(path, length - 4)
    newpath = newpath + ".png"
    Application.ActiveWindow.Page.Export newpath 
End Sub