Pasting text boxes from PPT 2007 to Word 2007... or not...

[Jeff Chapman]

Hello all - I've noticed that a text box copied from PowerPoint 2007 to Word
2007 simply will not, CAN not get pasted in as what it is, namely, a text
box.

After dutifully copying the text box onto the clipboard in PPT 2007, I can
use the Home tab on the ribbon in Word, and then do a Paste Options to paste
the object on the clipboard from Word to PPT as an EMF. After that, I have
to then do a right-click, select Edit Picture, and then I can finally edit
the text I pasted. But, blah... it's far from fallible. Some characters in
multiple-line text boxes get stranded and are pasted in different text
boxes. (This behavior is from earlier versions of PPT as well - seems to be
part and parcel of pasting as EMF and then ungrouping and re-editing the EMF
in an Office app as far as I can tell.) Also, the fill and stroke of
autoshapes get dissected and become separate objects.

I'm wondering if there is a workaround for any of this. As I remember, we
could paste text boxes from PPT 2003 to Word 2003 and they remained as
such - text boxes. (Does memory fail? Uhh...) I can't figure out for the
life of me why we have to go through so many hoops just to import/export
text boxes from PowerPoint 2007-Word 2007.

Looking forward to some sage advice or witty repartee...
is this an issue that's going to be fixed, or can we just wave a sad goodbye
to anything resembling
compatibility between PowerPoint 2007 and Word 2007 in this regard?

Jeff

 

[Guest]

Just to clarify: pasting text boxes from Word 2007 to PPT 2007 seems to work
okay.
It's the reverse that's the problem, from PPT 2007 to Word 2007. Sorry for
the confusion.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Hello all - I've noticed that a text box copied from PowerPoint 2007 to Word
2007 simply will not, CAN not get pasted in as what it is, namely, a text
box.

Hisashiburi ...

Your fond 2003 memories are intact and correct. Word 2007's giving you a MS
Graphic Object rather than a text box though.

One possible approach, depending on what you're after, is select and copy the
text rather than the text box in PPT, then add a text box in Word and paste the
text into it.

 

[Guest]

Hey Steve,

O-hisashiburi desu ne! ;-)

Ah, so with these text box issues, I guess we are now stuck with a new
way of doing things come PowerPoint 2007. (Ugh.)

PPT 2007 appears to have a completely different text rendering engine than
previous versions (what with all of those glow, text border and flashy
shadow effects... talk about eye candy! wow...), so I assume that there was a
big debate at MS about how to handle metadata (is that what they call data
copied to the Office clipboard, or do I have my terminology wrong?)
copied to and pasted from the Clipboard to other Office apps.
Having the paste options available from the ribbon is intituive and
user-friendly, but I find it rather odd that when you paste text from one
Office app to another, you get some paste options available from the
paste options button (that nifty clipboard-looking-icon
that shows up next to what you pasted), but not all of them. For the rest, you
have to go to the ribbon. (I digress somewhat.)

Why couldn't they put all the necessary options in the indicator icon, I
wonder?
Or is there some hidden option I'm overlooking, I wonder... ?

This aside, already this new functionality in PPT 2007 has caused major
compatibility problems with one Japanese graphics app I use, Hanako 2007
(Justsystems). Hanako is one of the few apps that I have found that can handle
Office clipboard data worth a hoot. A lot of people in Japan use Hanako to
create graphics and slide templates for PowerPoint presentations. Data can be
freely
copied and pasted to/from Hanako and PPT, and with a few exceptions survives
the transition remarkably well. Now with PPT 2007's new way of handling data
copied to the clipboard, however, this whole cross-platform functionality has
gone down the tubes.

Steve, your workaround for selecting the text inside the text box and then
pasting it seems good for single text boxes. The biggest issue is when you
have grouped objects, including text box(es) in PPT 2007 and want to
copy/paste them to other Office apps. From what I have seen and from what you
say, the text box data simply does not make it through as such. If you have
an illustration with a text box caption, for instance, it'll get pasted into
Word as an Office graphic object by default, and the other available "paste
special" formats still will not allow you to edit the text in the box. This
cross-Office app functionality was wonderful in previous versions up through
2003, but it appears to have gotten munched in 2007...

Jeff

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Hey Steve,

O-hisashiburi desu ne! ;-)

Ah, so with these text box issues, I guess we are now stuck with a new
way of doing things come PowerPoint 2007. (Ugh.)

PPT 2007 appears to have a completely different text rendering engine than
previous versions (what with all of those glow, text border and flashy
shadow effects... talk about eye candy! wow...),

That was one of the biggest changes in PPT and across Office. I suspect we'll run
into a few more similar issues. To consolidate the text engine, I'm betting that
they had to make changes to quite a few of our old favorite features from versions
past. I suspect that sometimes text/graphics behaviors that may have been optimized
for (in) one app or another had to go in order to substitute the consolidated
engine.

It's not all eye candy though. Or at least not what strikes me as such. Typography
is much better in the new version, for example.

so I assume that there was a
big debate at MS about how to handle metadata (is that what they call data
copied to the Office clipboard, or do I have my terminology wrong?)

copied to and pasted from the Clipboard to other Office apps.
Having the paste options available from the ribbon is intituive and
user-friendly, but I find it rather odd that when you paste text from one
Office app to another, you get some paste options available from the
paste options button (that nifty clipboard-looking-icon
that shows up next to what you pasted), but not all of them. For the rest, you
have to go to the ribbon. (I digress somewhat.)

Ah, him. He appears in Office 2003 too. The options there are a bit different from
what you find on the Paste Special menu.

Why couldn't they put all the necessary options in the indicator icon, I
wonder?

The indicator option is more about how the pasted content is to be formatted (in a
very broad sense), where the paste special options control exactly what format will
paste.

