Poor quality graphics when I PDF from MS Word 2007

[NM French]

I am having difficulty getting good graphics resolution when I PDF from Word
2007 (Small Buisiness) into Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard. My graphics look
perfectly sharp in Word at any size, but become "pixelated" when I PDF them.
I have tried using the Acrobat "High Quality Print" setting in Word, but this
gives only a little improvement.

I discovered that the quality of the graphic in Acrobat depends on the type
of graphic file I originally inserted into Word. PNG and GIF graphics PDF
poorly, and JPEG graphics PDF better. My problem is that I need a transparent
background for a logo, and the JPEG format apparently doesn't support that. I
also need to keep the size down, which eliminates BMP and TIF files.

I have never had any trouble PDFing graphics in earlier versions of Word, so
I'm not sure why this is suddenly a problem. I did some tests, and there is
no problem with the graphics when I PDF the same document using an earlier
version of Word.

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi N.M.,

Office 2007 uses a new graphic engine for handling pictures.

Do you get the same result using the Office 2007 'save as PDF add-in'?

JPEG does not support transparency, but Word lets you choose a transparent color on inserted JPGs. With a picture selected try
Picture Tools tab=>Format=>Recolor=>Set Transparent Color
then click on the color choice (you may want to zoom in first).

Adobe lists Acrobat version 8.1 as the version compatible with Office 2007.
===========
I am having difficulty getting good graphics resolution when I PDF from Word
2007 (Small Buisiness) into Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard. My graphics look
perfectly sharp in Word at any size, but become "pixelated" when I PDF them.
I have tried using the Acrobat "High Quality Print" setting in Word, but this
gives only a little improvement.

I discovered that the quality of the graphic in Acrobat depends on the type
of graphic file I originally inserted into Word. PNG and GIF graphics PDF
poorly, and JPEG graphics PDF better. My problem is that I need a transparent
background for a logo, and the JPEG format apparently doesn't support that. I
also need to keep the size down, which eliminates BMP and TIF files.

I have never had any trouble PDFing graphics in earlier versions of Word, so
I'm not sure why this is suddenly a problem. I did some tests, and there is
no problem with the graphics when I PDF the same document using an earlier
version of Word. >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi N.M.,

Office 2007 uses a new graphic engine for handling pictures.

Do you get the same result using the Office 2007 'save as PDF add-in'?

JPEG does not support transparency, but Word lets you choose a transparent color on inserted JPGs. With a picture selected try
Picture Tools tab=>Format=>Recolor=>Set Transparent Color
then click on the color choice (you may want to zoom in first).

===========
I am having difficulty getting good graphics resolution when I PDF from Word
2007 (Small Buisiness) into Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard. My graphics look
perfectly sharp in Word at any size, but become "pixelated" when I PDF them.
I have tried using the Acrobat "High Quality Print" setting in Word, but this
gives only a little improvement.

I discovered that the quality of the graphic in Acrobat depends on the type
of graphic file I originally inserted into Word. PNG and GIF graphics PDF
poorly, and JPEG graphics PDF better. My problem is that I need a transparent
background for a logo, and the JPEG format apparently doesn't support that. I
also need to keep the size down, which eliminates BMP and TIF files.

I have never had any trouble PDFing graphics in earlier versions of Word, so
I'm not sure why this is suddenly a problem. I did some tests, and there is
no problem with the graphics when I PDF the same document using an earlier
version of Word. >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[postman]

I'm having the same problem in MS Word 2007 using Office 2007 "Save As PDF"
add-in.

I'm copying & pasting all the images as "Device Independent Bitmap".

The image degradation seems to be worse on any images I resized in Word,
though they look fine in Word. If I pasted them in and did not resize them,
those images convert to PDF fine.

 

[Tony Jollans]

I have experienced this pixellation with the Word PDF AddIn.

I have found that turning off ISO 19005-1 compliance makes things much
better. I don't know what this option is supposed to do but as it is the
only option available it was an easy one to try

 

[postman]

The ISO option has not helped the issue for me.

I know that when I've tried enabling that option, images that have any
formatting in Word--such as drop shadows--appear with the jagged edges.

