Inserting bitmap

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I've looked thru this forum and the help files, but can't seem to find the answer to a common, basic want.

How do you insert a bitmap file into PPT2000 and have it stay at the original bitmap size, EXACTLY, pixel for pixel.
This is related to bitmapped line graphics where ANY resizing will cause a significant loss of quality.
I intend to handle the sizing of the original bitmap drawings outside of PPT.

Setting the picture size to 100% doesn't work, since PPT is using an assumed dpi to display the picture at its apparent size in inches. Calculating a size factor doesn't work either because of rounding (in my case, the exact size would have been 0.625, but PPT appears to round this to 0.620. I didn't find any other technique to work.

The picture could be jpg, gif or png, perhaps other formats.
Thx.
 
How do you insert a bitmap file into PPT2000 and have it stay at the original bitmap size, EXACTLY, pixel for pixel.
This is related to bitmapped line graphics where ANY resizing will cause a significant loss of quality.
Click to expand...

What exactly do you mean by "original bitmap size"?
That's rather a slippery concept ordinarily; all the more so in PowerPoint, because you might be displaying the presentation at 1024x768 on your computer where it's running at 640x480 heaven help me on mine.

Safest bet:

Decide what resolution you'll display the presentation at (ie, X by Y pixels, ie the Windows video display size)
Make your images that size - measured in pixels.
Insert them into PPT and size them to just fill the slide, ignoring whatever size PPT chooses to bring them in at.

Note that PPT will blur the images. It wants to smooth the edges, remove the jaggies and won't be dissuaded.
 
Wow, that's some major league precision you're after, Bill. I think
PowerPoint is going to disappoint you -- it's just not built for it. Let me
politely challenge one of your premises:
This is related to bitmapped line graphics where ANY resizing will cause
Click to expand...
a significant loss of quality.

Have you found that sizing DOWN causes this loss? I haven't. I can ruin a
perfectly good image in just one step by sizing it up too much, and maybe my
standard is not as high as yours, but I can size an image down without any
concern except that I am not being as efficient with my file size as I could
be.

That having been said, I choose to err on the side of too much image, rather
than not enough. And because I know that PowerPoint and I will almost
certainly err in some fashion, I choose overkill and call it a day.



Rick Altman
PowerPoint Live
October 10-13 | San Diego, CA
http://www.powerpointlive.com
 
If I knew for sure that the presentation was going to be viewed on a laptop at say 1024x768 with a matching projector, then I would establish my full screen bitmap graphics to be exactly the same size right from the start. As it stands, the unwanted "resizing" that PPT is giving me is like an intentional "blur" algorithm. Hardly an improvement

From your statement "Note that PPT will blur the images. It wants to smooth the edges, remove the jaggies and won't be dissuaded.", I assume that it can't be done

My concern is the unwanted blur that is very prevalent on graphics with fine lines or with text.
 
Specifically, I am trying to insert a fairly detailed road map into a presentation. In the native program, everything is nice and crisp. I do a screen save, and the bring it into Jasc Paint Shop Pro and do the necessary editing. Still nice and crisp. Save it in any desired format (jpg or bmp). Bring it back up into any reasonable viewer, still nice and crisp (and always the same size).
But insert it into Powerpoint makes it look like you are using a 10 cent lens to view it. All of the crisp lines are blurred. Text is smashed flat I might expect this if I needed to resample the bitmap to a somewhat different size, but this is what I'm trying to avoid.

Plus it displays the picture much larger than it actually is (in pixels). The only way I found to get it to work (playing all afternoon) was to to change the Page Size to match my screen resolution using 72dpi and force the picture size to be 100%. But that approach is going to cause me other grief down the road because of the odd page size.
 
BillT

As SteveR has said....powerpoint will apply it's own algorithm to re-sample (on the fly) the picture to display it.
PowerPoint does not work at 1:1 pixels like paintshop pro.

