Supported File Types and Size Limitations for Page Illustrations

In Documoto, a Page consists of three components:

1. Bill of materials ("BOM") or parts list
2. Illustration(s)
3. Hotpoints - optional

This articles focuses on specific guidelines for Illustrations, including image file types, image size requirements & constraints, and best practices. 

Article Topics

• Supported Image File Types
• Recommended Image File Type
• SVG Requirements & Limitations
• Image Conversion Upon Import & Publishing
• Image Size Requirements & Limitations
• Best Practices for Illustrations
• Image Quality
  
• Copy/Paste Images from PDFs or Other Sources
• Hotpointing
• Summary
  

Supported Image File Types

When adding Illustration(s) to a Page, Documoto supports the following types of image files: 

 

Recommended Image File Type

For optimal auto-hotpointing, it is highly recommended to use SVG images. Documoto's SVG auto-hotpoint algorithm interprets the XML, capturing precise x, y coordinates for the callouts on the Illustration(s), ensuring accurate placement of Hotpoints on the Page.

SVG Requirements & Limitations 

• Opening images from shared drives may cause loading errors.
• SVGs must contain G-Elements.
• Avoid embedding raster images in SVGs, to prevent issues with importing and/or hotpointing
• SVGs converted from raster images are treated as raster images and not genuine SVGs. 

Image Conversion Upon Import & Publishing

When importing an Illustration for a Page through Page Builder, Documoto automatically converts all raster image file formats to PNG, excluding SVG images. However, upon publishing the Page, any SVG image file formats are converted to PNG format. 

Image Size Requirements & Limitations

When selecting an image file for import as an Illustration using Page Builder, Documoto verifies the following criteria: 

• Image is less than or equal to a max pixel count of 65.5 MP.
• Dimensions do not exceed 8,191 X 8,191 pixels (does not apply to SVGs).
• Maximum image file size is 25 MB. 

If the image files exceeds any of these specifications, Documoto will throw an error - see example below:

Users can resolve the error by either: 

• Using Page Builder to resize the image (using the resizing tool)
• Manually resize image (using an external tool) and re-import the image file

Best Practices for Illustrations

Image Quality

• For the highest image quality, use PNG image file types.
• Starting with a PNG image preserves detail during the Illustration import conversion process in Page Builder.

Copy/Paste Images from PDFs or Other Sources

• If using copy/paste to import Illustration(s) to Page Builder, it is strongly advised to scale the image to a minimum of 200% before import to enhance readability and zoom capabilities

Hotpointing

• The recommended image type for hotpointing is SVG. 
• The main benefit of an SVG image is the ability to use Documoto's SVG auto-hotpoint algorithm, which is the most accurate and requires the least amount of manual review and repair of hotpoints, increasing the speed of Page creation for publishers.
• Page Builder also has OCR (optical character recognition) auto-hotpoint algorithms for raster image types, such as: AI Scanner, Contour Shape, and Blob Finder. While these algorithms are accurate, the SVG algorithm is more accurate because it does not rely on OCR to identify callouts.

Summary

Overall - while SVGs can help with hotpointing, PNGs result in the highest quality image, and many customers use raster images with OCR auto-hotpoint alogorithms and are still able to attain the same publishing efficiencies and gains.