Or is there some hidden option I'm overlooking, I wonder... ?

This aside, already this new functionality in PPT 2007 has caused major
compatibility problems with one Japanese graphics app I use, Hanako 2007
(Justsystems). Hanako is one of the few apps that I have found that can handle
Office clipboard data worth a hoot. A lot of people in Japan use Hanako to
create graphics and slide templates for PowerPoint presentations. Data can be
freely
copied and pasted to/from Hanako and PPT, and with a few exceptions survives
the transition remarkably well. Now with PPT 2007's new way of handling data
copied to the clipboard, however, this whole cross-platform functionality has
gone down the tubes.

Ouch! I haven't given it a workout with CorelDraw, which is what I usually use
here. So far the new kid's been kept in the isolation ward, not allowed on any
production PCs. Suspicious sod that I am ...

Steve, your workaround for selecting the text inside the text box and then
pasting it seems good for single text boxes. The biggest issue is when you
have grouped objects, including text box(es) in PPT 2007 and want to
copy/paste them to other Office apps. From what I have seen and from what you
say, the text box data simply does not make it through as such. If you have
an illustration with a text box caption, for instance, it'll get pasted into
Word as an Office graphic object by default, and the other available "paste
special" formats still will not allow you to edit the text in the box. This
cross-Office app functionality was wonderful in previous versions up through
2003, but it appears to have gotten munched in 2007...

And ouch again. Yep, I can see how that's a problem.

Tell me, though: you mentioned getting stuff ungrouped in Word, didn't you? How did
you make that happen? It's not cooperating with me.

 

[Guest]

It's not all eye candy though. Or at least not what strikes me as such.
Typography

is much better in the new version, for example.

I see your point, and agree... I guess there is a lot of potential for
"style abuse" in the new PowerPoint, what with all the new text effects
(gradated borders! whoa) and so on. Good designers will have a field day;
amateur designers (which is most of us) will probably bring us zillions of
new, ugly combinations to cope with...

Ouch! I haven't given it a workout with CorelDraw, which is what I usually use
here. So far the new kid's been kept in the isolation ward, not allowed on any
production PCs. Suspicious sod that I am ...

CorelDraw can read/convert to/from PPT? Ah...

Tell me, though: you mentioned getting stuff ungrouped in Word, didn't you? How did
you make that happen? It's not cooperating with me.

Ah. Well, it was a workaround/cheat, really. Copying the grouped objects
from PPT 2007, I special-pasted them into Word 2007 as a EMF, right-clicked
on the group, and then clicked Edit Object or whatever it is in English (my
native language was English; my current language is now officially Engrish,
hah!). Does that work for you? The sad by-product of this method is that,
well, text boxes get sliced up. It gets reinterpreted somehow - things aren't
as they should be. :-o

Jeff

 

[Guest]

Ouch! I haven't given it a workout with CorelDraw, which is what I usually
use

here. So far the new kid's been kept in the isolation ward, not allowed on any
production PCs. Suspicious sod that I am ...

Just tried importing and then pasting some PowerPoint 2007 text box and
autoshape data into CorelDraw X3. Importing is a no-go... CorelDraw X3
doesn't seem to recognize PowerPoint as a valid file extension. However, text
pasted from PowerPoint 2007 into CorelDraw X3 gets converted to art text...
in other words, outlined text. Point text! Hmmm... it's hard to figure out
whether that's good or bad... probably bad, if you want to maintain text data
as text in CorelDraw X3. I don't know if CorelDraw 12 behaves any better.
Same thing happens with Illustrator CS.

What other apps have cross-compatibility with PowerPoint via the clipboard,
I wonder?

Jeff

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I see your point, and agree... I guess there is a lot of potential for

"style abuse" in the new PowerPoint, what with all the new text effects
(gradated borders! whoa) and so on. Good designers will have a field day;
amateur designers (which is most of us) will probably bring us zillions of
new, ugly combinations to cope with...

Just think how overjoyed Ed Tufte must be. Legions of new abuses to rant about. ;-)

CorelDraw can read/convert to/from PPT? Ah...

It claims to be able to, but probably isn't up to speed on the new format. OTOH, I was thinking more
in terms of copy/paste between the two.

Ah. Well, it was a workaround/cheat, really. Copying the grouped objects
from PPT 2007, I special-pasted them into Word 2007 as a EMF, right-clicked
on the group, and then clicked Edit Object or whatever it is in English (my
native language was English; my current language is now officially Engrish,
hah!). Does that work for you? The sad by-product of this method is that,
well, text boxes get sliced up. It gets reinterpreted somehow - things aren't
as they should be. :-o

I'll give that a shot next time I have the 2007 box available. It comes, it goes off to do other
things ...

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Just tried importing and then pasting some PowerPoint 2007 text box and
autoshape data into CorelDraw X3. Importing is a no-go... CorelDraw X3
doesn't seem to recognize PowerPoint as a valid file extension. However, text
pasted from PowerPoint 2007 into CorelDraw X3 gets converted to art text...
in other words, outlined text. Point text! Hmmm... it's hard to figure out
whether that's good or bad... probably bad, if you want to maintain text data
as text in CorelDraw X3. I don't know if CorelDraw 12 behaves any better.
Same thing happens with Illustrator CS.

What other apps have cross-compatibility with PowerPoint via the clipboard,
I wonder?

I wonder if the problem is along the lines of:

PPT's introduced a lot of nifty new eyecandy but it can only be adequately rendered
by PPT/Office itself.

The other likely clipboard format that anything else will be able to read is EMF,
which may not be up to the task of reproducing this new stuff. Or PPT 2007 isn't up
to the task of rendering its goodies into EMF for the clipboard.