I tried disabling the "Bitmap fonts" option too--just for kicks--but that
didn't make any difference either.

 

[postman]

I did some further testing and found that if I resize any images in Word
smaller than 90% of their original size, when I convert to PDF, it degrades
and becomes very pixellated.

Resizing larger than its original size isn't as bad. There's some
pixellation at 150% or more, but nowhere near as bad as when shrinking the
image.

I tried both inserting images of various types and copy/pasting--everything
produced the same results.

 

[postman]

Apparently, it's just the electronic version on the screen that's affected.
When I printed out a page of the affected graphics in the PDF, it printed
fine.

 

[postman]

It may be a problem with Acrobat Reader in the rendering of the images. As
noted above, the printing output is fine, but I also noticed the images that
are pixellated at the 100% view become less distorted when zooming in. For
the several documents I've made, zooming in to 150% makes all pixellation
disappear from the affected images.

It's not a solution, but maybe a new direction to research the problem....

 

[scader]

I spent 2 hours on the phone with Adobe Acrobat support. They had me
try every possible option under the sun and we were not able to
resolve this issue. While on the phone, I realize that the PNG
renders
poor only if the graphic has transparency enabled.

I asked the support technician to raise the ticket. He put me on hold
and returned to say that it was raised, but they declared it a "bug"
and suggested I upgrade to Acrobat 9. I did, but it has the same
issue.

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for sharing the information you have found.

Are you using photographs, or line drawings or ??? Can you provide a link to a sample PNG graphic where you've seen a problem with
the image quality

It can be, as you mentioned a combination of factors/variables that affect the output quality

GIFs are limited to 256 colors, while PNGs are not, so the appearance of the graphic (clarity, etc) may not be as clear in print as
on screen, but it's a good one to try

The earlier Windows Graphics Display Interface (GDI) did not, if I recall correctly, support an alpha channel or Alpha blending,
but GDI+, that has been out for several years in Office and in WinXP and WinVista does support those features
http://msdn.com/microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms533803(.85).aspx
although there are a few bugs in it <g>) and there are also 3rd party implementations that tweak the engine (not always for the
best).

Word, for its part, also does some internal sleight of hand with its transparency tool that creates transparency in an internal PNG
of your inserted graphic, even if you insert, for example a JPG or GIF in your document.

There is an issue in Office 2007 with its new graphics engine where, with a PNG graphic, if the alpha channel is stored in the PNG
graphic and you use Microsoft's Office 2007 Save as PDF add-in that the 'transparent' areas, while being transparent in the Word
document when viewed on screen may turn 'black' if the PDF add-in has the ISO 195001 option turned on. If you need that option
(PDF-A) turned on, then, if you use the
Picture Tools=>Format=>Adjust=>Recolor=>Set Transparent color
on the same graphic, the graphic in the PDF appears as it does in Word.

There are 2 or 3 basic underlying structures for some of the popular Print to PDF freeware available, and how well each performs can
depend on the current version of the underlying programming library. For those that require a copy of GhostScript to be installed
to function, it's not uncommon for folks to install GS then never update it again. In some cases there are new features in GS newer
versions that address some of the issues.

By the way, my friend who does a lot of photo work on his Mac wasn't familiar with PNG as a graphic file type

=============I have experienced similar problems recently - not sure exactly what software you are all using, but the clue is PNG graphics being
poor when transparency is enabled.

The underlying issue is that low level routines within GDI (Graphics Display Interface) of Windows discard the alpha channel of
graphics files. The alpha channel is what provides the transparency information for PNG and GIF files. Without the alpha channel
being handled properly, the edges of the image go all chunky.

JPEGs do not have an alpha channel so are not a problem.

It all depends on the software you are using - I have found most freeware PDF converters all have the same problem. Not sure about
the inbuilt converters of Office 2007.

To verify this is the problem your are having, take your PNG source image, convert it to a GIF with no transparency and no
dithering, put it back in your Word document and try again - you will probably find your PDF conversion is now fine (it was for me).

If you Google something like "GDI alpha channel", you will find endless other chatter about this issue with Windows.

Software that uses it's own internal graphics routines (not the Windows routines) for image conversion should be fine ...

Or use a Mac ! <<
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*