Poor quality graphics from PDF conversion
chrisramsay
The underlying issue is that low level routines within GDI (Graphics Display Interface) of Windows discard the alpha channel of graphics files. The alpha channel is what provides the transparency information for PNG and GIF files. Without the alpha channel being handled properly, the edges of the image go all chunky.
JPEGs do not have an alpha channel so are not a problem.
It all depends on the software you are using - I have found most freeware PDF converters all have the same problem. Not sure about the inbuilt converters of Office 2007.
To verify this is the problem your are having, take your PNG source image, convert it to a GIF with no transparency and no dithering, put it back in your Word document and try again - you will probably find your PDF conversion is now fine (it was for me).
If you Google something like "GDI alpha channel", you will find endless other chatter about this issue with Windows.
Software that uses it's own internal graphics routines (not the Windows routines) for image conversion should be fine ...
Or use a Mac !
Bob Buckland ?:-) At Beautiful Downtown
Thank you for sharing the information you have found.
Are you using photographs, or line drawings or ??? Can you provide a link to a sample PNG graphic where you've seen a problem with
the image quality
It can be, as you mentioned a combination of factors/variables that affect the output quality :)
GIFs are limited to 256 colors, while PNGs are not, so the appearance of the graphic (clarity, etc) may not be as clear in print as
on screen, but it's a good one to try :)
The earlier Windows Graphics Display Interface (GDI) did not, if I recall correctly, support an alpha channel or Alpha blending,
but GDI+, that has been out for several years in Office and in WinXP and WinVista does support those features
http://msdn.com/microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms533803(.85).aspx
although there are a few bugs in it <g>) and there are also 3rd party implementations that tweak the engine (not always for the
best).
Word, for its part, also does some internal sleight of hand with its transparency tool that creates transparency in an internal PNG
of your inserted graphic, even if you insert, for example a JPG or GIF in your document.
There is an issue in Office 2007 with its new graphics engine where, with a PNG graphic, if the alpha channel is stored in the PNG
graphic and you use Microsoft's Office 2007 Save as PDF add-in that the 'transparent' areas, while being transparent in the Word
document when viewed on screen may turn 'black' if the PDF add-in has the ISO 195001 option turned on. If you need that option
(PDF-A) turned on, then, if you use the
Picture Tools=>Format=>Adjust=>Recolor=>Set Transparent color
on the same graphic, the graphic in the PDF appears as it does in Word.
There are 2 or 3 basic underlying structures for some of the popular Print to PDF freeware available, and how well each performs can
depend on the current version of the underlying programming library. For those that require a copy of GhostScript to be installed
to function, it's not uncommon for folks to install GS then never update it again. In some cases there are new features in GS newer
versions that address some of the issues.
By the way, my friend who does a lot of photo work on his Mac wasn't familiar with PNG as a graphic file type :)
=============
>><Chris Ramsay> wrote in message news:2008977433...@gmail.com...
--
Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP
*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*
benmartin
I have found a solution though. I tried the Microsoft PDF Add-In, which allows you to publish to a PDF (the add-in was created by microsoft, so I assumed it would integrate without any problems). This created a PDF that looks exactly the same as my Office 2007 document at 100% (which is exactly what I wanted). Most of the images zoom decently too (looks fine at 75% + 125%).
Here is a link to the add-in:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/5/3/b5370004-d59d-493f-b005-2299ffca8596/SaveAsPDF.exe
Shane Burke
> On Wednesday, May 28, 2008 1:11 PM NM Frenc wrote:
> I am having difficulty getting good graphics resolution when I PDF from Word
> 2007 (Small Buisiness) into Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard. My graphics look
> perfectly sharp in Word at any size, but become "pixelated" when I PDF them.
> I have tried using the Acrobat "High Quality Print" setting in Word, but this
> gives only a little improvement.
