Fonts problem in pasted pictures from Excel

[scott cottrell]

Office XP SP3

We are having problem with several symbol fonts when
pasting a picture (enhanced Metafile or not) from Excel
into PowerPoint.

We can replicate--open Excel, add some data into cells,
create a chart from the data and put it on the same
worksheet page as the data. Add value labels and choose a
wingding font for the labels. Select the worksheet cells
containing the data and the chart (Shift)Edit, Copy
Picture (as Printed). Go to PPT slide and paste (not
metafile version), or Edit, Paste Special, Enhanced
Metafile. preferably do both. Save the PPT file.

Right away you'll see that the wingding chars do no paste
properly in the non-metafile paste. Open the PPT file
from another workstation and you'll likely see a
different set of issues. We actually have an issue where
the chars on one workstation show different than another.

All versions of Office are the same, but there is a mix
of WinXP (SP1) and Win2000(SP4). There seems to be more
issues across versions of Windows, but they have started
and are more prevalent with WinXP workstations.

-sc

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

Would it work to just do a screen capture (either using a program or the
Print Screen key) and pasting the result into PowerPoint (either directly
or preferably by editing the picture in a picture editing program like
Photoshop, saving the picture, and inserting the picture into
PowerPoint). That way you will have a real picture that will not depend
in any way on fonts.
--David

--
David M. Marcovitz, Ph.D.
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[scott cottrell]

Unfortunately, no. Otherwise we could have gotten away
with a simple copy, paste special, bitmap. The quality of
the image is just too fuzzy and not acceptable.

Also, the PPT slides are part of a whole production,
automated by macros to produce PPT reports based on data
we import into Excel (which update charts, etc.).

A straight copy/paste is not possible because the Excel
object carries all sorts of data in the bagkground that
we cannot let the user have access to. Besides, the PPT
would be huge with all those embedded XL objects.

Has anyone tried to replicate the issue at their
location? We're a pretty standard Windows/Office desktop,
just want to make sure this is real.

-sc

 

[SAC]

We're trying to ID the exact circumstances, but we have found this to happen
on WinXP/OffXP, Win2k/Off2k, and Win2k/OffXP combos.

In our more structured tests (creating the charts from scratch, and pasting
into PPT using the various formats) we've found consistently that paste
picture shows the problem. We've been unable to re-create the problem doing
a paste enhanced metafile (EMF) picture.

I've found the paste picture object (Windows Metafile--WMF?) transfers the
font, but the characters change--and it uses the same characters for all the
objects. For example, I created five series with identical values (12, 34,
and 56) and used five different fonts (Arial, Tahoma, Wingdings,Wingdings2,
and Wingdings3) in the labels. See
http://www.gfkcustomresearch.com/gw6/fonttest/fonttest.xls

When they were pasted over, the WingdingX labels were (char176)(char253) for
all points--with some kerning differences. At least they were the correct
font. It is also odd that there was no problem with the more standard text
fonts Arial and Tahoma. See
http://www.gfkcustomresearch.com/gw6/fonttest/fonttest.ppt

Also odd, the characters pasted are different when doing a Copy, and a Copy
Picture, and then pasting as a picture(WMF). The same type of results, just
different characters--(char120)(char148) on the latter.

My users are telling me this is also happening when pasting an EMF picture,
I just haven't been able to recreate it yet. Their reports are pretty
complext, I'm biginning to think it may be some limitation on the metafile
picture type.

Why use the symbol fonts? This is why I love using Excel for charts. First,
you can point the data label to a cell, rather than have it just display the
value or another default option--so the data can be some value (e.g 2%) and
the label can be the result of a formula in the cell (=if (c3<.1, "low",
c3). We often use this in a bar chart where the data is so small the label
won't fit in the bar--we just make the formula for the label return a null
("").

