In message <9242dab34f.tim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Tim Powys-Lybbe <tim@xxxxxxxxx> writes
For some years now I have been using OPro to construct PDF files that consist of a series of pictures (scans) of old documents. By and large I find that this can only be done successfully by converting the pictures to (large) sprites.
One thing you need to understand is that Ovation Pro can only render and contain in documents certain types of image.
For RISC OS they are: Sprite, Draw, JPEG, ArtWorks and EPS. For Windows they are: Sprite, Draw, JPEG, BMP, WMF and EPS.Any other types you have like GIF or TIFF will be converted when they are loaded into the document, using the filter system.
The RISC OS version is limited in that it cannot reference image types not on the above list. This limit does not apply to OP on Windows. So if you're on RISC OS don't bother trying to load a TIFF by reference.
TIFF is a good format for black and white (1 bit per pixel) images, because it has special compression techniques for that sort of image. JPEG is bad format, because it can't do less than eight bits per pixel and black and white are just the sort of documents where you notice the effects of "lossy" compression.
Second: Load in 1-bit Tiff files "Unknown or missing variable (internal number 6282)"
My TranTIFF+ would be a better choice for loading TIFF files than TransFSI (from which I assume the above error comes).
http://www.davidpilling.com/ovationpro/filelib/files/trantiff.zip(and note that not only must this be installed but TransFSI must be told not to load TIFFs).
Bottom line, (on RISC OS) you can't load anything not on the above list of file types by reference.
Using the same file as in the previous example I converted them to Gif; this increased the size from, say, 40 Kbytes or so to 60 Kbytes or so. The Gif files would load into OPro with no trouble; but saving the OPro file resulted in a file of 6 Mbytes (yes, Mega).
Bottom line, GIF files are translated when loaded (into Sprites).
A totally alternative strategy might be to use another program to assemble all the images to join them together into one PDF file. But I have yet to find a program that does this as easily as OPro - and I have tried Easiwriter. Any suggestions, anyone?
I'm not sure what the problem is with using 1bpp sprites. If the files come out of your scanning software as TIFF (say) then when you construct the OP document they will be converted to sprites automatically when loaded. The downside of course is that documents will be large.
If you can use OP on Windows then there is another strategy - use TIFF, but by reference.
If you're producing the same thing over and over, then you might like to investigate using pictures in mail merge (see the OP manual). I suspect the same limits on referenced images will apply though.
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