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Storage of extracted images

This part of the wizard is only seen when you process a file for printing. There are a number of issues to be considered when selecting this option. Here are the most important.

If you are generating a document intended for conversion to .DOC format for redistribution, it is generally a good idea to include images as part of the document.

When preparing a file for printing, this option is generally unimportant if you have 24Mb of memory or more on your system, but it can be extremely important if you have less than this. Here's why.

Images in documents can take up enormous amounts of memory in a document and dramatically slow down the load speed (particularly if the RTF output is not converted to .DOC format) when the file is loaded from disk.

The file itself can also grow considerably in its total space requirement when graphics are saved as part of the output RTF file, especially if the same images are used repeatedly throughout the file. For example, if bitmaps are used as indicators or bullets in the file, only one copy of the image is required for all references in the document if the images are saved as separate files. However, if the images are embedded in the output file as part of the document, dozens of identical copies of the same image may need to be included in the output document. Embedding the images directly into the RTF makes management easier from a visual standpoint, but if total space requirement for the document is an issue, then saving images as separate files is more efficient.

Images saved to disk are assigned unique names which have no relationship to the original name of the image when the file was developed. There is no way to determine this name when preparing a Help or Viewer file for printing. If this could result in confusion in a situation where several people are working on a document, it will probably be safer to embed the images directly into the document.

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