Tecplot to MS word
 

Hi,

I am using Tecplot360 to create contour, vector, 3D plots. I tried the following ways to put these plots in MS word but am not satisfied with any of these.

1) Export the plot as BMP and use Paint to cut and paste the image in word - the quality is lost in this way.

2) Copy the plot to clip board in Tecplot and then in the word Edit-->Paste Special-->Windows meta file, the quality is very good with this way but I can't get rid of the white space in the frame so this occupies a lot of space (more than 70% of the frame is white space) where as actual contour plot is somewhere in the middle of the frame, so if I want to put more than 2 figures in the same horizontal position, without making the picture very small it is not possible, if we make the picture too small there is no use.

So please suggest me how can I select only the plot area (avoid the white space in the rest of the frame) and still maintain the quality.

Thank you
Navin

Can't you just export the active frame or entire working area. You can export to jpeg, bmp, wmv, avi. If you still want to go with option 2 then you can just put the image in word, go to format picture, recolor, set transparent color and select the one you want to be transparent.

you can adjust the picture in tecplot, so there is no need to use paint or other software like that. the title of frame and other things can be adjusted too.
to export a picture you can use those formats which have options for resolution ( i think jpg has this option).

Thank you for your replies.

@ Eezyville

Can't you just export the active frame or entire working area. You can export to jpeg, bmp, wmv, avi.

This is what I mentioned in the first case, even if you export the active frame, entire frame is exported so if I want to insert in word only the area where actual plot is there, I have to cut it using paint and I loose clarity.

If you still want to go with option 2 then you can just put the image in word, go to format picture, recolor, set transparent color and select the one you want to be transparent

I tried making the rest of the area in the frame (which is white color) but word is failing to make white color transparent.

@ hadian

By doing that also you can not get rid of the white space of the frame, the actual plot becomes too small if you adjust the plot in tecplot.

Thank you
Naveen

I found one solution using MS word 2007,

In tecplot I used copy to clip board

In word paste special --> meta file, then under picture tools I used crop option to crop the extra space of the frame.

I don't know if this option of cropping is available in MS word 2003 or not.

Naveen

A good solution consists in giving up word and to work with ... LaTeX !

:)

Yeah correct, I hate working in word but when you are working with some old profs who don't want to or can't change their working style, one is forced to use word :(

So ... good luke :)

Frame -> Edit active frame

and then unselect "Show Border" and "Show background"

to remove the border and background you can use the method mentioned by praveen.
though you can crop exported image in a graphocal package (like gimp or photoshop) or in MsWord, the other method is to adjust the frame size and plot size in tecplot. so there is no need to crop the exported image.

Hi,

I know this post is quite old now but I thought I'd add my opinion.
Tecplot can export in EPS format and allows you to choose the resolution of the image in dpi. Inkscape can then read EPS format and allows you to crop and resave either as EPS which LaTeX can read and display when you \usepackage{epstopdf}or alternatively you can save as jpg.
Elsevier journals require images at least 300 dpi and I've found this the best method to produce contour plots.