Help: Major printing problem

D

Dawgma

I just finished the development of a massive presentation that consists of
about 150 slides. The presentation cannot be broken down into smaller
presentations, it needs to remain as one single PowerPoint file. I've used
high quality PNG graphics throughout the presentation and the final product
is 150 slides and 32MB. The largest PNG graphic is about 1.5MB and most of
the other graphics are between 50-500KB. I've also used some JPGs but mostly
PNGs because they look so much better when projected on a screen 8 feet
across.

During the development of the presentation we had been printing copies of
the presentation. The earlier print jobs were fine... they were processed by
the printer at the same speed as any other kind of document and the printer
would spit out pages at 6ppm. There was no sign of any printing issues
during earlier versions of the presentation (~20MB). But it has been a few
weeks since we did our last print and the project has since been completed.
Now when we try to print it takes FOREVER. The printer takes several minutes
just to print a single page of handouts. To print the entire presentation
would literally take ALL DAY.

This is a serious problem because the presentation is the master sales
presentation for a company that I work for. If they are unable to easily
produce handouts to their clients....... they will be upset.

I need some help to figure out a solution to print this presentation.
Perhaps there is a way to compress it before printing? Or convert it to
another type of document when handouts are needed? What do you suppose
caused the printer to suddenly take forever to print the presentation? I
know it is a large presentaiton.. but I did not think 32MB was THAT big...
I've seen bigger PowerPoint files that print just fine.

Any ideas... anyone?

art.
 
U

Ute Simon

I just finished the development of a massive presentation that consists of
about 150 slides. The presentation cannot be broken down into smaller
presentations, it needs to remain as one single PowerPoint file. I've
used
high quality PNG graphics throughout the presentation and the final
product
is 150 slides and 32MB. The largest PNG graphic is about 1.5MB and most
of
the other graphics are between 50-500KB. I've also used some JPGs but
mostly
PNGs because they look so much better when projected on a screen 8 feet
across.

During the development of the presentation we had been printing copies of
the presentation. The earlier print jobs were fine... they were processed
by
the printer at the same speed as any other kind of document and the
printer
would spit out pages at 6ppm. There was no sign of any printing issues
during earlier versions of the presentation (~20MB). But it has been a
few
weeks since we did our last print and the project has since been
completed.
Now when we try to print it takes FOREVER. The printer takes several
minutes
just to print a single page of handouts. To print the entire presentation
would literally take ALL DAY.

This is a serious problem because the presentation is the master sales
presentation for a company that I work for. If they are unable to easily
produce handouts to their clients....... they will be upset.

I need some help to figure out a solution to print this presentation.
Perhaps there is a way to compress it before printing? Or convert it to
another type of document when handouts are needed? What do you suppose
caused the printer to suddenly take forever to print the presentation? I
know it is a large presentaiton.. but I did not think 32MB was THAT big...
I've seen bigger PowerPoint files that print just fine.
Click to expand...

Hi Art,

32 MB is big, but should not be too big. Can you try another printer?

Though I think it could be optimized. Did you try PowerPoint's own
compression on the slides? Format - Image - Use the button Compression and
set to 200 dpi for print quality.

Your images need not be that big. Even when projecting to a 8-foot-screen,
your projector only can show somewhat between 800x600 and 1600x1024 pixel,
with 1024x768 being the most common resolution. So your images do not need
more than 1024x768 pixel for projection. Allow some pixels more to get
better printing results, but 1500x1128 pixels at 150 dpi should be the
maximum. and a PNG of that size has less than 1.5 MB. Every bit more has to
be loaded into the printer memory and slows it down.

Another issue: Did you use any pattern fills? (Like diagonal stripes or dots
or the like.) These will slow some printers down.

Best regards,
Ute
 
D

Dawgma

Hey Bill, your add-in worked perfectly. I was able to convert the
presentation to a word file and print it without any problems. Nice work.

