An Irritating Problem!
Several people have commented in different newsgroups and forums about this problem, so I thought it was time to show a "little" solution. Here's the scenario:
An author knows that Authorware can only assign transparency to the true white color in most graphics, so that worthy person constructs a fine picture with a white background, does all of the appropriate manipulations to make it "data light," and imports it into the Authorware piece.
Lo and behold,
it looks like the image below!
What the heck happened? Here is the scoop:
When many graphics programs (if not told otherwise) construct images (especially if they natively work in "true color" mode,) they attempt to "smooth out" the edges of text and other sharp-edged images by "anti-aliasing" the images. The only way that they can do this is to "blend" the color if the image with that of the background. Since the background required by Authorware is white (for transparency,) that anti-aliasing causes the "white rim" on the images as shown above.
The fix? Construct the image against a background color that matches (approximately) the background that will appear in the AW piece. Export the graphic as usual and then use a bitmap editing program (such as Paint Shop Pro) to change the background color to white. Resave the file, and the image will look like:
Not a big deal, but it surely is frustrating until one finds the solution!