>
> I discovered that the quality of the graphic in Acrobat depends on the type
> of graphic file I originally inserted into Word. PNG and GIF graphics PDF
> poorly, and JPEG graphics PDF better. My problem is that I need a transparent
> background for a logo, and the JPEG format apparently doesn't support that. I
> also need to keep the size down, which eliminates BMP and TIF files.
>
> I have never had any trouble PDFing graphics in earlier versions of Word, so
> I'm not sure why this is suddenly a problem. I did some tests, and there is
> no problem with the graphics when I PDF the same document using an earlier
> version of Word.
>> On Wednesday, May 28, 2008 7:41 PM Bob Buckland ?:-\) wrote:
>> Hi N.M.,
>>
>> Office 2007 uses a new graphic engine for handling pictures.
>>
>> Do you get the same result using the Office 2007 'save as PDF add-in'?
>>
>> JPEG does not support transparency, but Word lets you choose a transparent color on inserted JPGs. With a picture selected try
>> Picture Tools tab=>Format=>Recolor=>Set Transparent Color
>> then click on the color choice (you may want to zoom in first).
>>
>> Adobe lists Acrobat version 8.1 as the version compatible with Office 2007.
>> ===========
>> <<"NM French" <NM Fre...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:41B7BEFD-B07A-4DF6...@microsoft.com...
>> I am having difficulty getting good graphics resolution when I PDF from Word
>> 2007 (Small Buisiness) into Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard. My graphics look
>> perfectly sharp in Word at any size, but become "pixelated" when I PDF them.
>> I have tried using the Acrobat "High Quality Print" setting in Word, but this
>> gives only a little improvement.
>>
>> I discovered that the quality of the graphic in Acrobat depends on the type
>> of graphic file I originally inserted into Word. PNG and GIF graphics PDF
>> poorly, and JPEG graphics PDF better. My problem is that I need a transparent
>> background for a logo, and the JPEG format apparently doesn't support that. I
>> also need to keep the size down, which eliminates BMP and TIF files.
>>
>> I have never had any trouble PDFing graphics in earlier versions of Word, so
>> I'm not sure why this is suddenly a problem. I did some tests, and there is
>> no problem with the graphics when I PDF the same document using an earlier
>> version of Word. >>
>> --
>>
>> Bob Buckland ?:-)
>> MS Office System Products MVP
>>
>> *Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*
>>> On Wednesday, May 28, 2008 8:22 PM Bob Buckland ?:-\) wrote:
>>> Hi N.M.,
>>>
>>> Office 2007 uses a new graphic engine for handling pictures.
>>>
>>> Do you get the same result using the Office 2007 'save as PDF add-in'?
>>>
>>> JPEG does not support transparency, but Word lets you choose a transparent color on inserted JPGs. With a picture selected try
>>> Picture Tools tab=>Format=>Recolor=>Set Transparent Color
>>> then click on the color choice (you may want to zoom in first).
>>>
>>> ===========
>>> <<"NM French" <NM Fre...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:41B7BEFD-B07A-4DF6...@microsoft.com...
>>> I am having difficulty getting good graphics resolution when I PDF from Word
>>> 2007 (Small Buisiness) into Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard. My graphics look
>>> perfectly sharp in Word at any size, but become "pixelated" when I PDF them.
>>> I have tried using the Acrobat "High Quality Print" setting in Word, but this
>>> gives only a little improvement.
>>>
>>> I discovered that the quality of the graphic in Acrobat depends on the type
>>> of graphic file I originally inserted into Word. PNG and GIF graphics PDF
>>> poorly, and JPEG graphics PDF better. My problem is that I need a transparent
>>> background for a logo, and the JPEG format apparently doesn't support that. I
>>> also need to keep the size down, which eliminates BMP and TIF files.
