Printing slides and handouts
Joye
simple solution.
How do I make print slides that look decent?
Do most people use print slides for their handouts or do something else?
I've made a series of custom backgrounds in PhotoShop for my company slide
shows. I chose to make TIFs at 72DPI since they are used for electronic
presentations. With each series, I want a Print slide.
Obviously 72DPI makes lousy looking print, so I made print slides at 300DPI.
(Even though they are really SLOOOOOW to import to PP.) They look just as
bad as the 72DPI version. Is PowerPoint compressing the TIFs? (I chose TIFs
because they reproduce my gradients better than JPG).
I've selected "print inserted objects at printer resolution". My printer is
high res, so I know that's not it. I print photo quality images regularly.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Steve Rindsberg
300DPI.
> (Even though they are really SLOOOOOW to import to PP.) They look just as
> bad as the 72DPI version. Is PowerPoint compressing the TIFs? (I chose
TIFs
> because they reproduce my gradients better than JPG).
>
Yup, it compresses and converts them to another internal format on import;
JPGs it stores as JPGs, so they're faster to come in. But how did you
convert from 72dpi to 300dpi? Upsampling the original 72dpi images? That
gets you nothing in image quality, just a lot bigger file.
Joye
you know how the print slides in PP are made? I can make originals any
resolution necessary. Are you saying that PP will convert to 72 DPI no
matter what I use? If so, how does anyone make a decent graphic for print?
Steve Rindsberg
OK. Possible Problem 1 out of the way, then.
Next: Since you're talking in terms of DPI but not mentioning inches, we
don't know yet what rez these things really are. IOW, inches X dpi = # of
pixels, so w/o inches, we don't know from nothin'. Of course the relative
amounts of time it takes to import these things pretty much tells us that
you do have lots more pixels. So let's let that one ride for a bit.
>Do
> you know how the print slides in PP are made? I can make originals any
> resolution necessary. Are you saying that PP will convert to 72 DPI no
> matter what I use?
No, it most definitely won't downsample your images on you. Out of
curiosity, though, have you tried printing without that "Print inserted
objects at printer resolution" thingie checked? Some printer drivers are
brain dead - it's possible that yours could be misreporting its resolution
to PPT, which might cause PPT to downsample the image at print time.
And just to be certain, you're getting these into PPT via Insert, Picture
From File and not copy/paste, right?
Joye
Thanks for the info. Re: your questions...
>Since you're talking in terms of DPI but not mentioning inches, we
>don't know yet what rez these things really are. IOW, inches X dpi = # of
>pixels, so w/o inches, we don't know from nothin'.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this, but the PhotoShop
setting is 800X600, 300DPI
I'm printing from Powerpoint at 8.5X11 landscape, full page...
>have you tried printing without that "Print inserted
>objects at printer resolution" thingie checked?
Just tried it...made little or no difference in output
>And just to be certain, you're getting these into PPT via Insert, Picture
>From File and not copy/paste, right?
That's right, using insert from file
Been ditzin' around with settings and find that I can get a decent print if
I set my printer to 720 DPI (even though my original is 300 DPI). So, if I
was going to be the end-user for these things, this wouldn't be a big
problem. I have a printer that could reproduce the graphics
acceptably...Epson color 800 stylus...and I would take the time to do
so...despite the slow printing at higher res. However, these are for
salespeople who never have enough time and use a wide (quality/speed) range
of printers. I used to be one of those sales types, and I don't know that
they will take the time (or even know enough) to jack the res around.
Maybe, I'm expecting too much from PP. Perhaps a more important question I
should ask - both you and the group:
How do most of you deal with print slides? Do you set up a separate
file/background with less graphics?
Most of the images for my backgrounds include gradients/photos, etc and the
file size for these are around 1.4 to 1.8 meg as BMPs or Tifs. I've seen
some templates for sale on the net where the print slides just have a band
of color or design instead of the full background...I can build them, but I
don't know how to set that up to be used in PP. (The help menu isn't much
help there either.) Would the user have to use "apply design"? Whatever I
do needs to be simple for the end-user...or I'll have to train - oooh, scary
thought given my level of expertise!
Thanks for any input or advice
Steve Rindsberg
> they will take the time (or even know enough) to jack the res around.
> Maybe, I'm expecting too much from PP.
Maybe so. It's perfectly capable of putting out high rez/high quality
images, but if the printer user asks it to print at low resolution, it's
just as happy to do that. Sounds like the printer settings might be the
bottleneck here.
OTOH, what sort of image is this? 800x600 isn't particularly high rez (and
whatever Photoshop says about the dpi is irrelevant by the way).
> Most of the images for my backgrounds include gradients/photos, etc and
the
> file size for these are around 1.4 to 1.8 meg as BMPs or Tifs.
