Email From Richard Feb 6, 2007

Fred, et. al.,

First, thanks, Maylene for digging up all that information. It's on target.

I've been testing out various combinations of settings for the screen shots on different printers (color and black and white), monitors, and various PDF enlargement settings. These all vary, unfortunately, and the idea settings for one are not the ideal for all.

Here are my assumptions:

Our primary goal is to look as good as possible in PDF format and in color. We need for the graphics to look good in black and whitehard copy, but that is secondary to the color PDF version.

Max wants the pdf files to open at 100% (current documentation files are set to open and look best at 125%)

Given those requirements, her are my recommendations:

   1) Take the screen shots as PNG file.

   2) Use Snagit to take the screen shots.  It makes the process
   fast and allows you to select different setting for taking the
   shots so that you don't have to do any cropping.  The most relevant
   settings are:

- Window - This setting will avoid having to do any cropping. when you select this and go to take a screen capture, Snagit

 	  will outline the window.  You can select either Analytica

with its window border and menu bar (click on the window

          border to get this), or just the insides of the Analytica
          window (without the border and menu bar, logo, etc.)

- Fixed region - This setting will allow you to take screen shots that are a fixed size in the documentation. For picture of graphs and parts of a model this is best. Select a region size that will fit properly in the documentation.

   You can download Snagit at http://www.techsmith.com

   3) The screen shots can vary in height, but should be 4" in width in the
   documentation.  Their width in the documentation depends on the
   number of pixels wide that the original graphic is divided by the
   DPI (dots per inch) setting specified in FrameMaker (or Word) when
   the picture is inserted into the document.

   4) The best DPI setting 96 DPI, for very wide pictures, 192 DPI can be
   used.  This is the default screen resolution and it's what seems to
   work best for PDFs (it also works acceptably for printing).

   5) Given the 96 and 192 DPI values your screen shots, if you are using a
   fixed region should be 384 or 768 pixels wide. Height can vary.

   NOTE:  I suggest setting the width  of the Analytica window to ~768
   pixels wide.  The old Tutorial model Rent vs. Buy open at this width.

   6) The key issue for you is what display resolution works best for the
   monitor on which you are taking the screen shots.  That is likely the
   greatest resolution your display card supports at True Color (24 bit)
   color quality.  (Your card my support 32 bit color instead of 24 bit;
   that's fine, just don't use a resolution, like 256 (8-bit), that is
   less than 24-bit color.

   For example, my monitor supports 1440x900 pixels 32-bit color.
   Screen shots taken at this resolution and then imported into Frame
   at 96 and 192 dpi look fine in pdf at 100% resolution (although the
   text can't be read for the 192 dpi setting at that small a zoom
   setting in pdf, you have to zoom in further.  See the attachment.
   On the other hand, if I set you display to 1024x768, the screen shots
   are a bit fuzzy.  That resolution is approximated on my monitor, so
   screen shots at that resolution will be fuzzy.

   7) The default color scheme for Analytica 4.0 is OK for black and white
   printing, except that backgrounds in modules should be set to white,
   instead of the light blue default.

In Summary:

   - Use Snagit and save screen captures as PNG files
   - Use the best display setting for your monitor
  This is likely the highest setting it supports for True Color
   - Make your pictures 384 or 768 pixels wide (or as close to this
  as possible) to avoid cropping
   - Set the Analytica window size to be approx. 768 pixels wide.
   - Set the background for all modules to be white
   - Send me a couple of your early screen shots so that I can try
  inserting them into the documentation and creating PDFs and
  hard copy documents with them to see how they will look.

Let me know if you have any questions.

-- Richard