Another thing we do, which is this case, is we add a "placeholder" series to
the chart so we can use this labelling feature to add comments, footnotes,
and symbols/markers. These placeholder series' have no fill and no border so
the only thing you see of them is the label, and because they are part of
the chart they move properly with the data. Again, we're using Excel to move
data in and out of the reports so we cannot manually do any tinkering with
the charts as they are created.

-sc

 

[SAC]

We have run a new test from Win2k workstation that has never had OffXP
installed on it--a previous test was with a Win2k/Off2k workstation that was
"downgraded" (add/rem OffXP, then install Off2k) from OffXP.

I recreated the Excel page and then the PPT slides exactly the same as
described in the earlier test and the results are that everything works
properly--the fonts hold an the characters do not change. This is regardless
of how it was copied (copy, shift-edit-copy picture) or pasted (paste
special picture, picture enhanced metafile).

The uninstall of OffXP left no files in the Program Files\Office folder, so
if this works the cause would have to be from a left-over dll or something.
We are going to test the real report on this (Never XP) machine.

I just did this lab test on the downgraded (OffXP down to Off2k) and the
results were identical to the NeverXP machine. However we do know that the
real report exhibited the problems when run from this workstation.

We're continuing to try and figure it out.

-sc

FWIW, it sounds like you're seeing exactly the same thing as I did. Or since
you were here first, I'm seeing what you saw. Let me see if I can learn more
.. hang on a bit.

We're trying to ID the exact circumstances, but we have found this to happen
on WinXP/OffXP, Win2k/Off2k, and Win2k/OffXP combos.

In our more structured tests (creating the charts from scratch, and pasting
into PPT using the various formats) we've found consistently that paste
picture shows the problem. We've been unable to re-create the problem doing
a paste enhanced metafile (EMF) picture.

I've found the paste picture object (Windows Metafile--WMF?) transfers the
font, but the characters change--and it uses the same characters for all the
objects. For example, I created five series with identical values (12, 34,
and 56) and used five different fonts (Arial, Tahoma, Wingdings,Wingdings2,
and Wingdings3) in the labels. See
http://www.gfkcustomresearch.com/gw6/fonttest/fonttest.xls

When they were pasted over, the WingdingX labels were (char176)(char253) for
all points--with some kerning differences. At least they were the correct
font. It is also odd that there was no problem with the more standard text
fonts Arial and Tahoma. See
http://www.gfkcustomresearch.com/gw6/fonttest/fonttest.ppt

Also odd, the characters pasted are different when doing a Copy, and a Copy
Picture, and then pasting as a picture(WMF). The same type of results, just
different characters--(char120)(char148) on the latter.

My users are telling me this is also happening when pasting an EMF picture,
I just haven't been able to recreate it yet. Their reports are pretty
complext, I'm biginning to think it may be some limitation on the metafile
picture type.

Why use the symbol fonts? This is why I love using Excel for charts. First,
you can point the data label to a cell, rather than have it just display the
value or another default option--so the data can be some value (e.g 2%) and
the label can be the result of a formula in the cell (=if (c3<.1, "low",
c3). We often use this in a bar chart where the data is so small the label
won't fit in the bar--we just make the formula for the label return a null
("").

Another thing we do, which is this case, is we add a "placeholder" series to
the chart so we can use this labelling feature to add comments, footnotes,
and symbols/markers. These placeholder series' have no fill and no border so
the only thing you see of them is the label, and because they are part of
the chart they move properly with the data. Again, we're using Excel to move
data in and out of the reports so we cannot manually do any tinkering with
the charts as they are created.

-sc

I'm unclear on something: does this occur only with Office XP/SP3

under
Win XP

or does it happen under Win2K also?

Also, is there some reason for choosing a symbol font for the value labels
rather than one that displays numbers? Just out of curiosity, mind.

I see the same thing here, Office XP SP3 + Win2K. Oddly, you get a different
(also incorrect) result if you select just text formatted as Wingdings (ie, a
copy of your data cells).

I notice that ShiftEdit, Copy Picture (as on screen) produces better results
whether pasting as picture or metafile. Would that help?