Export PPT slides to TIF or other hi-res format?
Gary Fritz
slides she has created, export them to a graphic format, and import that
graphic into FrameMaker. (Don't ask. :-)
PPT seems to support exporting to various PPT formats, WMF, PNG, GIF, and
JPG. If she chooses GIF or JPG or WMF, PowerPoint doesn't let her specify
the image size, so it comes out in some screen-like resolution. When
imported into Frame and printed, this is unreadable, presumably because the
75dpi screen image doesn't print too well on a 600dpi printer.
She has been told the "only" way to do it is to copy each slide into a
separate PPT file (I don't know why), print out each slide individually to a
PostScript file, then run a conversion utility on a Unix system to convert
PS to TIF. This utility allows you to specify your resolution, so you can
create a high-res TIF. But this process is very painful -- among other
things, she doesn't have ready access to the Unix system -- and I'd like to
find a better answer for her.
Is there some way to export a high-res slide image?? Preferably directly to
TIF?
Thanks,
Gary
Rick Ahlgren
72 dpi. The resolution will not get any better. You can tell PPT to save
them as individual files, which can then be batch processed in
Photoshop, converting them to CMYK and saving them as tiffs. She doesn't
need to make individual PPT files.
If you're lucky and have to reduce them in FM, they will look better.
PPT was never intended for printing.
Look a little further in this NG, and you'll find a discussion about PDFs.
Rick Ahlgren
Founder of Society to End F>B>FE>P
Steve Rindsberg
> JPG. If she chooses GIF or JPG or WMF, PowerPoint doesn't let her specify
> the image size, so it comes out in some screen-like resolution. When
> imported into Frame and printed, this is unreadable, presumably because
the
> 75dpi screen image doesn't print too well on a 600dpi printer.
> She has been told the "only" way to do it is to copy each slide into a
> separate PPT file (I don't know why), print out each slide individually to
a
> PostScript file, then run a conversion utility on a Unix system to convert
> PS to TIF. This utility allows you to specify your resolution, so you can
> create a high-res TIF. But this process is very painful --
I imagine so. First, find whoever told her this and slap them around a
little. She deserves better advice. <g>
Here's the deal: PowerPoint will save bitmaps out at a fixed dpi but it
applies that dpi to the current page size.
In other words, if the dpi is XX, and you save from a 10" wide PPT, you get
10 times XX pixels. The value of XX depends on the version of PPT and your
Windows video rez and probably the phase of the moon cross-coupled with how
you're holding your mouth but once you derive it with a few tests, it should
stay constant. Just don't smile ... <g>
Simple workaround, then, is to do File, Page Setup (or Slide Setup,
depending on PPT version) and change the page size to something suitably
larger but proportional to whatever you started with. 10 x 7.5 becomes 20 x
15, for example.
Then save out the whole wad at once.
Nope, can't save directly as TIF, but if you visit http://www.jasc.com they
probably have a shareware version of PaintShop Pro for you to poke at.
It'll do batch conversions of one format to another, TIF included. Suggest
saving as BMP rather than as JPG, by the way. JPG is a lossy format, which
won't help anything.
Jim Ley
Gary Fritz <fr...@frii.com> wrote in message
news:oqD_3.336$9Uj.18...@news.frii.net...
> She has been told the "only" way to do it is to copy each slide into a
> separate PPT file (I don't know why), print out each slide individually to a
> PostScript file, then run a conversion utility on a Unix system to convert
> PS to TIF. This utility allows you to specify your resolution, so you can
> create a high-res TIF. But this process is very painful -- among other
> things, she doesn't have ready access to the Unix system -- and I'd like to
> find a better answer for her.
The others have come up with a better solution to your problem, however you
don't need a unix system to do PS - TIFF conversion, it's likely (although not
certain.) that the suggested app was GhostScript, which is available for
windows (free of course!) do a search on it, it, and GhostView are useful
utilities to have in any case.
Jim.
rwxdpo
App. You can edit the file later and save it in any Format you want using
Pain Shop Pro.
For Dialogs use ALT+SHIFT+PRINTSCREEN and the paste it.
