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Overview of image resolutions in a publication

This section describes what happens with images in each of the three output situations when you do not have low, high, and multimedia resolutions for the images.

The image resolution is defined on the Output Format definition on the application server. This means that you can have a PDF output format that uses the high resolutions images (for example, PDF for print) and another PDF output format that uses the low resolution images (for example, PDF for download on the web). There can be a fallback order of image resolutions in the output format definition, to be used in the event that an image is not available in a certain resolution.
Assume you have a simple publication that references the following three images:
  • Image 1: exists in low and high resolutions
  • Image 2: exists in low resolution only
  • Image 3: exists in low, high, and multimedia resolutions

If you generate output for that publication to:

  • PDF output that requires low resolution images, then Image 1, Image 2 and Image 3 are in the output.
  • HTML that requires high resolution images, then Image 1 and Image 3 are in the output and an error is reported for Image 2 that says that it can't find image graphic.
  • Content Delivery that requires multimedia resolution (video), then Image 3 is in the output and an error is reported for image 1 and image 2 that says that it can't find image graphic.

As noted, the order of the resolution preferences when defined for Output Formats determines how they are looked up and used during the publish process. So modifying the scenario above, if you configure the output format definition to include multiple resolutions, they are looked-up and used in the order listed, from left to right.

  • PDF with Output Format resolutions defined as Low, High —Image 1, Image 2 and Image 3 are all output as low resolution since they are all available.
  • HTML with Output Format resolutions defined as High, Low—Image 1 and Image 3 are output in high resolution, and Image 2 is output in low resolution. No warning is given during publishing.
  • Content Delivery with Output Format resolutions defined as Multimedia, Low, High—Image 1 and image 2 are output in low resolution, and Image 3 is output in multimedia resolution.