Consistent positioning and scaling

[robinp]

I cannot be the only one who needs this but I've been after it now for a couple of years. 

Most of our documents include scale architectural drawings. Often, we might have consecutive pages with different drawings of the same project. For example, floor plans for a multi-storey building. When inserting these, we want to:

• Know the scale at which these files are inserted
• Be certain of the positioning such that when move from one page to the next the drawings align with each other. For example, page 1 has the ground floor and the next page might have the 1st floor. These should be positioned exactly on top of each other so that it doesn't jump around when viewing on screen

Currently, doing these two very basic and essential things are a complete pain in the bottom. 

Summary of the problems:

• If you crop an image (either as a frame or an inserted image), when replacing the linked file the positioning changes. I would say this is probably a bug. When replacing a placed image its positioning should not change between the page and the inserted image / PDF.
• it should be possible to identify how an image has been scaled relative to the paper size of the image. For example, insert an A1 PDF drawing that is at 1:100 scale and reduce it in size by 50%. That would then be at the scale of 1:200. All very well when inserting it. If you come back later or if someone else works on the document it is impossible to find out how it has been transformed. The only option is to reinsert it. That is stupid.
  • Related to the above, preflight reports when images are not scaled proportionally. Can I find a control / information within the interface to control this? Of course not. This is puzzling.

These two (three?!) things are making it REALLY difficult working with scaled drawings. If anyone has a good workflow / workaround for these failures please let me know because I'm pulling my hair out and simply don't get how these a) were left out in the first place and b) have still not been sorted out.

Hopefully it's just that I am looking in the wrong place and this functionality is there somewhere.

[fde101]

On 7/5/2020 at 2:42 PM, robinp said:

insert an A1 PDF drawing

There actually is functionality to deal with "percentage of so-called original size" within Publisher, but it is currently limited to being used with actual image formats.  PDF is considered an embedded document instead of an image so that part of the UI is not available with an inserted PDF.  There are numerous complaints about this scattered across multiple existing threads.

However, even with an inserted PDF you can still at least find the original and placed DPI values and sizes by looking them up in Resource Manager (found in the Document menu).  The percentage of "original" size would be 100 * placed DPI / original DPI, though currently that would need to be calculated manually, which is clearly less than optimal for users who rely on this information.

[TimW]

Same problem here. In architectual business we need the same flexibility with PDF's like in ID.

I mean, you can switch the placed PDF to a picture frame.

But still the slider isn't showing 100% as the orginal size as a starting number. Pretty strange, if you ask me.

The slider itself is intelligent, but thats not worth it, when the starting point is the wrong one.

mmh.. need help. cheers.

[robinp]

@Gabe @MEB any chance one of you could communicate how essential this is to someone that can do something about it? Being able to find the scaled size vs the original size of a placed file (I honestly don't give a monkey's if it is a JPG or a PDF, both should behave the same) is really incredibly important. It cannot just be those of us working in the built environment that find this omission a total pain in the bum. There must be loads of designers and people preparing instruction manuals etc who need to know what size an image will be output at. 

[Filip Nosek]

Hi, I completely agree with the previous comments. This is essential to working with precise drawings and the only BIG omission that I came upon after switching to Publisher. Everything else is great, but this is one feature, that is making using the program really hard for me. I would appreciate a solution for this as soon as possible. This should be on the top of the list!