Fred
Gary Fritz <fr...@frii.com> wrote in message
news:oqD_3.336$9Uj.18...@news.frii.net...
> My wife is working on a project where she is required to take some PPT
> slides she has created, export them to a graphic format, and import that
> graphic into FrameMaker. (Don't ask. :-)
>
> PPT seems to support exporting to various PPT formats, WMF, PNG, GIF, and
> JPG. If she chooses GIF or JPG or WMF, PowerPoint doesn't let her specify
> the image size, so it comes out in some screen-like resolution. When
> imported into Frame and printed, this is unreadable, presumably because
the
> 75dpi screen image doesn't print too well on a 600dpi printer.
>
> She has been told the "only" way to do it is to copy each slide into a
> separate PPT file (I don't know why), print out each slide individually to
a
> PostScript file, then run a conversion utility on a Unix system to convert
> PS to TIF. This utility allows you to specify your resolution, so you can
> create a high-res TIF. But this process is very painful -- among other
> things, she doesn't have ready access to the Unix system -- and I'd like
to
> find a better answer for her.
>
Gary Fritz
> First, find whoever told her this and slap them around a
> little. She deserves better advice. <g>
Amen to that!
> Simple workaround, then, is to do File, Page Setup (or Slide Setup,
> depending on PPT version) and change the page size to something suitably
> larger but proportional to whatever you started with. 10 x 7.5 becomes 20
x
> 15, for example.
Fabulous!!! I never thought to change the page size. Many thanks, Steve!
Except, hmmm. When we change the page size, some things get moved on the
slide. E.g. some callouts pointing to screenshots move relative to the
screenshot, and some graphic images move relative to the text on/near them.
Which means that the GIF resulting from the larger page size is bogus. And
if we then change it back to normal size, it messes up the text/graphics
alignment even further. (We could just exit without saving, but the GIF
from the big page is still bad.) Any idea why this is happening, and how to
get around it? If we can resolve this, it will be a *perfect* solution for
us.
> Nope, can't save directly as TIF, but if you visit http://www.jasc.com
they
> probably have a shareware version of PaintShop Pro for you to poke at.
> It'll do batch conversions of one format to another, TIF included.
Suggest
> saving as BMP rather than as JPG, by the way. JPG is a lossy format,
which
> won't help anything.
Yes, I wouldn't have used JPG, I just mentioned it as one of the options
that PPT offers. I used GIF. And as it turns out I don't *have* to convert
it at all, since Frame imports GIF quite nicely. (Or as nicely as it does
ANYthing...) I was only looking at TIF because of the supposed need to go
through Postscript to get high resolution.
Our PPT (97) doesn't offer BMP as an option. Is that a new option in 2000?
But for slides GIF should work just as well as BMP and it will be a whole
lot smaller. Plus I'm not sure if Frame can import BMP anyway.
Speaking of PS, another responder recommended Ghostscript and/or Ghostview.
I already had both, but Ghostview doesn't support "save as" in another
format. And even though I've been used to cryptic Unix interfaces for the
last 20+ years, Ghostscript is too arcane for me. :-) But with some
digging on the web I did eventually find instructions for how to use
Ghostscript to convert Postscript to TIF -- but the dithering was much too
coarse and it looked terrible. And the options that were supposed to
control dithering resolution didn't seem to work.
So I hope we can get Steve's page-size suggestion to work without munging
the slides. Thanks!
Gary
Steve Rindsberg
> slide.
Re-read the word in my suggestion where I said "proportional" <g>. VERY
important. Now you see why. I haven't had stuff move on me so long as I
make the new page size proportional to the old.
> Our PPT (97) doesn't offer BMP as an option.
Errrmmm. Neither does mine. Sorry 'bout that. BTW, you might try PNG, as
it won't reduce the presentation to 256 colors, the way GIF will.
> Speaking of PS, another responder recommended Ghostscript and/or
Ghostview.
