.mi into MSword

[Steven Klimas]

I need to insert the .mi graphics of a drawing into MSword. HPUX10.20, ME10 (Designer Drafting) r11.60, We used to save as .mi, translate to .dxf, and insert into Word.(I was using dxf from 8.70) This does not work now. Can anyone help?

Thanks
Steve

[John Scheffel]

Hi Steven,

I moved your thread into the Drafting forum since it is more likely to be read by people who might have a solution. The User Group Issues forum is more for discussion of User Group related business.

One option that a few people here have used is to keep a copy of the 8.70 DXF translator and use it. You can run it independently outside of ME10. They save their files using the STORE_250 command, which saves a 8.70 compatible MI file. Then they run the MI file through the 8.70 DXF translator.

If it is possible for you to run ME10 under Windows in addition to HP-UX, there are lots of other options for importing your drawings into Word.

[Gary Brauch]

Steven,
It works fine here with OSDD v11.6 and Word 2002 (v 10.4....).
My assumption would be that Drafting is putting out a newer version of dxf than your version of Word can read.
Might try updating your Word.
Gary.

[gmatelich]

How about doing a Print Screen / screen grab, and pasting the raster image into Word? PhotoEditor is a handy tool that comes with Office for cropping images.

You can do a File - Save As to save your .mi as a .dxf so you don't need an external converter

[SoonTin]

Hi Steven,

We used to have problem inserting Annotation MI file into MS Word which supports DXF rel 12 and below. As an alternative to quality picture, we used ME10 to print the mi file to HPGL format which then gets inserted into MS Word , a tedious workaround though. However with OSDD v11.60, one can actually print the MI file from Windows Explorer directly to HPGL format. I thought this feature is pretty handy for the time being till the enhancement request to print to HPGL format is implemented for Annotator.

Regards, Soon Tin

[rhankey]

We have a user who wants to insert a drawing object in word so that he can launch & edit the file from the word doc. When I insert the file Word creates a link to the file, but does not display the contents (even though the menu says it will). I've tried both Annotation and ME10 files, but neither open the contents like other inserted & linked objects do (like Excel).
For unlinked drawing file insertion, from ME10 use the Print-MS_Window EMF_Clipboard Printer Type selection, or translate the file to GIF, which seems to have better results. If you don't have it in HomeBrew, in put this command to change the viewport background color to white:

CLIPBOARD_INVERSE_BW

In Annotation, the viewport background color will transfer to the copied image unles you change it. Input this lisp command to convert the background to white in the copied image :

(oli::sd-execute-annotator-command :cmd "CLIPBOARD_INVERSE_BW ON")

[hgn98009]

This is a problem we are having also. I would like to hear more about SoonTin's solution. We are using W2K and ME10 11.61. We haven't found a way to create the hpgl files on this platform. When people here need to put a nice looking drawing into Word they have to start up one of the trusty hpux machines, produce the hpgl files there and move them to windows via samba.

The thing is that the users wants to be able to manipulate line widths and colors in Word. This way they can emphasize certain details in the drawing when they write about it. So ME10 for windows needs to be able to produce some kind of vector format supported by Microsoft.

Write some more about this please.

Hans-Göran Gustavsson

[John Scheffel]

Originally posted by hgn98009
We are using W2K and ME10 11.61. We haven't found a way to create the hpgl files on this platform.
Drafting version 11.6 and up can print to HPGL from Windows. In the Print form, you need to set the Printer Name: field to one of the HPGL_* options.

[gmatelich]

I've written the following macro to get our best performance when pasting to MS Office applications:
DEFINE Fixcopytoclipboard
READ STRING "Hope you saved, do you want to continue? 'Y or 'N?" Savecheck
IF ((Savecheck='Y') OR (Savecheck='y')) {to prevent destroying an unsaved drawing}
CHANGE_COLOR BLACK GLOBAL ALL
{change all lines black}
CHANGE_HATCH_COLOR BLACK GLOBAL ALL
{change all hatching black}
SHOW GLOBAL DIMENSIONS ALL BLACK
{change all dimensions black}
COPY_TO_CLIPBOARD GLOBAL ALL CONFIRM
{copy to clipboard}
SHOW GLOBAL DIMENSIONS ALL YELLOW
{change dimensions back to yellow}
SHOW GLOBAL EDITED_DIMENSIONS ALL CYAN
{highlight all edited dimensions cyan}
CHANGE_HATCH_COLOR YELLOW GLOBAL ALL
{change hatch back to yellow}
CHANGE_COLOR YELLOW SELECT GLOBAL ALL CONFIRM
CHANGE_COLOR GREEN SELECT GLOBAL SOLID ALL CONFIRM
{change all solid lines green to emphasize that this drawing is not the same as it used to be}
CHANGE_COLOR YELLOW SELECT GLOBAL TEXTS ALL CONFIRM
DISPLAY 'Now Open Word, go to Edit, Paste Special, and select Picture (Enhanced Metafile)'
{tells the user what to do to take advantage of the clipboard information}
ELSE
DISPLAY "No info copied to clipboard, you must not have said 'Y'"
END_IF
END_DEFINE