This tutorial explains it all in plain english.....forget DPI think pixels (think desktop pixels)
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com/powerpointgraphics.htm

Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp

awesome - powerpoint backgrounds,
free powerpoint templates, tutorials, hints and tips etc
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com
 
Agreed -- that's way more grief than any one person should endure. How large
is this map file; could I play with it a bit? If it's under 2MB (zipped), I
would invite you to send me the original image file at

rick DOT a AT altman DOT com



Rick A.




that approach is going to cause me other grief down the road because of the
odd page size.
 
Bill,
How are you inserting the picture? Are you using Insert-->Picture-->from
File or are you making it the background of the slide or a shape? Also, do
you animate it or any text on the slide? If you are setting it as the
background, it is going to distort it. If you are just inserting it and
seeing these problems (with or without animation), I would love to see a
sample file and see what is going on.

FYI: I do this kind of thing quite frequently using mapquest maps from the
web and other screen shots. I use SnagIt to do the capture. If this is
something you are going to be doing frequently, I would suggest trying the
program out. Information can be found on the TechSmith website:
http://www.techsmith.com/products/snagit/default.asp

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft PPT MVP
If this helped you, please take the time to rate the value of this post:
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Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com
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Kathy is a trainer, writer, Girl Scout, and whatever else there is time for
I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
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If I knew for sure that the presentation was going to be viewed on a laptop at say 1024x768 with a
Click to expand...
matching projector, then I would establish my full screen bitmap graphics to be exactly the same
size right from the start. As it stands, the unwanted "resizing" that PPT is giving me is like an
intentional "blur" algorithm.

The blurring and resizing are two different issues. You *always* get the blurring no matter what.
We're stuck with it, though there's one workaround you might want to try:

MUSHY/BLURRY GRAPHICS in PowerPoint
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00065.htm

No matter what, there'll be resizing if the video settings on the playback machine differ from what
you expect. There's no way around that in PPT - it will always fill the screen -- the current
screen -- with whatever's on the slide.
 
Plus it displays the picture much larger than it actually is (in pixels).

Like I said, ignore the size PPT brings the image in at. It varies based on a whole load of
factors, none of which are relevant to your purpose.

If you set up Page Size for screen show, its default, then bring in an image sized to match your
current display resolution (in pixels ... Dpi and inches are also irrelevant here) you can size the
image to fill the slide and know that this is as good as it gets in PPT.
 
I want to thank Steve, Kathryn, Rick and TAJ for their suggestions
Some of you think that there is little that can be done, and others think maybe, but aren't convinced that there really is an issue, but offered to try. Thanks

So far, Steve, the only situation that seems to work for me is when the original graphic was originally full screen in pixels, and it is resized to be full screen in PP. I fully understand that this is only going to work so long as the screen resolution never changes, so portability is an issue. But I'm willing to live with that. I haven't yet tried the meta-file trick suggested in your post
The goal is to find a process that will work whether the graphic is full screen or not, and I haven't found a solution for that yet

I have put together a webpage where all can see what I'm talking about, and can download pieces if they choose to see if they can find workarounds. It is here
http://CrittersWoods.org/post.htm

All of the pictures can be downloaded from the same place, as well as my trial Powerpoint file. The link is at the end of post.html

I still think the process being used by Powerpoint is screwy and inconsistent. I haven't seen any pattern yet on what size the graphics end up being and the scaling factors that should be used to try to keep them 1:1 in pixel sizes

I don't care about dpi, and I didn't introduce it. Powerpoint apparently did, when it decided somehow what the dimensions of my pictures were in "inches". However, it does different things depending upon the format of the bitmap. It seems too bad that PP would ALWAYS change artwork, when everyone acknowledges that you should use a custom program for such purposes

Any way, thanks for any additional ideas and suggestions

Bil
 
The meta-file trick did not work.
The picture was still resized to a larger oddball size giving poor results. In this case, it may be the resizing as the problem instead of antialiasing.
 
Comments shoved in sideways amongst your paragraphs: ;-)
So far, Steve, the only situation that seems to work for me is when the original graphic
Click to expand...
was originally full screen in pixels, and it is resized to be full screen in PP. I fully
understand that this is only going to work so long as the screen resolution never changes,
so portability is an issue.

