"Save as Picture" in Powerpoint

[Shara Williams]

I'm reposting this message, because I'm still hoping for an answer, [and the original post took a long time to write ] Thanks for thinking about it. . .

.. . . the "Save as Picture" function doesn't work properly for even the simplest case of a Powerpoint-drawn object. The .png option, for the moment, seems the least bad of several bad options. The files have a pale grey background in the destination file (please see the table, below)

It seems, if there is any object exportable as a picture by Powerpoint, this object should be, since I drew it in Powerpoint. It's just a simple cartoon. I did draw it on an older version of Powerpoint, back in 1999

Here are the results of my latest scientific experiment in "Save as Picture" for my Powerpoint-drawn cartoon

"save as" format size appearance of background of resulting image appearance appearanc
when viewed in Windows Explorer in Scientific* Word in Photosho
bmp 981 KB dark grey(!) (pixelated image) dark grey bkgd dark grey bkg
emf 124 KB white white bkgd not supporte
gif 4.07 KB white (*very* pixelated image) black bkgd transparent bkg
jpg 9.86 KB black(!) black bkgd black bkg
tif 48.2 KB white not parsed (?!) not parsed (?!!!
wmf 35.8 KB white (*very* pixelated image) white bkgd not supporte
png 22.0 KB white pale grey bkgd transparent bkg

(* Scientific Word is the LaTeX-based word processor from MacKichan Software. I am including this information about what the resulting image looks like inside it in case it is helpful to someone who understands this image stuff, not because I hope anyone will know details about Scientific Word, here.)

Back to the main point: I don't understand the results in this table

It seems that, at the bare minimum, things drawn in Microsoft's Powerpoint, saved in Microsoft's Powerpoint, and opened in the Microsoft Windows' file viewer should be viewable okay, but that's not the case. The ".bmp" and the ".jpg", with their strange backgrounds, do not have the proper appearance.

I also don't understand how a supposed "tiff" file would not be able to be opened by the seemingly-ever-so-flexible, generic, Photoshop, or by my other program. Does the "Save as Picture" with a ".tif" extension not really generate a ".tif" file?

How well does this "Save as Picture" function work, overall? Is it going to do what I need it to do, or should I give up on using Powerpoint in this case

Thanks again for your help

--Shar

 

[John Langhans [MSFT]]

Hi Shara,

Actually there's a very easy reason for what you are seeing.

Take, for example, the simple case of saving a filled Oval autoshape as a
picture in various formats. Here are the results and explanations for
PowerPoint 2003.

For vector formats (WMF, EMF) it doesn't have to worry about the unfilled
area outside oval since they simply store the drawing commands for the
metafile. What you are interpreting as "white" in your table is actuall "no
color" since there is no need to represent the area outside of the actual
oval shape in any way. You can see that there is no color here by
reinserting the same WMF/EMF file into a presentation with a dark
background and you will notice that the filled oval is not bound by a white
rectangular area. So, basically, if what you are exporting from PowerPoint
is vector graphics/text the best formats to use for Save as Picture in
WMF/EMF to retain maximum fidelity (as long as the other applications you
will be using can accept WMF/EMF files.

The main difference between vector formats (WMF/EMF) and raster formats is
that, for raster formats, every pixel must contain some kind of color
information which is, when exporting as a raster image Office has to
provide color information for the unfilled rectangular area which bounds
the oval even though there is no fill color information associated with it
inside of PowerPoint.

For raster formats, there are two main types to consider. Raster format
that understand transparency/alpha-channel information and those that
don't. Let's look at the ones that do. PNG, TIFF and GIF.

* Since PNG and TIFF understands transparency and support 24-bit color, the
unfilled area outside of the oval is transparent and when opened/viewed in
other applications will display however that application treats
transparency. For example, if you insert the picture back into PowerPoint
it will appear transparent and everything behind that unfilled region will
be visible.

