Graphics vanishing

Hi :slight_smile:

I find that if graphics are not stored locally and in the same folder that the document is in then the graphics do sometimes go missing.  Sometimes it gives me a frame containing an error message saying "broken image" or something like that.  It tends to happen more on older and lower spec machines.  I don't have a fancy netbook or something new and low spec to test on.  I'm also not sure if the problem is just on Doc or Odt too.  Pdf seems immune.

It is not a problem for me as it forces me onto the nicer machines when i have to do the newsletter but i was wondering if that has been some of the intermittent problem some people have been having with images lately?
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Tom, in our docs all the images are embedded (unless someone forgets). The images that Peter and others have been providing are in addition to the ones embedded in the docs.

What you describe is a different issue from the embedded images going missing.

--Jean

Hi :slight_smile:

I use

Insert - Picture - "From File"

So i think that's embedded the picture?  Even with that occasional problem (it's very intermittent) Writer is tons better than Word at dealing with pictures/logos ime. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

I have that problem too about images going missing which are embedded, I see
them when I start editing the odt file that I receive, but later they are
vanished. After saving the edited file, that file is much shorter than the
original one, so they are removed from the odt file. This is an issue I have
for several years now, always hoping that the bug is fixed in the next
release. Currently using LibreOffice 3.4.4.

Yes. If you were to unzip the ODT file, you would find the pictures in
the Picture folder. (Linked pictures are not in the Picture folder.)

--Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
Thanks.  I think there is a good chance of it getting sorted faster in LO:
1.  There's more devs
2.  None of the management are more keen on "stability" than fixing things

Is there a bug-report that you know of in LO (or OOo)?

I didn't get much time to explore the parameters of this.  On the older machine the document was in a different networked folder from the pictures and most of the pictures were hopelessly huge.  On the newer machine i copied the pictures to a local folder along with the document and edited the pictures to make them reasonable.  So, quite a wide range of possibilities could have caused the intermittent problem.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

... which makes me think that linking instead of embedding might make
version updates easier?

Yours,
M

Hi :slight_smile:
I'm beginning to think that linking might be a better option for my newsletter at work too.  One of the major problems with Word was that the file got so large it would crash the older machines.

So many logos ready to be printed to billboards.  2 nicely coloured lines per-page stored as jpg in millions of colours now reduced to 1 pixel gifs of about 8bits of colour and now placed in the header & footer to save repeating.  Photos ready to be printed as large posters but shown about thumbnail size now reduced to palm-size and shown as thumbnails.  Looks exactly the same.  You guys rock as most of those ideas were from advice given in here. 
Many thanks and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Is there a bug-report that you know of in LO (or OOo)?

Hi,

such image loss problems started in early OOo times, and IMHO the reason never has been found

<https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=59915>

CU

Rainer

Hi :slight_smile:
I have tended to assume it's a memory issue or a network address issue but i haven't really explored the issue. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi all,

Is there a bug-report that you know of in LO (or OOo)?

Hi,

such image loss problems started in early OOo times, and IMHO the reason
never has been found

<https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=59915>

Yep, it is an ancient bug that no one seems to be able to pin down to
any specific piece of code. Unfortunately, it rears its ugly head in a
more or less important way every now and then.

Alex

Hi :slight_smile:
Ok, so we have established that something weird happens with graphics occasionally.  Is that likely to be the problem that we have been having with some of the chapters or did you guys manage to establish that it was definitely Alfresco?
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

I often had very large (e.g., book) files crash in Word. One client wanted his two book volumes (text and solutions guide) combined for his second edition, which were two very large DOC files with several dozens of Visio graphics, appended together to make one (printed) book. Combining the two DOC files into a larger DOC file was not very stable, and it might crash or it might be OK for a while.

Instead of using Word further, I made DOC subdocuments out of the individual chapters and then offered the author the choice for going to a master document format with either OOo or with FrameMaker instead of an MS Word manuscript. He chose FrameMaker--with the graphics linked from an images folder instead of their being embedded. Never a problem, even after several newer chapters and many more graphics were added.

Gary

It's almost surely not Alfresco. It's the intermittent bug that Alex mentioned.
--Jean

Hi :slight_smile:
Word seems completely hopeless at all this.  Writer gives much more flexibility in moving pictures around smoothly rather than lurching in a limited number of directions.  Anchor points and wrap options seem to work better and there seems to be a wider range in Writer. 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Two MB (the largest of our chapter files) is not a large file. The
compiled books are, of course, a bit larger (up to 10-12MB, as I
recall) but that is still not particularly large. The number of
illustrations is often large enough to cause display problem, but I
don't think that would be any different if the images were linked
instead of embedded: they still use memory when displayed on screen.

Linking has some advantages but it also offers lots of opportunities
for people (especially inexperienced volunteers, but even old-timers
like me) to muck up the files. I don't have the ambition to list all
the ways, but one is for people to fail to collect the latest set of
images when editing a chapter.

In a one-person shop, or in a well-supervised and well-trained team,
linking can be a good way to do things. For us, I think it's just
asking for trouble.

--Jean

From using various word processors over the last 20+ years I have found that all of them this problem at times. Some of the most likely images to disappear from them have been ones that the images have been zipped and then unzipped are more likely to do it when the file is exchanged on a network.

I agree with Jean that linking would spell trouble here.

Ian

Hi :slight_smile:
Ahah, that is interesting.  I haven't tried zipping documents or pictures.  My guess now is that there are a few very specific sets of circumstances that all end with the same result.  Disentangling one specific set of circumstances would be a nightmare.

Btw many thanks to Jean (and Ian) for helping me avoid another dead-end again.  I might try linking to pictures in the newsletter here but if i run into a wall i wont work to hard or worry to much about it.

Thanks and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hello and a Happy New Year to everybody

This morning (yes I am working with a sober head) I opened Chapter 4 of the
Impress Guide and all the graphics were in place. Made a couple of
alterations to the text and have the graphics are now showing read error.
Got me puzzled. I did download this chapter before the Alfresco upgrade.

Regards

Peter

Ditto.

And the city of Detroit tied a 131-year-old precipitation record at 47.69 inches with 26 hours yet to go in 2011. Then, an additional 0.01 inch fell on the 31st, setting an all-time record--47.70 inches. A thoroughly non-white Christmas and now a non-white New Year's, with temps about 15 (F) degrees above normal--soon to change tomorrow.

Gary