That's right. But this is where Rick Altman's suggestion comes in; go for the highest
screen rez you're likely to encounter and let PPT downsize on lower rez systems rather than
forcing it to upsize a smaller image.

But I'm willing to live with that. I haven't yet tried the meta-file trick suggested in
your post.
The goal is to find a process that will work whether the graphic is full screen or not,
Click to expand...
and I haven't found a solution for that yet.
I have put together a webpage where all can see what I'm talking about, and can download
Click to expand...
pieces if they choose to see if they can find workarounds. It is here:
http://CrittersWoods.org/post.html
Click to expand...

I'd avoid JPG entirely. It tends to produce compression artifacts that will make edges of
art like your map look weird. Try PNG or GIF.
I still think the process being used by Powerpoint is screwy and inconsistent.
Click to expand...

Yup. And you haven't even tried keeping it straight across several versions.
And they wonder where my mind went? Hah!
factors that should be used to try to keep them 1:1 in pixel sizes.

Try this on:

Visit http://get.pptools.com
Download and install the free PPTools Starter Set
It installs several toolbars in PPT. One's called WinUtils.
The rightmost button on the toolbar is a little calculator thingie that tells you, among
other things, the size in pixels of the currently selected item at the current screen rez.

So you bring in, say, the PNG version of your image.
Rightclick, choose Format and click the Size tab.
Set the picture to some useful size like 10"
Now use the calculator gadget on the toolbar to get the size in pixels at your display rez.
Work the ratios:

10"/PixelSize = X/400 (assuming you want the thing to be 400 pixels)

10 * 400 = X * PixelSize

4000/PixelSize = X where X is the size you want to set the thingie to in the Format
dialog box.

Since the ratio will be constant, you could maybe create a spreadsheet that gives you the
inch or point sizes for each pixel size you're likely to want.
 
The meta-file trick did not work.
The picture was still resized to a larger oddball size giving poor results. In this case, it may be the resizing as the problem instead of antialiasing.
Click to expand...

The metafile trick doesn't affect the sizing (see my other posts about that)

But at least in previous versions of PPT, it prevented the image from getting blurred.
Another trick is to bring the image into Paint or MS PhotoEdit, Select All, Copy
Then Edit, Paste Special, as Paint/PhotoEdit/Bitmap/Whatever *OBJECT*

No blur, at least not in PPT 2000 here.
 
[CRITICAL UPDATE - Anyone using Office 2003 should install the critical
update as soon as possible. From PowerPoint, choose "Help -> Check for
Updates".]

Hello Bill,

Did you try using the built-in feature of PowerPoint for scaling raster
images and movies so that when shown at a specified display resolution
(full-screen slide show) that the raster images appear sharp?

1) Select image
2) Format -> Picture
3) In "Size" tab choose "Best scale for slide show" and then select the
resolution for your current display settings (such as 1024x768)
4) Click OK
5) View slide show.

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
 
Did you try using the built-in feature of PowerPoint for scaling raster
images and movies so that when shown at a specified display resolution
(full-screen slide show) that the raster images appear sharp?
Click to expand...

That seems to work (nicely! thanks for the reminder) for fullscreen images in
PPT 2002 on, but not in prior versions.

Watch what happens when you insert an image, say a full screen shot, crop it
w/in PPT and then try this. It seems to be working with the uncropped
dimensions of the image when it determines the size for the image, but sizes
the cropped image to that size.
 
[CRITICAL UPDATE - Anyone using Office 2003 should install the critical
update as soon as possible. From PowerPoint, choose "Help -> Check for
Updates".]

The obvious workaround in that scenario, then, is to crop the image BEFORE
bringing it into PowerPoint (which also reduces file bloat due to cropped
portions of images which you don't intend to use).

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
 
The obvious workaround in that scenario, then, is to crop the image BEFORE
bringing it into PowerPoint (which also reduces file bloat due to cropped
portions of images which you don't intend to use).
Click to expand...

A good answer for lots of scenarios. Scenaria? (Somebody stop him, he's
chewing the scenario again)

Why make PPT haul around data unnecessarily, right?
 
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