Blurry media images in publisher

RootsMagic
1

My media images, photos, graves, etc. look fine in Roots Magic version 9 under people, in media and the primary photos. In Publisher, the image quality for some images has deteriorated, especially the primary photos. Any suggestions how to make these images look better in publisher?

Thank you.

2

what is the images size, resolution & type?
Also – where are you “printing” PDF , direct to printer etc.

Kevin

1 Like
3

Actual in-program representations ~may~ vary slightly in presentation quality, due to scaling or shape and orientation, but rest assured that the final output in report files generated as filetypes for saving or printing will be higher quality reproduction.

4

As an example, I have a photo of a grave I took with my Apple iPhone 12 pro which is a high quality photo. It looks blurred as a primary photo in publisher in the “report” within publisher and in the saved PDF file. When I add the photo to a scrapbook, it is “decent” when I make it “full size” as the only image on the page, but still not as clear as it looks in the media folder or in my photos app.

5

I did try printing a single page with a blurred primary photo and it was still blurry.

I want to have a full book printed to give to family members. I do not understand why the photos and other images look so bad! Is a particular file type, .jpeg versus other types preferred with Roots Magic? Is there something else I am doing wrong?

6
  1. No
  2. It’s not about wrong. It’s about the specifics of what you’re trying to do. Keep in mind, RootsMagic does nothing to your media images. You link them into RM, it constructs a thumbnail photo to help you with quick-glance differentiation amongst them in a library or list. You select images, from that media library list, to be inserted into RM report output. RM links back to your original files for use in that output as .docx or .pdf or direct printing.
  3. What’s key is things like what kevync1985 asked. If you have a too tall image (portrait) or to wide (landscape) dimension they’re not gonna fit in an exact square, etc. RootsMagic does nothing to “fit” them. You must account for their orientation and fit by either cropping or resizing or choosing fit to image in printer options, etc.
1 Like
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since it seem the photo probably have decent quality …then as @kbens0n describes it like more it going on – I think it might be a combination of user error and RM – meaning you are not doing what best for RM to give you better results. I have not used images via in RM that was so I can not speak from personal experience

8

I have tried cropping, resizing, and editing my images in many different ways - landscape, portrait, square, creating .jpeg files in a folder on my MAC to directly add to media with very minimal if any improvement in the “bad” images. The publisher .docx and .pdf “books” still have “random” blurry images in the scrapbooks. Some images look fine. I used the same iPhone to take grave pictures taken close up, good lighting, and some look perfect , others blurry for no good reason. Landscape or portrait does not seem to matter. I cannot believe I am the only one having this problem; it seems there must be a relatively easy “fix” that I am missing.

9

Can you recommend the ideal recommended image size and resolution to transfer images to roots magic media to use for publisher?

Thank you.

10

When there’s an absence of other users reporting a similar issue, directly contacting RootsMagic Support via their website is going to be the best source for answers. This is a forum of users discussing the program and answering questions where they can.

11

I see you mention being on an Apple machine. I’m not a Mac person. sorry!

12

Thanks for your comments. I have reached out to RootsMagic support and as usual never heard back from them. I have had much better luck on this site getting help.

13

What size and resolution would you recommend on your Windows PC? I have been experimenting with different sizes and resolutions and do not see any difference on my MAC but wondered what size and resolution you were using for your images you import to media in RootsMagic on a Windows PC.

Thank you again.

14

As for resolution, anything above the capability of the target output display or printer capabilities is excessive. As for size, it’s relative to the dimension(s) of the targeted spacing available in a report or chart… accounting for paper size or display device. Any dimension larger than the width in inches X height in inches available is, again, a waste.

15

I have contacted RM and they have no answers. I have tried printing a page of my book from publisher with a blurred image and resizing my image to about that size, adding the image back in to media with no improvement; in fact the images are worse when I try and decrease their size.

Honestly, I am sorry I every bought this program; it has been nothing but problems.

16

Did support ask for a backup with media so they could check it?

17

Finally this morning they agreed to do so. I sent them a back up with media a few minutes ago.

18

Update. I have adjusted a few of my problem images to make them look better. For example, with the screenshot maps I copied from jewishgen.org, I limited my screenshots to just the maps and not the surrounding text nor other information on the page and that seemed to help. Maybe the screen shots were “too busy”?

I got an email back from RM support last evening after she was able to view my book in RM publisher. She printed out some of the images that had looked blurry on my computer in RM publisher. She said the images were not blurry when she printed out the images. She admitted the RM “viewer” did not have good resolution.

I had previously printed images from my computer and they were still all blurry but I had only saved the book as a PDF file and printed from the PDF. I saved the book as a .docx file this morning and in that format, the formerly blurry images were clear on my computer screen! So the problem seems to be with the PDF file.

Unfortunately, there appears to be a “glitch” viewing the entire book in Word on my MAC. I keep getting the “circle of death” as I try to scroll through the pages. I also cannot get the word program “features” to work consistently on my .docx file.

Is there a compatibility problem between RM and Microsoft Word on a MAC? I have the updated version of Microsoft 365 and I am using RM version 9.

Thanks.

19

Have no idea BUT will suggest trying Open Office 4—I use it instead of Microsoft 365 as Open Office is free and has everything I need ( but my needs are very basic)…

https://www.openoffice.org/product/mac.html

This tells you which versions of Mac it can be used with–for more info–just click on the Open Office picture or any of the links…
And this is a screenshot from my TEST database for a part of one page of a Narrative Report made in RM 10 and saved to Open Office ( and yes the gravestone is for someone else as everybody in my test database is fictional)…

image

FYI— in your original post, you said your media etc looked fine in RM 9 under people-- well this one was BLURRY under people…

20

Update:

have been able to get the docx to open and then edit as the formatting is different and I have to highlight and click F9 to get the table of contents and indexes to open. It is slow, but it does work. I can then save as a PDF and that PDF file is fine, images clear same formatting as the docx.

I need the PDF to send to book publishers to have my genealogy book printed.

I do not understand why the PDF coming directly from RM is not the same as the docx file. It does not make sense that I would have to download the docx file from RM, edit and reconvert to a PDF. What am I missing here?