PowerPoint to pdf -- loss of image quality (samples provided)

3

We hope we can get some competent help. We tried to solve this for the past couple of hours, but no luck.

We have a PPT PowerPoint file (MS Office 2007) which includes a couple of screenshots and other images, all in excellent/sufficient quality, but once we try to save the file as a PDF, the image quality decreases dramatically.

Please note, we tried both the PowerPoint 'print as pdf' function, as well as converting the PPT directly in/through Adobe Acrobat. Same result. We played with the compression options, trying to minimize or even entirely switch off compression, no luck. We did some (safe) registry changes for PowerPoint, as suggested in other boards, also no luck. We tried many different pdf converters (not only Acrobat), nothing.

Direct comparison PPT-->PDF: http://ibin.co/2JfaRImLmXaw

PDF picture issue close-up (at 100% zoom level): http://ibin.co/2JfaRImLmXaw

What are we doing wrong?

Thank you for your help!!

StefAsks

Posted 2015-10-20T08:30:07.600

Reputation: 31

have you tried powerpoint 'save as' pdf option? – Firee – 2015-10-20T08:34:16.487

One thing to try is to set the resolution of the screenshots to a multiple of a) 72 dpi, b) 96 dpi, and c) 110 dpi. The first one is the the resolution PDF works on, the others are common resolutions you find in the display resolution of Acrobat/Reader. Also, do not scale screenshots (unless the scaling factor is an integer. It may be better to do even that scaling in the image processing software (such as Photoshop or the GIMP). – Max Wyss – 2015-10-20T11:02:24.193

Hi Max. Thanks for your time.

"have you tried powerpoint 'save as' pdf option?" --> yes, doesn't help.

"set the resolution of the screenshots to a multiple of a) 72 dpi, b) 96 dpi, and c) 110 dpi". This sounds interesting. It may very well be a resolution issue, not a compression issue. How to adjust the dpi for a single picture in PowerPoint 2007? – StefAsks – 2015-10-20T18:25:51.657

Here is the link to one sample slide, both PPT and PDF: PPT: http://www.filedropper.com/ppttest PDF: http://www.filedropper.com/ppttest_1

– StefAsks – 2015-10-20T18:32:41.510

Answers

0

It's normal to experience some loss of image quality. Here's some thing you can try to mitigate against it. If you haven't already.

Don't scale up the images in Powerpoint

Assuming you're using acrobat pro, go the the acrobat tab > preferences under settings change to high quality instead of standard, and then in advanced there is a bunch of image settings you can tweak, turn them all up and you'll get a better result.

Kilisi

Posted 2015-10-20T08:30:07.600

Reputation: 506

For the record, I've worked with copies of the files in question and seen the same results. I don't think it's to do with upscaling the images in PPT, else the images would look bad when viewed full screen in PPT itself. @Killsi is on the right track, I think. Setting the Adobe PDF driver to High Quality vs Standard didn't help, but Press Quality did, so I've suggested elsewhere that StefAsks visit the Image settings for Press Quality and create a new Acrobat profile using the same settings. – Steve Rindsberg – 2015-10-21T14:31:30.473

Asked: 2015-10-20T08:30:07.600

Viewed: 963 times

Active: 2015-10-20T09:07:44.247