> I already had both, but Ghostview doesn't support "save as" in another
> format. And even though I've been used to cryptic Unix interfaces for the
> last 20+ years, Ghostscript is too arcane for me. :-) But with some
> digging on the web I did eventually find instructions for how to use
> Ghostscript to convert Postscript to TIF -- but the dithering was much too
> coarse and it looked terrible. And the options that were supposed to
> control dithering resolution didn't seem to work.
>
I'd be an avid GhostScript user I'm sure, except that I've got this other PS
rasterizer we use, and it does a dandy job for me. I commend it to you if
you've got a spare grand or two lying around the house doing nothing. <g>
Does GS offer any options re the color depth of the output image? Ie,
24-bit rather than 8?
Steve Rindsberg
improve the image or get you any more detail.
--
Steve Rindsberg, MVP (again!)
PPT FAQ & Slide imaging - http://www.rdpslides.com
RnR PPTools - http://www.rdpslides.com/pptools
ZAP! for service bureaus - http://www.rdpslides.com/zap.htm
rwxdpo <n...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:81gs6j$cep$1...@news1.xs4all.nl...
Michael Koerner
PowerPoint lets you save either single slides or your entire presentation to
file formats like JPG,
GIF, and PNG, but when you do this, you may find that the images it exports
are fairly low
resolution. Small text may get a bad case of the "jaggies," and thin lines
may disappear
altogether. You need to export at higher resolutions, but PowerPoint doesn't
include any options
for this in the Save As dialog box, so you're stuck, right? Wrong!
Little-known fact: PowerPoint does these exports at 96 dpi (or 120 dpi if
your computer uses the
Large Fonts display setting). This means that the size of the exported image
will be 96 dpi times
the page size dimensions. You can't change the 96-dpi part, but you CAN
change the page size,
and that's exactly how you can get higher resolution images from PowerPoint.
First, save your file. You want to have it safely saved to disk in case
something goes amiss. Next,
choose File, Page Setup. In the Page Setup dialog box, decide what
resolution you want the final
image to have--how many pixels high by how many pixels wide. Let's say we
want to end up
with an image that's 800 pixels high. Divide the number of pixels desired by
96 dpi to get the
page size in inches--for example, 800 / 96 = 8.33 inches. Change Height in
the Page Setup dialog
box to this size in inches. Finally, calculate a new value for Width that
will maintain the original
slide proportions using this formula:
New Width = (Original Width X New Height) / Original Height
Enter the new Width in the Page Setup dialog box, then click OK. The
appearance of your
presentation shouldn't change at all, since you changed the size but not the
proportions of the
slide page.
Now you can choose File, Save As and save to JPG or other image formats as
you normally
would. You'll end up with a file or files that are very close to the size
you wanted (though they
won't always be precisely the number of pixels across or high that you
expected).
Jim Ley
Steve Rindsberg <drop...@someplace.else> wrote in message
news:ep3ImaqN$GA.236@cppssbbsa04...
> > Speaking of PS, another responder recommended Ghostscript and/or
> Ghostview.
> > I already had both, but Ghostview doesn't support "save as" in another
> > format. And even though I've been used to cryptic Unix interfaces for the
> > last 20+ years, Ghostscript is too arcane for me. :-) But with some
> > digging on the web I did eventually find instructions for how to use
> > Ghostscript to convert Postscript to TIF -- but the dithering was much too
> > coarse and it looked terrible. And the options that were supposed to
> > control dithering resolution didn't seem to work.
> >
>
> I'd be an avid GhostScript user I'm sure, except that I've got this other PS
> rasterizer we use, and it does a dandy job for me. I commend it to you if
> you've got a spare grand or two lying around the house doing nothing. <g>
>
> Does GS offer any options re the color depth of the output image? Ie,
> 24-bit rather than 8?
I don't think so, at least not the version I've got, you could try whacking
the resolution up high though to force gs, but probably most important is to
make sure you have the latest possible version you can. It obviously makes a
big difference.
You could also try other unix converters, but that's the best I'd come across
anyway.
Jim.
Gary Fritz
> Re-read the word in my suggestion where I said "proportional" <g>. VERY
> important. Now you see why. I haven't had stuff move on me so long as I
> make the new page size proportional to the old.
