Is Powerpoint better than IrfanView to drop screenshots in Word ?

[Pierre Becquart]

I have been posting a question regarding unwanted black borders in JPEG
snapshots transferred into Word after been reworked in Powerpoint. I got no
feedback and hence I have been clocking the time and commands required by
IrfanView as compared as Powerpoint (that I preferred because there was no
need to save the image).

Conclusion is clearly in favour of IrfanView.
Drop me an email @ (e-mail address removed) if you are interested in the
test results.

My original topic was:
Cropping unwanted black borders in JPEG images 9/27
Here is the text I wrote in this topic:

My question does not seem to ring a bell to anyone... so I have been doing
some testing myself. Actually, the real question was is IrfanView better than
Powerpoint to transfer screen snapshots into a Word document ?

I did some testing against the clock and clearly, IrfanView taht does not
have this issue of black borders scores better requiring only 25 commands
(keyboard or clicks) and 20 seconds per snapshot.

Powerpoint on the contrary requires 34 commands and 30 seconds. So it
appears that I was paying too much attention to the fact that PPT does nor
require to save the image file, wich is an advantage but all other drawbacks
are increasing the time reuqired to handle one single picture by almost 50%.
Now I have to admit that all comments on this forum that recommend IrfanView
are really founded, even it is somewhat frustarting to have to save and
insert a file you will have no use of in the future.

I have recorded my test results in a sheet available in PDF format.
I will try to attach it to my reply but I'm not sure there is such a
function in the wizard. If not drop me an email @ (e-mail address removed).

 

[Keith Howell]

Why not post your screen shot into good old MS Paint? Mark out the part you
want and copy/paste straight into WORD - I would have thought no more than 10
or so activities ?

 

[Tim Murray]

Just an FYI that if you're using JPEGs for screenshots ... well, don't.
JPEG's compression algorithms tend to introduce artifacts, which are spurious
splotches of color. Many people cannot tell the difference, but I can spot a
JPEG screen shot across the room.

 

[Pierre Becquart]

Just an FYI that if you're using JPEGs for screenshots ... well, don't.
JPEG's compression algorithms tend to introduce artifacts, which are spurious
splotches of color. Many people cannot tell the difference, but I can spot a
JPEG screen shot across the room.

Thanks for the tip and congratulation for your sharp eyes Tim, suppose you suggest to use PNG's instead ? If not please clarify.

 

[Tim Murray]

Thanks for the tip and congratulation for your sharp eyes Tim, suppose you
suggest to use PNG's instead ? If not please clarify.

Well, depends. PNG is small, Office products love it, and (for some reason)
colors appear brighter in PowerPoint slides. I use PNG for those small
cute/stupid icons and graphics that highlight slides.

My favorite for screens shots in manuals is TIFF with LZW compression. LZW is
zero loss and great for screen shots, because it does the best compression on
long horizontal stretches of the same pixel, which is exactly what
screenshots are.

 

[Pierre Becquart]

Thanks for your reply. A gave it a try and indeed the result is amazing from
a picture quality standpoint. Depending on the graphical load on the page,
the file size of a TIFF full screen snapshot with LZW compression is ranging
from 300 up to 800 KB. As my manuals have typically 100 to 150 snapshots, I
am afraid the format is not adequate from a portability standpoint. On the
other hand I must say that JPEG meets the quality we expect for this type of
literature. Our manuals have to be practical and enable our users to
understand the product. It is not like a corporate image glossy marketing
folder.

But you opened an interesting avenue that will be useful for other purposes
(PPT presentations, for example).

Again thanks.
Pierre

 

[Tim Murray]

As my manuals have typically 100 to 150 snapshots, I
am afraid the format is not adequate from a portability standpoint.

Yeah, I didn't think of that: I always link, never embed.

 

[Toke Eskildsen]

Well, depends. PNG is small, Office products love it, and (for
some reason) colors appear brighter in PowerPoint slides.

This might be due to PowerPoint actually supporting the gamma-setting
from PNG: http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00652.htm

The same thing can be observed in Internet Explorer BTW.

My favorite for screens shots in manuals is TIFF with LZW
compression. LZW is zero loss and great for screen shots, because
it does the best compression on long horizontal stretches of the
same pixel, which is exactly what screenshots are.

Well, the same goes for PNG. TIFF supports multi layer and other fancy
stuff, but for plain storage of a flat image, such as a screenshot, I
see no reason to recommend it over PNG.

Pierre: Depending on the nature of your screen shots, you could try and
lower the number of colors to 256 (no dithering) and save it as a PNG.
While it may cause images and such to look rather flat, all lines and
text should be just as crisp as the original.