Why not used PowerPoint's built-in gradients instead? (Not that there
aren't perfectly good reasons, but hey, it's cheap to try the ones that're
there already, right? )
Joye
Thanks for all the back and forth. My reply is delayed because what you
said about rez made me question what I actually know or don't know about
resolution:
Steve Rindsberg wrote in message ...
>OTOH, what sort of image is this? 800x600 isn't particularly high rez (and
>whatever Photoshop says about the dpi is irrelevant by the way).
OK...after reading your message, the Photoshop book and drinking several
cups of coffee...what I think you're saying is that a better starting size
for the images would be 3333X2500 at 300dpi. More pixels to start with. I
don't fully understand why the Photoshop dpi info isn't relevant since I
intend to print these (albeit out of PP)...but I'll try this approach. I'm
a little worried about the way PP will import this file size (looks like it
will be 25meg+).
I still need to know what to do to use these images as print backgrounds
once they're made, e.g., I build Presentation X using my imported
backgroundX.tif...full slide full color as a background fill behind my text.
I don't want to print handouts using that background. I want to print using
a modified version with less graphics or maybe graphics just down one
side...call it printX.tif. I make print X.tif (at 3333X2500 @ 300 dpi) and
want to use all of the text from my original presentation when I print
handouts. How do I do that? Is that where "Apply Design" comes in? As I
mentioned before, I've seen templates on the net that offer a print slide.
That's what I want to do with these.
All this X-ing is confusing me :-)
but I appreciate all of your help
Thanks again
Joye
Steve Rindsberg
> cups of coffee...
NOW you're talkin' my language. Massive caffeine intake, not the books
part. <g>
>what I think you're saying is that a better starting size
> for the images would be 3333X2500 at 300dpi. More pixels to start with.
Possibly so, depending on the image itself. The more pixels, the more
detail the image can resolve.
The DPI part doesn't mean anything. All you need to know is the pixels.
A little sleight of Photoshop will demonstrate:
Open a smallish image or create a new one at, say, 500 by 500 pixels. We
don't care what dpi. Whatever makes Adobe happy. A happy Adobe is an Adobe
that's happy, that's my motto, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
It'll want to start at 72 and let's let it.
Save the image as a Windows Bitmap called Image1.BMP
Photoshop will carp about how "Some printer settings cannot yadayadayada".
Tell it to shut up and get a life. Click OK.
Now resize the image (Image, Image Size). Remove the check mark next to
Resample Image. Change the 72 dpi number to say 12. Whoa, wouldja lookit
what it did to the image size in inches! (Hint: we don't care. It's all a
lie.)
Save that one as Image2.BMP
Now do the same thing again, only this time we'll bump this funnymoney dpi
thing WAY up. Make it ... oh ... 1200 dpi. One hundred times the rez of
the last one, right? (Hint: wrong!) Ooooeeee, NOW look at the size in
inches. Is that teeny or what?
Save as Image3.BMP.
Now comes the fun. You've saved (according to Photoshop) three different
images at wildly different DPI and size settings, right? (Hint: Right!)
So think a second about what you'd expect the relative sizes of these things
to be. Then go have a look at them in Explorer.
Notice anything funny about the relative sizes?
Pretty close, ain't they? <g> And if you use a binary compare utility to
compare them, you'll find that there's only four bytes difference between
them. The four bytes that Photoshop and other proggies use to store the
little bit of data that tells it what DPI to *pretend* the file was saved
at. The data -- the pixels in the file -- are absolutely, utterly,
irrevocably identical otherwise.
Poor innocent. You didn't know that this was my A-number-one primo favorite
rant, did you? ;-)
> I still need to know what to do to use these images as print backgrounds
> once they're made, e.g., I build Presentation X using my imported
> backgroundX.tif...full slide full color as a background fill behind my
text.
> I don't want to print handouts using that background. I want to print
using
> a modified version with less graphics or maybe graphics just down one
> side...call it printX.tif. I make print X.tif (at 3333X2500 @ 300 dpi)
and
> want to use all of the text from my original presentation when I print
> handouts. How do I do that? Is that where "Apply Design" comes in?
Ayup, you're on the right track, even if you didn't see the DPIScreed
Express coming down it at you from the other direction.
What you'd do is create the presentation one way, save it as, say,
LowRez.POT (File, Save As, choose Template from Files of Type and save as
POT). Then modify it for your highrez version and save that again but as
HiRez.POT. Now you've got two templates you can apply (Apply Design) as
needed w/o affecting the actual content of the show.
kathy
> rant, did you? ;-)
some people sure need a life, is all I can say
Steve Rindsberg
A life or maybe a PPT RANT site in addition to the FAQ?
It'd save me some typing. <g>