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Excel Chart looks poor in PowerPoint

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Gary McGill

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Dec 11, 2009, 6:35:02 AM12/11/09
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[Office 2003]

I have a long-standing problem that's driven me crazy for years. This is a
cry for help from a desperate man!

The problem I have, briefly, is that when I embed an Excel chart in a
PowerPoint presentation, it looks really bad because the text (e.g. category
labels) is rendered very poorly. Even when I use a standard font like Arial,
and even though it looks absolutely fine in Excel, it comes out blocky and
badly kerned when viewed in PowerPoint.

Its as if the chart has been rendered as a bitmap at screen resolution, and
then scaled slightly, so that all the anti-aliasing of the text goes horribly
awry. And yet, it's even worse than that, because the kerning of the
characters goes wrong too, so you get letters running into one another, or
big ugly gaps between letters.

I don't understand why I can't find any discussion of this on-line. It seems
like such a glaring problem, yet there's virtually no evidence that anyone
else has this issue. I've tried various different systems, and this has been
a consistent thorn in my side for years.

A solution would be nice, but first off - can anyone simply confirm that it
is a problem, and that I'm not going mad?

PTTRUST

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Dec 11, 2009, 10:21:01 AM12/11/09
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How are you inserting it The way you import it can effect the graphics.
PDF's are particularly prone to degradation. If you are inserting the chart
directly from Excel try some different methods such as copy & paste, drag &
drop and the Insert Object option from the menu.

Gary McGill

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Dec 11, 2009, 10:33:02 AM12/11/09
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Believe me, I've tried ALL the options. But to be honest, I don't think this
is the source of the problem.

I'm not sure what you mean about PDFs?

PTTRUST

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Dec 11, 2009, 10:59:06 AM12/11/09
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Charts can be converted to Adobe Acrobat .pdf format and then inserted into
PowerPoint. What versions of PowerPoint and Excel are you using?

Gary McGill

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Dec 11, 2009, 12:13:01 PM12/11/09
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2003 Pro SP3

Steve Rindsberg

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Dec 11, 2009, 1:15:32 PM12/11/09
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In article <DA404332-0B3E-4EE0...@microsoft.com>, Gary McGill
wrote:

If you're going mad, at least you've got lots of company.

This is a very common problem when you copy/paste from excel to PPT then resize
the Excel chart. If you're seeing what I think you are, you'll probably notice
that as you change the size of the chart gradually, the text size doesn't change
but the spacing alters to match the new size. Then suddenly the text size will
pop to a larger size and the chart looks better until you continue enlarging it.

It's as though the picture of the chart's only allowed to use text in pre-
determined sizes. And its UGLY.

Try using Edit, Paste Special, Link when you paste from Excel to PPT. That's
always worked much better for me.

Or size the chart in Excel before copy/pasting to PPT; don't resize it in PPT.


==============================
PPT Frequently Asked Questions
http://www.pptfaq.com/

PPTools add-ins for PowerPoint
http://www.pptools.com/


PTTRUST

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Dec 11, 2009, 2:27:01 PM12/11/09
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Not sure if you have had the problem prior to SP3 or not, but I have heard of
SP3 doing some weird things. You may try downloading the 2007 trial versions
of PPT & Excel and see if that solves the problem. Other than that I don't
have any further suggestions.

"Gary McGill" wrote:

> 2003 Pro SP3

Gary McGill

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Dec 14, 2009, 5:10:01 AM12/14/09
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Steve,

I've been very careful to avoid re-sizing in PowerPoint (I keep hitting the
Reset button on the Size tab of the Object Properties dialog). Yet it still
looks terrible.

The advice I'm getting elsewhere is similar but different to yours (copy &
paste as a picture). When taken with your advice (paste a link), the sum
total of all this advice seems to be: don't embed an Excel chart in a
PowerPoint presentation.

I find this depressing - if that's not the #1 reason for having the ability
to embed objects in the first place, what is?!

Thanks,
Gary

Steve Rindsberg

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Dec 14, 2009, 11:16:32 AM12/14/09
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In article <8D242C10-9DEF-4A7E...@microsoft.com>, Gary McGill
wrote:

> Steve,
>
> I've been very careful to avoid re-sizing in PowerPoint (I keep hitting the
> Reset button on the Size tab of the Object Properties dialog). Yet it still
> looks terrible.
>
> The advice I'm getting elsewhere is similar but different to yours (copy &
> paste as a picture).

That's another approach, but of course, all that gives you is a picture, not
Excel data that you can later edit/update. If that meets your needs, it'll be
a lighter-weight, less troublesome solution than dealing with embedded or
linked data.

> When taken with your advice (paste a link), the sum
> total of all this advice seems to be: don't embed an Excel chart in a
> PowerPoint presentation.
>
> I find this depressing - if that's not the #1 reason for having the ability
> to embed objects in the first place, what is?!

I suppose the main use is the ability to include data from one program into
another and retain editability w/o the need to track multiple source files.
Everything travels as one neat package.

Of course, if it's one neat package that looks like the dog's been having
digestive difficulties, it's not so appealing.

BTW, one other trick is to do your sizing in Excel before copy/pasting into

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