* Since GIF understands transparency but only understand 8-bit color, the
unfilled area outside of the oval will also appear transparent (like PNG
and TIFF) but the quality will be much poorer if the shapes contain more
colors than a GIF can handle. This is why you see the pixelization for GIF
images.

For the raster formats that do not understand transparency (BMP and JPG),
Office has to provide some color information for the pixels of the image
that are in the unfilled area outside of the oval.

* For BMP images the unfilled area outside the oval is filled with a
neutral gray color. This is the same color that that region would get if
you were to open, for example, the *.PNG image that was created from
PowerPoint, and save it from MS Paint as a *.BMP file. So we are
consistent with the way that MS Paint would do the same thing.

* For JPG images the unfilled area outside the oval is filled with black.
There is really no "right" color choice for JPG since, depending on where
you use that image later on, and what is behind it, there is always the
chance that you will see the color of this unfilled area because it is not
the same color as the area into which it is being place. Unfortunatly there
is no way to tell PowerPoint (when you choose a format that doesn't
understand transparency) to use a specific color (if choosing a format that
does understand transparency is not an option for you). Of course, if you
insert the image into a presentation which uses a black background it looks
just fine. If you insert it into a presentation which has a different
background you can use the Set Transparent Color tool on the Drawing
toolbar to mask all black pixels in the image so that they appear
transparent while in PowerPoint.

How the information in these images are parsed by other applications is
entirely up to them, I can only explain how they are saved from PowerPoint
(actually all of Office) and why.

I hope this help you to choose which format to use for your workflow.

If you (or anyone else reading this message) think Office should provide
some more control over how unfilled areas are exported to image formats
(within the constraints of what is possible with each format), don't forget
to send your feedback to Microsoft at:

http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp

As with all product suggestions, it's important that you not just state
your wish but also why it is important to you that your product suggestion
be implemented by Microsoft. Microsoft receives thousands of product
suggestions every day and we read each one but, in any given product
development cycle, there are only sufficient resources to address the ones
that are most important to our customers so take the extra time to state
your case as clearly and completely as possible.

IMPORTANT: Each submission should be a single suggestion (not a list of
suggestions)

John Langhans

Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

 

[Shara Williams]

Thanks. That explanation was extremely helpful. After having the information in your explanation, I was able to find this spectacular website, which seems to address all the issues I'm facing about taking my Powerpoint figures into print media, and it includes specific comments about Powerpoint, Photoshop, Illustrator, and what file formats are useful when

http://mr.imaging-ks.nu/file_formats.ht

I don't know who posted this site, but kudos to them! Awesome

Now if Microsoft had some documentation like this, more people might know what they'e doing! ;

I still haven't gotten Powerpoint's tiff format to be portable to other platforms, but I guess I'll find a workaround

--Shara

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I also don't understand how a supposed "tiff" file would not be able to be

opened by the seemingly-ever-so-flexible, generic, Photoshop, or by my other
program. Does the "Save as Picture" with a ".tif" extension not really
generate a ".tif" file?

PowerPoint's TIFF exports are unreliable. Your version is one that randomly
changes a byte or two in the TIFF file. Some programs read these TIFFs w/o
problem, others (Photoshop is one) give you the parsing error you've run
into. In short, it's a PPT bug.

How well does this "Save as Picture" function work, overall? Is it going

to do what I need it to do, or should I give up on using Powerpoint in this
case?

It's hard to say. In all the detail (great job with that, by the way) you
haven't mentioned what background the cartoon is *supposed* to have. ;-)

For objects drawn in PPT that don't involve bitmap images, WMF or EMF should
be the best format to use. You can generally ungroup them after importing
them to other programs and remove the white background object. They don't
necessarily look good in the Windows image viewer because it probably
converts them to bitmap thumbnails at low resolution for display purposes.
Unless your end goal is to view them in the image viewer, I wouldn't worry
about it.

 

[Robert Crago]

So if, say, a GIF image was originally inserted into a
PowerPoint presentation by someone else, is there any way
to determine its original type, so when you are exporting
it, you can use the original type in the Shape.Export()
call.