>>>
>>> I have never had any trouble PDFing graphics in earlier versions of Word, so
>>> I'm not sure why this is suddenly a problem. I did some tests, and there is
>>> no problem with the graphics when I PDF the same document using an earlier
>>> version of Word. >>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Bob Buckland ?:-)
>>> MS Office System Products MVP
>>>
>>> *Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*
>>>> On Monday, August 04, 2008 9:58 AM postma wrote:
>>>> I'm having the same problem in MS Word 2007 using Office 2007 "Save As PDF"
>>>> add-in.
>>>>
>>>> I'm copying & pasting all the images as "Device Independent Bitmap".
>>>>
>>>> The image degradation seems to be worse on any images I resized in Word,
>>>> though they look fine in Word. If I pasted them in and did not resize them,
>>>> those images convert to PDF fine.
>>>>
>>>> "Bob Buckland ?:-)" wrote:
>>>>> On Monday, August 04, 2008 10:09 AM Tony Jollans wrote:
>>>>> I have experienced this pixellation with the Word PDF AddIn.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have found that turning off ISO 19005-1 compliance makes things much
>>>>> better. I don't know what this option is supposed to do but as it is the
>>>>> only option available it was an easy one to try :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Enjoy,
>>>>> Tony
>>>>>
>>>>> "postman" <pos...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>>>>> news:4091E6B4-2893-44BF...@microsoft.com...
>>>>>> On Monday, August 04, 2008 11:26 AM postma wrote:
>>>>>> The ISO option has not helped the issue for me.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I know that when I've tried enabling that option, images that have any
>>>>>> formatting in Word--such as drop shadows--appear with the jagged edges.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I tried disabling the "Bitmap fonts" option too--just for kicks--but that
>>>>>> didn't make any difference either.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Tony Jollans" wrote:
>>>>>>> On Monday, August 04, 2008 1:20 PM postma wrote:
>>>>>>> I did some further testing and found that if I resize any images in Word
>>>>>>> smaller than 90% of their original size, when I convert to PDF, it degrades
>>>>>>> and becomes very pixellated.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Resizing larger than its original size isn't as bad. There's some
>>>>>>> pixellation at 150% or more, but nowhere near as bad as when shrinking the
>>>>>>> image.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I tried both inserting images of various types and copy/pasting--everything
>>>>>>> produced the same results.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> "NM French" wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Tuesday, August 05, 2008 12:24 PM postma wrote:
>>>>>>>> Apparently, it is just the electronic version on the screen that is affected.
>>>>>>>> When I printed out a page of the affected graphics in the PDF, it printed
>>>>>>>> fine.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "postman" wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On Wednesday, August 13, 2008 9:01 AM postma wrote:
>>>>>>>>> It may be a problem with Acrobat Reader in the rendering of the images. As
>>>>>>>>> noted above, the printing output is fine, but I also noticed the images that
>>>>>>>>> are pixellated at the 100% view become less distorted when zooming in. For
>>>>>>>>> the several documents I've made, zooming in to 150% makes all pixellation
>>>>>>>>> disappear from the affected images.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It's not a solution, but maybe a new direction to research the problem....
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> "postman" wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On Saturday, August 16, 2008 11:19 PM scader wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> I spent 2 hours on the phone with Adobe Acrobat support. They had me
>>>>>>>>>> try every possible option under the sun and we were not able to
>>>>>>>>>> resolve this issue. While on the phone, I realize that the PNG
>>>>>>>>>> renders
>>>>>>>>>> poor only if the graphic has transparency enabled.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I asked the support technician to raise the ticket. He put me on hold
>>>>>>>>>> and returned to say that it was raised, but they declared it a "bug"
>>>>>>>>>> and suggested I upgrade to Acrobat 9. I did, but it has the same
>>>>>>>>>> issue.