No joy:
1. Open PPT presentation, view slide. All looks OK.
2. File -> Page Size, current size is 10x7.5.
3. Set size to 4*10 = 40 x 4*7.5 = 30.
4. View slide, text has been shifted. In one case it's even **ROTATED**
90deg!!
I can send you some GIFs if you want to see an example.
> Errrmmm. Neither does mine. Sorry 'bout that. BTW, you might try PNG,
as
> it won't reduce the presentation to 256 colors, the way GIF will.
I'll give that a try, but I dunno if Frame will grok PNG. In any case 256
colors is no problem in this application.
> Does GS offer any options re the color depth of the output image? Ie,
> 24-bit rather than 8?
I don't think so. But I believe the Postscript generation in PPT turned it
into B&W anyway. The printer model I used was an HP LJ5 w/Postscript, which
is a B&W printer. Maybe it would retain colors if I used a color PS
printer, and then maybe GS would handle it better. I'd rather get this
direct GIF exporting method to work, and avoid Postscript/Ghostscript/TIF
entirely.
Gary
Steve Rindsberg
BTW, it looks like PPT 2000 uses 72dpi for this calculation rather than
96/120. The fun never ends.
--
Steve Rindsberg, MVP (again!)
PPT FAQ & Slide imaging - http://www.rdpslides.com
RnR PPTools - http://www.rdpslides.com/pptools
ZAP! for service bureaus - http://www.rdpslides.com/zap.htm
Michael Koerner <em...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:eVfOQdqN$GA.239@cppssbbsa04...
Steve Rindsberg
> 1. Open PPT presentation, view slide. All looks OK.
> 2. File -> Page Size, current size is 10x7.5.
> 3. Set size to 4*10 = 40 x 4*7.5 = 30.
> 4. View slide, text has been shifted. In one case it's even **ROTATED**
> 90deg!!
Hmmm. Can't replicate this here, but then I'm working with simple little
slides. So what happens if you first group everything on the slide before
changing the page size?
> I don't think so. But I believe the Postscript generation in PPT turned
it
> into B&W anyway. The printer model I used was an HP LJ5 w/Postscript,
which
> is a B&W printer. Maybe it would retain colors if I used a color PS
> printer, and then maybe GS would handle it better.
Ah, fer sher. Definitely start with a color driver
Gary Fritz
> Hmmm. Can't replicate this here, but then I'm working with simple little
> slides. So what happens if you first group everything on the slide before
> changing the page size?
For some reason it won't let me group the slide title with everything else.
But if I group everything except the title, I still get a munged slide after
the page-size change: text in wrong locations and/or rotated, allout arrows
are roughly the same location but the arrowheads didn't get sized up, etc.
Would you like me to email you a small example file? If I take one slide
out of the big file it doesn't fail as badly as it does within the full
file, but it still messes up. An example is only 70kb or 30kb zipped.
Gary
Michael Koerner
only uses 72dpi. Don't you just love this stuff <G>
Steve Rindsberg <drop...@someplace.else> wrote in message
news:OB3eYCtN$GA.238@cppssbbsa05...
JLRubin
as HTML option, and then chooses the largest page size, and then
the largest screen resolution, wouldn't this produce very high res
images that can then be processed however one wishes, or in
PPT2000, export using the 1900x1200 Web Page Picture option?
Jeff Rubin
"Michael Koerner" <em...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:uaI19c0N$GA....@cppssbbsa02.microsoft.com...
Gary Fritz
> I am jumping into this late, but if, in PPT97, one uses the Save
> as HTML option, and then chooses the largest page size, and then
> the largest screen resolution, wouldn't this produce very high res
> images that can then be processed however one wishes, or in
> PPT2000, export using the 1900x1200 Web Page Picture option?
It's still limited to screen resolution. For a 4x5" image on a 600dpi
printed page, I need 2400x3000 pixels in the saved image. Maybe changing
the Page Size settings would let the HTML save a larger image, but I run
into the munged-slide problem when I do that. And if I could get Page Size
changes to work, I would just save the image to GIF and be done.