Presumably the original type is the absolute best to use
when exporting, right?
Thanks...

Robert

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

So if, say, a GIF image was originally inserted into a
PowerPoint presentation by someone else, is there any way
to determine its original type, so when you are exporting
it, you can use the original type in the Shape.Export()
call.

No, afraid not, at least not for embedded images. Linked ones would be a
piece of cake, but then you wouldn't need to export linked images. Just
follow the link back to the original. ;-)

 

[Keith Tromer]

I agree with Steve's response... BUT Once major obstacle that makes the
question moot.

As far as I know there is no such command as Shape.Export()! You would
think that would do what "Save as Picture" does... and yes, you would think
that there was a way to do that command programmatically, but as far as I
can tell, there is no such command in VBA.

Please tell me I'm wrong... I have been dying for that command!

 

[John Langhans [MSFT]]

Hello Keith,

You are correct that the internal function that the "Save as Picture"
command uses is not exposed through the object model.

If you (or anyone else reading this message) feel strongly PowerPoint
should provide a way of doing through the object model, specific functions
which are only available through the user interface in PowerPoint, don't
forget to send your suggestion to Microsoft at:

http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp

As with all product suggestions, it's important that you not just state
your wish but also WHY it is important to you that your product suggestion
be implemented by Microsoft. Microsoft receives thousands of product
suggestions every day and we read each one but, in any given product
development cycle, there are only sufficient resources to address the ones
that are most important to our customers so take the extra time to state
your case as clearly and completely as possible.

IMPORTANT: Each submission should be a single suggestion (not a list of
suggestions).

John Langhans
Microsoft Corporation
Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

For FAQ's, highlights and top issues, visit the Microsoft PowerPoint
support center at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=ppt
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbhowto

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

 

[Paul Andrews]

I agree with Steve's response... BUT Once major obstacle that makes the

question moot.

As far as I know there is no such command as Shape.Export()! You would
think that would do what "Save as Picture" does... and yes, you would think
that there was a way to do that command programmatically, but as far as I
can tell, there is no such command in VBA.

Please tell me I'm wrong... I have been dying for that command!

--

Keith,
see VB code below. It exports images from presentations and saves
them to a folder in PNG format. It's part of a VB Add-In. It's been
put together in a hurry but:

Public Sub ShowImages(ByRef vPres As Presentation)
Dim slds As Slides
Dim sld As Slide
Dim i As Integer
Dim n As Integer
Dim fldrname As String
Dim f As File
Dim tot As Long

Set slds = vPres.Slides

On Error Resume Next

Debug.Print "msoPicture: " & msoPicture

Dim fso As New Scripting.FileSystemObject

If Not fso.FolderExists("C:\PPT Temp") Then
fso.CreateFolder "C:\PPT Temp\"
End If

fldrname = "C:\PPT Temp\" & Mid(m_Pres.Name, 1, Len(m_Pres.Name) -
4) & "\"

If Not fso.FolderExists(fldrname) Then
fso.CreateFolder fldrname
End If

For Each sld In slds
'Set sld = slds(2)
n = 0

Debug.Print "Count: " & sld.Shapes.Count

For i = 1 To sld.Shapes.Count
If Mid(sld.Shapes(i).Name, 1, 4) = "Pict" Or
Mid(sld.Shapes(i).Name, 1, 4) = "Obje" Then
n = n + 1
sld.Shapes(i).Export fldrname & "Pic" & sld.SlideIndex
& "-" & n & ".png", ppShapeFormatPNG
Set f = fso.GetFile(fldrname & "Pic" & sld.SlideIndex
& "-" & n & ".png")
tot = tot + f.Size
List1.AddItem "Slide " & sld.SlideNumber & vbTab &
f.ShortName & vbTab & Round(f.Size / 1024, 0) & "KB"
Set f = Nothing
End If
Next
Next
List1.AddItem "Total " & vbTab & " " & vbTab & Round(tot / 1024,
0) & "KB"
Set fso = Nothing

End Sub