Your add-in was able to compress the presentation to about half the original
size (so it's ~14MB as a Word document). I noticed that the images were
saved at a resolution of 720x540 and then resized to the specified dimensions
(2 inches) for the Word handouts. I was wondering if there is a way to
reduce the native resolution of the images even further. Preferably I would
like to save them at 320x240 for handouts. This way the file size would be
around 5MB and perfect for emailing!

Is it possible to further compress the Word document?
 
D

Dawgma

Hey Ute,

Thanks for your suggestions. I believe I have already optimized the
presentation as much as I could. I used PowerPoint's compression tool on all
the images in the presentation (however I don't think the tool affects PNG
images, but thats okay).

Also, I made sure that the presentation was built to be displayed at
1024x768 (regardless of how large the projection screen would be). Most of
the images are only 72 dpi, which I think is fine.

And after all that I used NXPowerLite to compress the presentation an
additional 30%.

Would you have any idea what else might be causing the slowdown (considering
that I have compressed/optimized my images already the best i can)? Let me
know if you have any other ideas.... and thanks again for your suggestions!

Cheers,

art.
 
D

Dawgma

Now that I think about it... in addition to making smaller sized handouts in
Word, I would also like to make full page print outs of the presentation with
one slide per page.

This would require that each slide was saved as a full resolution PNG file
and displayed in landscape format in Word (one per page). Would this be
possible as well? Let me know.

art.
 
E

Echo S

Would you have any idea what else might be causing the slowdown
(considering
that I have compressed/optimized my images already the best i can)? Let
me
know if you have any other ideas.... and thanks again for your
suggestions!
Click to expand...

Transparency and gradients can also slow printing.
 
D

Dawgma

Do you mean PNG images with transparent backgrounds (like a person cut out
from a white background) will slow down the printing?

That would make a lot of sense. Since 90% off all my images have areas that
are 100% transparent.

Is there a way to take a snapshot of each slide and save it as a single,
square image in a new PowerPoint file? (Automatically, of course, I could
not handle doing that manually). This way I cold reproduce the exact look of
the presentation, keep it in PowerPoint AND eliminate all areas of
transparency... any ideas?

art.
 
E

Echo S

Yes, but I think often you'll see more issues/slowdowns with semitransparent
areas than you will with 100% transparent areas.

Anyway, try File|Save As and choose PNG from the "save as type" dropdown.
Then reinsert the images into a new, blank presentation using a batch
importer or photo album. You might also see if saving as JPG does any
better.

BATCH IMPORT images into PowerPoint
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00050.htm
 
D

Dawgma

Bill, if you would like to sell a few more copies of your add-in, it would go
a long way if you could provide some answers to my questions.
 
B

Bill Dilworth

Well, yes I could, but why? There is a fairly easy way to do this without
the hassle or cost of building a custom app.



While in your presentation click on File => Save As => change the 'Save As
Type' to PNG (you'll need to scroll down to show this type).



Navigate to a place you'll remember and click Save



Tell it to save 'Every slide' when asked.



Now, click on Insert => Picture => New Photo Album => File/Disk => Navigate
to the folder you just created and select all the pictures (of the slides).
You may need to adjust the sequence, but maybe not. If the slide sequence
is off (some older versions of PowerPoint will sequence them as 1, 10, 11,
12, . 19, 2, 20, .), delete the folder with the PNGs you just saved, change
the first slide number to 100 in the File => Page Set-up dialog and re-Save
As.



Click on create and you will have a new presentation that is a "flat"
version of your original presentation. You may want to delete the 1st slide
title page. The flat version should print quickly from PowerPoint (File =>
Print => Slides => (checks) Color & Scale to fit Paper) without involving
Word at all. The slowness of the printout you were experiencing usually
comes from overlapping transparencies that are eliminated in a flat version.



Bill D.
 
D

Dawgma

Ive notified the users about disabling Background Printing.. hopefully they
will tell me if it was successful soon. (i don't have access to a printer
this week)
 

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