placing a scanned book cover into a simple WP document

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Level 1

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placing a scanned book cover into a simple WP document

I used to be able to do this quickly. NOW, with 10.6.1 and same old Appleworks software, when I scan a book cover (with some lettering & artwork), it "comes in" to the WP document...H U G E ! So I must
grab the corners and hold down shift to reduce the size to fit on page. Time consuming & silly.
For instance, my 8.5 x 11 page has 2 columns, left col. is all text, right col. is half text at top, leaving
space at bottom in which I wish to drag the scanned book cover. I thought the way to set the page up
to recieve such a scanned item is to open tools, use rectangular tool to make a rectangle on the WP page, and then drag in the item. Or should I use another tool instead? i want the scanned item to utilize 400 dpi (certainly not 72 or 96). I presume the type of scanned item should be a giff or pict,
not a jpg... OR WHAT? My scanner is a Epson perfection 4180...what should I scan a 6 x 10 book cover into to have it fit in the 3.5 wide by 5" high opening on my WP page. Stumped!

imac, Mac OS X (10.6.1), 3USB ports

Posted on Oct 22, 2009 1:08 PM

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Answer 1

Peggy

Level 8

41,601 points

Oct 22, 2009 2:18 PM in response to Germanic

Welcome to Apple Discussions

AppleWorks changes the resolution of any graphic format except PICT to 72 dpi. The best solution to this problem is to save the image as PICT before inserting into AppleWorks. My favorite for this is GraphicConverter, but you can use Preview (not in Snow Leopard, though) or Photoshop Elements or any other application that can save as PICT.

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Answer 2

Barry

Level 9

59,861 points

Oct 22, 2009 8:14 PM in response to Germanic

Germanic wrote:
.what should I scan a 6 x 10 book cover into to have it fit in the 3.5 wide by 5" high opening on my WP page. Stumped!

If you're starting with a 6x10 image and preserving the aspect ratio, it will fit into a 3.0x5.0 opening. Fit into a 3.5x5.0 space,the elements of the book cover image will be too wide for the height, and will look similar to the effect you'd get stretching the original to 7x10.

Regards,
Barry

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Answer 3

Germanic Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 22, 2009 8:30 PM in response to Peggy

Thanks Peggy. I use Elements 8, so can save as .pict. I got away from it because Snow Leopard will not open a .pict file in Preview but once, just to tell me something about 32 bits & 64 bits, but it will not open 2nd time. Crazy! Nuts!

.pict scans will not loose details when reduced proportionately?

But my Appleworks is unstable, it freaked out this afternoon, had to unplug restart to get the word that my document wasn't closed properly and did I want to recover it?

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Answer 4

Germanic Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 22, 2009 8:34 PM in response to Barry

It's absolutely necessary to keep exact "look" of the book, not stretched or shrunk in anyway. If that is what you mean by "aspect ratio" OK. In the past, I mouse corner of .pct, hold down Shift, and "aspect
ratio" is maintained, enlarged or shrunk.

But as I told Peggy above, That the vaunted SnowLeo Preview does not support .pict files.....geez apple, thanks for what?

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Answer 5

Peggy

Level 8

41,601 points

Oct 23, 2009 9:53 AM in response to Germanic

I have found that PICT images do resize well, especially reducing the size.

As for unstable AppleWorks, it's possibly corrupt preferences, especially if you have force quit AppleWorks. I suggest two maintenance tasks, one for the system (Repair Permissions) and one for AppleWorks (delete preferences). (Thanks to Barry for this way to format this very common answer.)

To Repair permissions, launch Disk Utility, found in the Utilities folder in your Applications folder, click on First Aid, then on Repair Permissions.

To delete AppleWorks’ preference files, go to HD > Users > (your account) > Library > Preferences. Find and delete the file com.apple.appleworks.plist. Find and open the folder AppleWorks in this Preferences folder, then delete all of the enclosed files (with the exception of the Button Bar Preferences if you have customized the Button Bars). AppleWorks will recreate the preference files as it needs them.

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