Gary
Steve Rindsberg
If so, then THEY glommed it off of ZD-tips. I've got the original text here
on the HDD. See, I wrote it. <g>
> Then it is of no use if PPT2K
> only uses 72dpi. Don't you just love this stuff <G>
>
No, it's still useful - you just use 72 in the calculations instead of
96/120. Didn't stumble onto that one until after the tip went to "press".
:-(
Steve Rindsberg
Yes, please, to the sample offer!
Zip and email to steve at-sign rdpslides dot com
--
Steve Rindsberg, MVP (again!)
PPT FAQ & Slide imaging - http://www.rdpslides.com
RnR PPTools - http://www.rdpslides.com/pptools
ZAP! for service bureaus - http://www.rdpslides.com/zap.htm
Gary Fritz <fr...@frii.com> wrote in message
news:Sm%_3.381$9Uj.19...@news.frii.net...
Steve Rindsberg
> printed page, I need 2400x3000 pixels in the saved image.
WHOOPWHOOPWHOOP! FALLACY ALERT! WHOOPWHOOPWHOOP!
For most images, you don't need or want that much resolution. The only
exception is line art (ie, pure b/w stuff). For anything involving shades
of gray or halftoning, you need to know the lpi, not dpi of the output
device. For 600dpi PS printers, that'll be in the 80-85 lpi ballpark
normally.
Image size in pixels should be LPI x 1.4 x size, so for a 5" image, you'd
need roughly
85 x 1.4 x 5 or 595 pixels, not thousands.
Basically, because of the way PS printers do halftoning, sending them any
more data than that is a waste of bandwidth.
Michael Koerner
72dpi is what I use after I did the test, after you told me 96/120 no longer
applies (that is if your using PPT2k). Whew! all that said, hope you don't
mind me posting your works.
Michael
"Steve Rindsberg" <drop...@someplace.else> wrote in message
news:Oa3h1v2N$GA....@cppssbbsa02.microsoft.com...
Gary Fritz
> For most images, you don't need or want that much resolution. The only
> exception is line art (ie, pure b/w stuff). For anything involving shades
> of gray or halftoning, you need to know the lpi, not dpi of the output
> device.
What about screenshots? Those have pure b/w stuff in them, plus gray shades
and dithered areas that tend to look really ugly if they're scaled.
Of course, if I change the Page Size to get the proper image size, PPT will
have already scaled it... hmm...
Steve Rindsberg
longer
>applies (that is if your using PPT2k). Whew! all that said, hope you don't
>mind me posting your works.
>
Not a problem. At least, not here.
Steve Rindsberg
shades
>and dithered areas that tend to look really ugly if they're scaled.
>
Same rules apply to screenshots except the part about dithering. I looked
into this once and found that Office dithers the screen furniture (scroll
bars and stuff like that) usually, but at least with my video card, there
were one or two modes (24-bit color was one, as I recall) where it didn't
dither.
The trick is to find that mode, use it for capturing, then later down-color
the images or convert to grayscale if appropriate. Then the rules apply
again. <g>
Gary Fritz
> Same rules apply to screenshots except the part about dithering. I looked
> into this once and found that Office dithers the screen furniture (scroll
> bars and stuff like that) usually, but at least with my video card, there
> were one or two modes (24-bit color was one, as I recall) where it didn't
> dither.
>
> The trick is to find that mode, use it for capturing, then later
down-color
> the images or convert to grayscale if appropriate. Then the rules apply
> again. <g>
Hrm. I'm not sure that re-shooting is an option in this situation, but I'll
look into it.
But back to the issue of resolution, I forgot to mention: I wasn't really
trying for NxM pixels just for the purposes of 600dpi *resolution*, but more
to produce the desired image size in Frame. If you resize the image in
Frame, it tends to munge the image quality fairly badly. Dithered/grayscale
areas are especially ugly. So I want to create an image that will produce
the desired image size on a 600dpi printer, in Frame, with no resizing in
Frame. Which means (I believe) I need to create it with 600x the desired #
of inches, yes? Maybe that wastes bandwidth, but if that's what it takes...