>>>>>>>>>>> On Sunday, September 07, 2008 7:43 AM Chris Ramsay wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> I have experienced similar problems recently - not sure exactly what software you are all using, but the clue is PNG graphics being poor when transparency is enabled.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> The underlying issue is that low level routines within GDI (Graphics Display Interface) of Windows discard the alpha channel of graphics files. The alpha channel is what provides the transparency information for PNG and GIF files. Without the alpha channel being handled properly, the edges of the image go all chunky.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> JPEGs do not have an alpha channel so are not a problem.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> It all depends on the software you are using - I have found most freeware PDF converters all have the same problem. Not sure about the inbuilt converters of Office 2007.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> To verify this is the problem your are having, take your PNG source image, convert it to a GIF with no transparency and no dithering, put it back in your Word document and try again - you will probably find your PDF conversion is now fine (it was for me).
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> If you Google something like "GDI alpha channel", you will find endless other chatter about this issue with Windows.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Software that uses it's own internal graphics routines (not the Windows routines) for image conversion should be fine ...
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Or use a Mac !
>>>>>>>>>>>> Submitted via EggHeadCafe
>>>>>>>>>>>> ASP.NET Sum of Numbers Captcha Control with CustomValidator
>>>>>>>>>>>> http://www.eggheadcafe.com/tutorials/aspnet/bde8bf73-c31c-4c73-af05-861769e625e8/aspnet-sum-of-numbers-captcha-control-with-customvalidator.aspx
georgeg...@gmail.com
PD FFFF
My situation is that we use PNG images of a person's signature, and company logo, which are 600 dpi, and part of a Word mail merge document. Printing the actual word document, the images and signatures are crisp. However, doing Save-As to PDF and then printing the PDF, the printed image quality is much worse.
I've tried setting the "No Compression" option in Word, I've added the no compression flag to the registry, I've tried using the Word to PDF add-in... all of which do not preserve the original image.
Also, another problem with printing the PDF is the images have a light gray box behind them. I think what happens is Word down-samples the image into the PDF, then the printer drivers do a poor job of interpolating the down-sampled image. Our printer is RICOH 4000, I'm going to talk to them about upgrading the printer drivers to fix that issue.
I've done the following test using PNG, JPG and GIF versions of a signature image:
1) Open word
2) Insert picture from file
3) Save As PDF
The resulting image in the PDF is always down-sampled. It's really annoying.
Alternatively, another test I've done is:
1) Open Word
2) Insert Picture from file
3) Print to Adobe PDF printer
4) Set highest quality setting
The above produces a PDF containing a higher quality image, but the size of the PDF is 1 MB, 10 times larger than it should be. Some clients, we email the PDF files, some clients, we print and mail the reports. For archival purposes, it's also nice to have smaller files, especially when creating tens of thousands of files every 3 months.
I've worked with the PostScript language, and know the basics of how to encode an image in ps format. I don't understand why MS Word can't do the same thing.
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Smallest File Size or Standard selected, do you have the same problem?
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org
"PD FFFF" <pdf...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:201212215...@terrranews.com...
whev...@gmail.com
> To verify this is the problem your are having, take your PNG source image, convert it to a GIF with no transparency and no dithering, put it back in your Word document and try again - you will probably find your PDF conversion is now fine (it was for me).
To address, select "Print Options", choose the "Adobe PDF Settings" tab, and change default settings from "Standard" to "High Quality Print". You can see the impact of this change by pressing "Edit..." and comparing the image compression setting of the two options.
Using the "File->Save as Adobe PDF" menu entry does not allow comparable adjustment of print quality. Only using "Print" and "Print Options" with the Adobe PDF printer driver resolves the issue.
ivana...@gmail.com
1. Open the Word 2013 document with the images inserted.
2. Click File, Save As, and PDF from the drop-down menu. The Options button is displayed at the bottom of the window.
3. Click Options.
4. On the Options dialog box, select ISO 19005-1 complaint (PDF/A) in the PDF options section.
5. Save the changes.
Does that work?
If not, see other workarounds on this tutorial:
http://wordtipsandtricks.com/2015/10/21/how-to-improve-image-quality-ms-word-pdf-conversions/