Best image format for Word 2004

[Stefan Robert]

Hello,

I would like to know your advice about the best way to copy a graphic
from Excel to Word?

The problem I have is about compatibility with the PC world. In the
past when I did a copy->paste Special... into Word, the images were not
viewable on a PC and I frequently had the infamous Red X Square.

To circumvent this, I usually did a Screnn Capture of my Excel graphic
and by using Graphic Converter I transformed this image into a JPG.
However, when I print my documents, sometimes my graphics looks a
little "blurry" and sometimes they don't.

Can someone advise me on what is the best graphic format to input into
Word? It seems JPG and PDF format is not very well supported. Is there
another format I could use?

Best Regards

Stéfan

 

[John McGhie]

Just "paste".

Or if you wish to use Edit>Paste>Special... Choose "Picture".

Picture is a metafile format (either PICT or EMF depending on whether you
are on the Mac or the PC at the time) that has infinite resolution and
enables you to edit the individual objects on either platform.

JPEG is not ideal: it's a bitmap that requires you to carefully adjust the
resolution to the printer. To get a good print from JPEG you would make
your files very large.

If you cannot use Picture format, try PNG or GIF for computer images. The
reason is the way the compression algorithms work. JPEG sacrifices detail
(resolution) in order to preserve colour. GIF and PNG sacrifice colour to
preserve detail.

The GIF standard has a limit of 256 colours. PNG will go higher (all the
way to 48-bit colour if you must). Few computer software-generated images
(e.g. Excel charts) used to have more than 256 colours, but increasingly
they do.

Hope this helps

Hello,

I would like to know your advice about the best way to copy a graphic
from Excel to Word?

The problem I have is about compatibility with the PC world. In the
past when I did a copy->paste Special... into Word, the images were not
viewable on a PC and I frequently had the infamous Red X Square.

To circumvent this, I usually did a Screnn Capture of my Excel graphic
and by using Graphic Converter I transformed this image into a JPG.
However, when I print my documents, sometimes my graphics looks a
little "blurry" and sometimes they don't.

Can someone advise me on what is the best graphic format to input into
Word? It seems JPG and PDF format is not very well supported. Is there
another format I could use?

Best Regards

Stéfan

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[pkensilXXdavis]

My experience is that using copy-and-paste is asking for trouble when
shifting between Macs and PCs. To make it worse, Apple's screenshots
are in pdf, which Office mishandles. The best workaround appears to
be a screenshop with a utility such as Snapzpro, which can export into
png, and then to insert that picture from a file into the slot in Word
or PowerPoint. Such issues have been much discussed on the
OmniGraffle forums.