#### 7.10.1 Graphics of Embedded Charts ¶

The technology used to embed charts into other document, called OLE, has certain limitations on graphics20. To work around these, Msc-generator employs a few simplifications.

- Due to clipping limitations, certain arrowheads, like ‘`line`’ draw differently on signalling charts.
- Due to font limitations, the label of slanted arrows on signalling charts are drawn with limited resolution and looks somewhat different than non-slanted text.
- Due to missing gradient fill support, gradient fills and shadows are approximated. At large magnification this becomes visible.
- Due to the limited size of the coordinate space, placement of elements in very large charts appear imprecise.
- Due to lack of transparency support, transculent areas (such as pipes) are drawn on a bitmap, a fallback image and then inserted, see below.

If a chart contains a lot of fallback images, the size of the embedded object can become large, several megabytes for a chart. To control the size of the embedded chart and eventually that of your container document, for embedded charts a new category ("Embedded Object") appears on the ribbon, allowing you to adjust the quality of the fallback images.

Note that this issue is fixed in newer versions of Microsoft Office, which are able to compress the images in embedded objects.

When this category is selected, Msc-generator shows the chart as it will appear in the container document. Fallback image locations are briefly highlighted when switching to this category. The ribbon category shows how large the embedded object will be (if not compressed by the container applications) and what percentage of the chart is drawn on fallback images (if any). There is a slider allowing you to set the resolution of the fallback images. You can observe the resulting image size and visual quality immediately.

#### Footnotes

##### (20)

Only drawing operations permitted in old-style Windows Metafiles (developed in 16-bit Windows times) are permitted by design.