Opening Windows PowerPoint 2003 files w/EPS pictures?

[TonySal]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel I am creating a presentation on my Mac. I am combining presentations from several other people who use Windows.

When I use Mac PowerPoint 2008 to open a file created by Windows PowerPoint 2003, which includes EPS graphics,the EPS graphic displays as a double image. One image is relatively clean (created from the postscript data?), the second image overlaps the first, and appears to be a scaled up bitmap (created from the bitmap preview in the EPS file?).

Any ideas how to prevent the double image?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Processor: Intel I am creating a presentation on my Mac. I am
combining presentations from several other people who use Windows.

When I use Mac PowerPoint 2008 to open a file created by Windows
PowerPoint 2003, which includes EPS graphics,the EPS graphic
displays as a double image. One image is relatively clean (created
from the postscript data?), the second image overlaps the first, and
appears to be a scaled up bitmap (created from the bitmap preview in
the EPS file?).

And here I thought they'd finally run out of bizarro ways to whack EPS
graphics ...

Even though EPS is possibly the best way to represent graphics of all
types IF you're printing to PostScript output devices, it's better to
avoid them in MS Office products. Otherwise, there WILL be pain.

Can you print to a PostScript printer? Do the graphics look ok there?

Or better, can you print to Acrobat to make a PDF and if so, do the
graphics look ok? If so, you could select the graphics in the PDF and
copy/paste back into PPT as a bitmap. This explains how to get the
best possible resolution when doing this:

Import PDF content into PowerPoint
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00054.htm

 

[TonySal]

Printing to a postscript printer gave the same double image.
The EPS images come from a CAD program. We only have two ways to get the images out of the CAD program:
1) A screen capture, which gives a low resolution bitmap.
2) Print to file, which gives the EPS files.

We can convert the EPS files to other formats that are easier to place into MS Office (such as GIF, TIFF, and JPEG).

It is just frustrating that my Mac Office 2008 can directly open and place the EPS images beautifully, but it can't properly open the Windows office files with the EPS images.

Looks like our solution will be to convert the EPS to another format before placing in power point.

Thanks for the response.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Printing to a postscript printer gave the same double image.
The EPS images come from a CAD program. We only have two ways to get
the images out of the CAD program:
1) A screen capture, which gives a low resolution bitmap.
2) Print to file, which gives the EPS files.

We can convert the EPS files to other formats that are easier to
place into MS Office (such as GIF, TIFF, and JPEG).

Given a choice, I'd use PNG for CAD files instead if raster images are
the only possibility; it might be worth trying to convert to WMF/EMF as
well. That'd retain the graphics as vectors rather than as pixels.

Illustrator or CorelDraw may be able to make that conversion for you.

It is just frustrating that my Mac Office 2008 can directly open and
place the EPS images beautifully, but it can't properly open the
Windows office files with the EPS images.

Oh, I understand the frustration completely. But for what it's worth,
my guess is that the damage is done at the Windows/PPT end. It has
some rather odd ways of dealing with EPS files.

Looks like our solution will be to convert the EPS to another format
before placing in power point.

That seems like the safest bet.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Tony;

As usual, Steve is on top of this but I've been following it & there's one
thing that isn't clear to me... Exactly 'How' is the EPS being created? Does
the CAD program have a specific "export as EPS" feature?

Based on your wording in #2 below I get the impression that the output file
is being generated from the Print Dialog. If that's the case I only know of
2 possible formats, neither of which is EPS.

The first is if you use the checkbox for Print to File which generates a
PRN, the second being to use the Windows Document Writer to save the file as
XPS. Neither of them is an image format, so if that's how they're being
generated there must be some other software used on the PC end to create
image files for the presentation. If so, are you sure they're EPS files?

I'm just trying to get a handle on where the snag may be in the workflow.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

The first is if you use the checkbox for Print to File which generates a
PRN, the second being to use the Windows Document Writer to save the file as
XPS. Neither of them is an image format, so if that's how they're being
generated there must be some other software used on the PC end to create
image files for the presentation.

If by "image files" you mean the preview image portion of the EPS, the bit that we
see on screen and that prints to non-PS printers, then it's probably PPT itself.

Since Win/PPT 2002, as I recall, the EPS import filter's had the ability to
interpret the PS portion of the EPS and generate its own preview image. If the
EPS doesn't have a preview or has one that the filter finds inedible for some
reason, it makes its own.

Ah, and another thing ... this newer filter isn't compatible with earlier versions
of PowerPoint. If you have, say, 97/2000 and 2002/2003/etc installed on the same
system and import EPS into 2000, they're likely not going to print correctly if at
all. I've run into this before ... actually ended up having to write code to test
the PPT version against the filter version. But I haven't tried the resulting PPT
on the Mac. I wonder if something like this might be the cause of the problem.

 

[TonySal]

Hi Bob,

The CAD program I am running is Cadence Virtuoso. It is running on Solaris & Linux machines. The Cadence dialog box does have a specific save EPS file option. I also tried printing to a postscript printer and selected save to file. Both of these options seemed to generate valid EPS files. On my Solaris work station I can open the files with an Image Viewer utility that reads in EPS, as well as other formats.

When I use Windows Power Point (2003 & 2007), it reads the EPS file and on the screen displays an image tat appears to be the embedded (or created) bitmap preview. This does not look very good when we use a computer/laptop to drive a digital projector for a presentation. When I send the file to a (postscript) printer the printout looks clean, that is the postscript data was used to render a nice looking printout.

When I use Mac Power Point 2008 to place the same EPS file, both the screen display and printouts look clean (they used the postscript data).

The real problem is when I use Mac Power Point to open a .ppt (or .pptx) file created by Windows Power point. This is when the double image shows up, both on screen and on printouts.

Tony Salcedo.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

The CAD program I am running is Cadence Virtuoso. It is running on
Solaris & Linux machines. The Cadence dialog box does have a
specific save EPS file option. I also tried printing to a postscript
printer and selected save to file. Both of these options seemed to
generate valid EPS files.

Strictly speaking, that shouldn't happen. An EPS file is intended for
inclusion within a larger PostScript job (hence the "encapsulated" in
its name). It's not allowed to include certain commands that the
larger PS job (what you'd get by diverting printer output to file)
would almost always contain.

When I use Windows Power Point (2003 & 2007), it reads the EPS file
and on the screen displays an image tat appears to be the embedded
(or created) bitmap preview.

Do you have the ability to choose the sort of preview you include in
the EPS files? If so, try one w/o any preview and another with a color
TIFF preview.