The Use and Misuse Of Graphics

Within the scope of this discussion, illustrations can be line drawings (block diagrams, charts, graphs, maps, etc.), photographs, and even paintings. Illustrations enhance customer-directed documents. Complex concepts become meaningful and text becomes more comprehensible. Although, illustrations provide an authenticity not given by text alone, they are often subject to misuse and abuse. If an illustration is not directly related to the subject matter, it is not only superfluous, but can be annoying, create confusion and distract the reader. A meaningful illustration confirms that you have a firm grasp of the point under discussion.

LINE ART

Line art – unless prepared by a commercial artist – is usually done by in-house amateurs, in PowerPoint or Visio. Both applications come with libraries of icons (AutoShapes in PowerPoint) that help you fulfill the very difficult task of creating attractive drawings. There are countless AutoShape collections available on the Internet. Even Microsoft offers free AutoShapes on their site. You don’t have to search very far to find very suitable libraries of AutoShapes for the broadest range of topics. One of the best image banks I have come across – for documents dealing with medical subjects – is: http://www.servier.com/Smart/ImageBank.aspx?id=729.

You can format AutoShapes – ­­­­line color, thickness, and fill effects – with the tools on the Draw toolbar. These shapes can also be transformed, filled, extruded, and rotated. Many can also be reshaped by selecting the AutoShape and dragging the yellow adjustment handles that appear.

AutoShape Magic (http://www.indezine.com/addin/autoshapemagic) is a free PowerPoint add-on that helps keep all AutoShapes centered and consistently sized. It also lets you apply gradient fills and change the gradient directions. In addition, you can reverse colors of gradient and pattern fills.

Visio – as every user knows – has endless libraries of Shapes.

Microsoft Draw creates floating objects. When you have floating objects in your document, they sit on an entirely different layer of the document from your text and tables, literally adding a layer of complication that you really don’t want or need. If you must use Draw directly in Word, the best thing to do is to place a drawing inside a single-cell table, and then format it with Font and Paragraph formatting, as required. Set the layout to In Line with Text (Format > Autoshape > Layout). This creates a much more stable component.

Standards for line art:

• Place illustrations in boxes – It helps set them off from the text.
• Text – Use 10 or 12-point Ariel. Anything smaller may fit in but it won’t be legible! Use initial capital letters for the first letter of each important word in the illustration.
• Line Weight – Use 2-1/2-point wide lines. Unless you want to specifically designate a particular element (e.g. a bus) by a very heavy line, avoid such use. The same holds for fine lines which tend to disappear when the graphic is printed.
• Colors – Use colors consistently and limit the range to a few tones. Verify that the selected colors print well on both color and black-and-white printers. Do not reverse text color (to white) unless the background color is quite dark.

One of the most unsightly issues – and one that really bothers me – is the use of illustrations from a variety of sources. You encounter conflicting color combinations, varying line weights, varying terminology (not directly related to the text in the document). If you want to produce a professional document then have the artwork redone and make sure it is completely relevant to the content of the document.

A Word of caution about graphics in Word:

Creating PDF files from Word documents containing PowerPoint and Visio illustrations can be disastrous – if you do not work properly. Never cut and paste from the graphic program into the Word document as, when a PDF file is generated, the elements of a drawing will scatter all over the page. It is not a pretty sight at all. In both applications, select Save As and then save your artwork as JPGs or GIFs. Select Insert > Picture > From File to insert the graphic file into a Word document.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Unless your organization has a huge budget for a company photo shoot, photographs are usually downloaded on the Internet from sites such as iStockPhoto (this is not a recommendation, it is simply the site I use). In 95% of the cases, you will not require a picture with a resolution greater than 600 X 800 MB. Anything heavier is superfluous.

The danger of downloading such pictures is that they are not exclusive, and you may encounter the embarrassing situation in which you competition has used the same image.

SCANNING

If you are scanning illustrations, select a mid-range resolution (300 dpi) on your scanning program, in order to keep the file size reasonable.

FIXING UP THE MESS

Without doubt, one of the most grievous situations that you are liable to find yourself in is the urgent need to modify an illustration (the night before you are due to delivery a critical presentation to a customer). Adobe Photoshop or similar programs can certainly do the job – if you have them installed. If you don’t, there is an excellent solution for everyone: GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program) is an absolutely free, raster graphics editor used to process digital graphics and photographs. It can be downloaded form http://www.gimp.org.

Typical uses include retouching, resizing and cropping of photos and drawings, altering colors, combining multiple images, removing unwanted image features, and converting between different image formats. GIMP can also be used to create basic animated images in GIF format.

It has an average learning curve and there is a good on-line manual and tutorial.

My thanks to Ido Amir who brought GIMP to my attention and was patient enough to walk me through the basics.

THE BOTTOM LINE

A successful illustration requires graphic skills and a sound knowledge of the application being used. Unfortunately, not very many of us have these capabilities or the time to do it from scratch properly. My modest recommendation is to contact me and I will put you in touch with the best commercial artist I know.