Convert PPT to EPS or TIFF?

[Peter Frank]

Hi,

I need to convert some Powerpoint slides to a format providing good
quality for printing. The printing service accepts EPS and TIFF (300
dpi). Powerpoint's own TIFF saving capability is insufficient because
it only yields low resolution TIFF files. I found a tool called SnagIt
(actually a screen capturing tool) that allows "printing" the
Powerpoint slides to EPS or TIFF.
My question now is: Which format should I choose? Which provides the
best printing quality based on the source? I see that it wouldn't make
sense to convert a photograph to a vector-based format, but I am not
sure how things are here. Would I benefit from converting to EPS rather
than a high resolution TIFF?

Peter

[Echo S]

I would do a File/Save as, choose WMF, and then open the WMFs in Illustrator
and save as EPS files. That's assuming you have Illustrator, of course.
CorelDraw would work just as well, I suspect, but the fact remains that
you'd still need a third-party tool of some sort. I just think these might
work faster than using SnagIt (as much as I love SnagIt!) to screengrab a
bunch of slides.

Generally, I think the vector stuff (EPS) is better for printing PPT text
and graph slides. Vector makes the text much more smooth than raster does.

"Improve PowerPoint's GIF, BMP, PNG, JPG export resolution"
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00052.htm should be a helpful resource
for you as well.
--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

Post by Peter Frank
Hi,
I need to convert some Powerpoint slides to a format providing good
quality for printing. The printing service accepts EPS and TIFF (300
dpi). Powerpoint's own TIFF saving capability is insufficient because
it only yields low resolution TIFF files. I found a tool called SnagIt
(actually a screen capturing tool) that allows "printing" the
Powerpoint slides to EPS or TIFF.
My question now is: Which format should I choose? Which provides the
best printing quality based on the source? I see that it wouldn't make
sense to convert a photograph to a vector-based format, but I am not
sure how things are here. Would I benefit from converting to EPS rather
than a high resolution TIFF?
Peter

[Peter Frank]

Post by Echo S
I would do a File/Save as, choose WMF, and then open the WMFs in Illustrator
and save as EPS files. That's assuming you have Illustrator, of course.

That worked just fine except for some minor corrections I had to make
before saving as a WMF file. Some graph labels got flipped when I
opened the WMF file in Illustrator. I fixed this by converting the
graph to a Microsoft drawing (ungrouping) and correcting the few
quirks in Powerpoint before saving it as a WMF file.
Thanks for the tip.

Peter

[Echo S]

Post by Peter Frank

Post by Echo S
I would do a File/Save as, choose WMF, and then open the WMFs in Illustrator
and save as EPS files. That's assuming you have Illustrator, of course.

That worked just fine except for some minor corrections I had to make
before saving as a WMF file. Some graph labels got flipped when I
opened the WMF file in Illustrator. I fixed this by converting the
graph to a Microsoft drawing (ungrouping) and correcting the few
quirks in Powerpoint before saving it as a WMF file.
Thanks for the tip.

Very cool, Peter. Glad to hear it worked for you.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

[John O]

Will the printer accept a PDF? Exporting a pres to PDF provides great
quality, especially if you have some controls in your PDF-generation tool.
If, by chance, you have Acrobat loaded after Office, there's already a
button on your toolbar for this.

-John O

[Steve Rindsberg]

Post by John O
Will the printer accept a PDF? Exporting a pres to PDF provides great
quality, especially if you have some controls in your PDF-generation tool.
If, by chance, you have Acrobat loaded after Office, there's already a
button on your toolbar for this.

<smacks forehead>

Sure, and if you have Acrobat, you can open the PDF and export EPS from it if
the printerperson won't chew PDFs directly.

-----------------------------------------
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

[Peter Frank]

Post by Steve Rindsberg

Post by John O
Will the printer accept a PDF? Exporting a pres to PDF provides great
quality, especially if you have some controls in your PDF-generation tool.
If, by chance, you have Acrobat loaded after Office, there's already a
button on your toolbar for this.

<smacks forehead>
Sure, and if you have Acrobat, you can open the PDF and export EPS from it if
the printerperson won't chew PDFs directly.

Yes, you are right, that would be another option. But I don't have
Adobe Acrobat, I always used free conversion tools for creating PDFs,
which unfortunately do not offer export to EPS.

Peter

[Peter Frank]

Post by John O
Will the printer accept a PDF? Exporting a pres to PDF provides great
quality, especially if you have some controls in your PDF-generation tool.

Unfortunately, the printer does not accept PDF. This would have been
my preferred format, too (another reason being that there are some
pretty good free PDF converters available).

Peter

[John O]

Post by Peter Frank

Post by John O
Will the printer accept a PDF? Exporting a pres to PDF provides great
quality, especially if you have some controls in your PDF-generation tool.

Unfortunately, the printer does not accept PDF. This would have been
my preferred format, too (another reason being that there are some
pretty good free PDF converters available).

A printer that won't accept PDFs! What are they, cavemen? <jk>

-John O

[Peter Frank]

Post by John O
A printer that won't accept PDFs! What are they, cavemen? <jk>

Well, seems like it. ;-) It is for a scientific journal and they say
for figures they only accept TIFF and EPS.

Peter

[John O]

Post by Peter Frank

Post by John O
A printer that won't accept PDFs! What are they, cavemen? <jk>

Well, seems like it. ;-) It is for a scientific journal and they say
for figures they only accept TIFF and EPS.

They've probably been burned before, and there are also ways of making PDFs
(with Adobe products) that won't work for certain production approaches. If
they had a recent copy of Acrobat they could accept then PDFs and export
whatever they want, as Steve mentioned.

-John O

[Steve Rindsberg]

Post by Peter Frank
I need to convert some Powerpoint slides to a format providing good
quality for printing. The printing service accepts EPS and TIFF (300
dpi). Powerpoint's own TIFF saving capability is insufficient because
it only yields low resolution TIFF files. I found a tool called SnagIt
(actually a screen capturing tool) that allows "printing" the
Powerpoint slides to EPS or TIFF.

If it's actually a TIFF-spitting printer driver, you should be set.
See below ...

If it's capturing screens, the resolution will still be rather low.
You can get higher resolution out of PowerPoint directly:

Improve PowerPoint's GIF, BMP, PNG, JPG export resolution
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00052.htm

Depending on your PPT version and the content of your slides, this may or may
not bring joy. In any case, I'd try exporting to PNG instead of TIFF, then
convert to TIFF externally (try IrfanView, free at www.irfanview.com). The
TIFF export filter in some PPT versions has a habit of producing bad files
randomly. In PPT2002 or later, you'll want to export at the highest possible
resolution then downsample to whatever's needed: PPT makes a mess of your text
otherwise.

Post by Peter Frank
My question now is: Which format should I choose? Which provides the
best printing quality based on the source? I see that it wouldn't make
sense to convert a photograph to a vector-based format, but I am not
sure how things are here. Would I benefit from converting to EPS rather
than a high resolution TIFF?

EPS isn't vector-only; it can contain raster images as well.
As a rule, it doesn't store them as space-efficiently as a compressed TIFF
will, so on that grounds alone, I'd choose TIFF.

Other than that, there's really no difference. Same pixels, slightly different
way of explaining them.

On the other hand, if the EPS export preserves vectors and text AS vectors, no
question. Go with the EPS.

-----------------------------------------
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================