Poor Visual Quality of Diagrams generated to Word

[Donster]

Hi there,

Evaluating the latest version of EA (11.1).

When generating from EA 11 to Word (either .rtf or .docx) the image quality is poorer than in v9.  The way it looks when generated in v11 is quite unreadable (the letters are all squished together, making the wording in the elements and titles appear blurry).

To get it to look as it did in version 9 (which is readable / acceptable), I have to right click on the image, the Edit Picture (in Word 2010), a dialog appears that says "This is an imported picture, not a group.  Do you want to convert it to a Microsoft Office drawing object?".  I click "Yes" ("No" being the other option) and the diagram is updated in a format that is readable / comparable to v9.

Having to do this for every image generated into a document every time a document is generated is not an acceptable alternative / work around.

This problems seems to me to be an issue with the way v11 renders/formats/sizes/inserts diagram images into Word.  Perhaps the code fix is in the v9 source code?

I should mention that the Edit Picture option above is available on diagrams in documents generated out of version 9 and while it does update the image to a Microsoft Office drawing object, the before and after variances are minor).  So it really seems to be isolated to the default size/format of the image when it gets added to Word.

For reference, generating to PDF does not exihibit the same behaviour, being squishing the letters together making the contents unreadable.

I've been through all the settings I can think of in EA and Word and haven't found anything to control/alter how the images show up in EA

Can anyone point me to the setting(s) that might control the output or confirm that this is a bug and/or if they've reported it and/or know of a fix?

Thank you!
Don
[original message]

[benc]

Hi Don,

I haven't noticed that change between version 9 and 11, but I wonder if it's related to the image format being used when generating the document.

Have you tried the Metafile output instead of Bitmap? On the Generate Documentation dialog, see the Options tab. There's a control labeled "Diagram Format". I think Metafile is the default though...

If you have moment, would you mind comparing your results with the sample document provided here:
http://sparxsystems.com/resources/webinar/documentation/generate-documentation-basics-enterprise-architect.html

(The page has a link to download a document named smart-meter-data-dictionary-report.docx)

Do the images in that document have the same problem you found?

Regards,
Ben
[original message]

[Donster]

Hi there,

I have an example of existing databases we generated from here and how they look and I downloaded the .EAP file that I found on the related page and generated the document from v11 (which is a VM I am connected to through remote desktop connection) then v9 (on my local machine).  If needed, I could send the .gif files along.

I haven't change the default settings re: metafile versus .BMP.  The settings I checked were under Tools->Options->General Clipboard is Metafile.

Under Appearance, I am using the 'Enhanced - 1' Renderer with GDI Plus Metafiles selected, no scaling (0%).  I've tried the other renderer settings with GDI checked and not, same image quality.

In EA11, Theme is set to (under themes) 'Enterprise Architect 11'.  I've tried other themes, same image quality.

I've tried selecting a theme on document generate (to EA 10 and others, same image quality).  I've also changed the setting on the options tab from Metafile to Bitmap and that improved the image quality to an acceptable quality, but the .bmp doesn't look as clean as the metafile (on v9).

I've tried running the VM in full screen as opposed to windowed mode, same image quality.

I tried to be fairly thorough in looking through the available settings, but have had no luck resolving this on my own.  

I am going to check with some folks here and I'll update if I make any progress.

Thanks again for your attention and I appreciate any ideas/suggestions!  

Don

[original message]

[Donster]

Good news!

I got a hold of a (loaned) physical laptop and was able to generate the documents with good quality images (comparable to v9).

The theories are:
1) that the printer driver(s) on the remote desktop connection Virtual Machine (VM) affects how .emf and .wmf images are generated.
2) the display driver on the remote desktop connection VM affects how .emf and .wmf images are generated.

At this point, the plan to proceed is to roll it out on one of our existing (physical) machines, verify that images are generating at the necessary level of quality and then roll it out to the rest of the group.

Thank you for listening and your comments.  Hopefully this helps anyone else who experiences this.

Don
[original message]

[marcel_str]

Same problem here.
Problem occurs on a virtual machine on which wide-screen displays are connected. Set resolution is 1920x1080 and documents are generated with diagram format set to 'metafile'. When generating a document, the elliptical use case elements show up as rounds. So the image seems to be generated with proper height, but smaller in width.
When setting the screen resolution to 1280x1024 and generating the same document without any changes whatsoever, the images are being generated as expected.
[original message]