| Troubleshooting |
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1. How can I improve program performance? |
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First, make sure your computer has adequate memory. It's also
important to know what parts of diagrams are the slowest to process
so you can avoid them unless necessary. First of all the
overall complexity of the diagram is very important, such as the
number of figures and connectors. You can increase performance
by breaking a large complex diagram into multiple smaller ones.
Avoid excessive imported graphics. They require a large number of
steps to draw. Also slower are (in order of most to least slow)
(a) Curved connectors, especially smoothed (b) Connectors with thick
and/or patterned lines (dashed or dotted) (c) Connectors with flow
symbols - these can really slow down redraws.
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2. Connectors, text, and borders don't draw in the color I want. |
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Connectors, text, and figure borders (anything drawn with lines),
has to be drawn in a color that is solid on the output device.
In the case of a black and white printer, the only solid colors are
black and white. On a 16 color video display, there are 16
different solid colors. Windows can create other colors on the
screen for fills by dithering (adding patterns of multiple colors)
but it cannot do so for lines or text. Therefore, it you
choose a dithered color like blue-green and try to use that color
as a connector color, the connector will actually be drawn in the
nearest solid color (blue or green on the display, black on a black
and white printer.)
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3. EMF import problem. |
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When importing an EMF which contains an embedded bitmap, the
position of the bitmap may be incorrect. We believe this
to be an error in Windows format conversion - we cannot fix it.
Try importing it into another program like MS Word, then cut and paste.
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4. Underlines get broken up. |
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When copying objects to metafiles or cutting and pasting into other
programs, underlined words will occasionally display breaks or gaps
in the underline between some characters. This is a natural
consequence of the way the program positions and formats text to
keep it aligned properly with the figures. you can minimize
the effect by avoiding scaling the image after the paste.
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5. Page is blank when I print. |
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If your diagram looks fine on the screen but you get only a blank
page when you print, you have probably positioned your objects on
the wrong part of the page. To view your objects in the diagram
choose "Zoom" and "All Objects" from the
menu. You wil see your entire diagram and should see the
current page also. The white rectangle represents the
portion of your diagram that is on the page. Any part of
your diagram that is not over the white rectangle will not be
printed. You can move all of your objects by choosing
"Select All" from the "Edit" menu and
dragging the objects over the page with your mouse.
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6. Connector line "corners" do not reflect the corner type I chose. |
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Connector lines can have different corner types (also known
as joins). These can be rounded, mitered, or beveled.
There are a few cases where even after you set a corner type, the
line will still be drawn rounded regardless of the type you
choose. This is a know deficiency of patterned lines
(dashed and dotted). Mitered and beveled corners may not
print correctly on your printer either if your printer doesn't
support line joins.
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