Gary
Steve Rindsberg
> trying for NxM pixels just for the purposes of 600dpi *resolution*, but
more
> to produce the desired image size in Frame. If you resize the image in
> Frame, it tends to munge the image quality fairly badly.
Dithered/grayscale
> areas are especially ugly. So I want to create an image that will produce
> the desired image size on a 600dpi printer, in Frame, with no resizing in
> Frame. Which means (I believe) I need to create it with 600x the desired
#
> of inches, yes? Maybe that wastes bandwidth, but if that's what it
takes...
I've done considerable playing around with this dithered image problem, and
have found that what it comes down to is not so much bumping the image
resolution up to match the printer but ensuring that the image is scaled
integrally against the printer resolution. IOW, if you have a 300 pixel
image and you're printing to a 300 dpi printer, you want the image to appear
on paper at 300, 600, 900 ... etc printer pixels. Otherwise you get a mess
... moires and such where the dither frequency "beats" against the printer
frequency.
Don't know if Frame has anything similar, but in PageMaker there's a "magic
scale" command for just this reason. You hold down ... I forget ...
Ctrl+Shift? while scaling the image and it forces the scaling to hop in
imagerez/printerrez = integral number increments. Works a treat.
Of course, if your layout demands a certain size image, it doesn't help one
bit. <g>
IAC, forcing the image to a different resolution = printer rez won't really
help much, I don't think. It'll just introduce the moire effects before you
print rather than as a result of printing.
BTW, I had a look at the file you sent me, and I'm seeing the same things as
you describe. That makes me happy, as it proves that neither of us has
completely lost our minds, however well along the way to that outcome we may
already be. <g>
The problem with the arrows isn't very manageable. Arrowhead sizes and line
widths don't seem to scale when you bump everything up. Rats. AKA Strike
One.
The thing with the text ... well, it looks like a bug, it crawls like a bug
and it goes skittering into dark corners when you shine a light on it. I
say it IS a bug.
Which leaves us back at square one, dunnit?
Sounds like printing to PS via a color driver then running the result
through Ghostscript or some other rasterizer is going to be the only way out
of this.
Gary Fritz
> on paper at 300, 600, 900 ... etc printer pixels. Otherwise you get a
mess
> ... moires and such where the dither frequency "beats" against the printer
> frequency.
Exactly. That's what we were seeing.
> Don't know if Frame has anything similar, but in PageMaker there's a
"magic
> scale" command for just this reason.
Not as far as I know.
> Which leaves us back at square one, dunnit?
Rats. It sounded so good... (I assume you saw this behavior in PPT 2000?
So upgrading won't solve it?)
> Sounds like printing to PS via a color driver then running the result
> through Ghostscript or some other rasterizer is going to be the only way
out
> of this.
Blech. Unless someone can tell me how to get decent dithering out of
Ghostscript, I guess we're stuck with the gawd-awful run-it-through-Unix
approach that we started with... :-( Guess it's time to go visit the
Ghostscript group.
Thanks much for your help, Steve!
Gary
Steve Rindsberg
> So upgrading won't solve it?)
>
I don't think so, but again, setting the video correctly (lotsacolors) on
the machine where you're doing the captures might, since it should elminate
the dithering in the first place. Redoing the captures might be less work
in the long run than other solutions. It's worth a shot with one or two
images, just to see if it works, anyhow.
> Blech. Unless someone can tell me how to get decent dithering out of
> Ghostscript, I guess we're stuck with the gawd-awful run-it-through-Unix
> approach that we started with... :-( Guess it's time to go visit the
> Ghostscript group.
There are also a couple Postscript related NGs around; there are some
serious Ghostscript users to be found there. Sorry I can't help more with
that end of it, but I don't use the software. I think you'll need to sort
out how to get it to make TIFFs or something other than GIFs, since a
256-color format like GIF will force color reduction, which may be one of
the factors that's giving you dithering.
Santiago Tacoronte
> Simple workaround, then, is to do File, Page Setup (or Slide Setup,
> depending on PPT version) and change the page size to something suitably
> larger but proportional to whatever you started with. 10 x 7.5 becomes 20 x
> 15, for example.