PPT2002: Objects with Transparency Do Not Print Correctly (815001)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft PowerPoint 2002

SYMPTOMS

When you print a presentation with transparent fills and graphics, the printed output may not look as good as the slide does on the screen. Instead, the transparent regions may appear grainy and jagged.

CAUSE

PowerPoint 2002 supports the use of high-quality images on screen, projector-driven presentations. This on-screen feature makes it more difficult to match the display on the screen with the printed output. A feature that was added for on-screen presentations was support for true transparent blending. True support of transparency means that the color in a semitransparent pixel is blended with the color behind it. Transparency in graphics is available in PowerPoint in a number of ways: images, solid color fills, and gradient fades. As of March 2003, there is a technological gap between screen and print support for transparent pixels. Printer technology does not support a color format that includes the transparency channel. Printers only support the following color formats: RGB, CMYK and grayscale. Printers cannot blend pixels together in the same manner that occurs for on-screen viewing.

WORKAROUND

If you are creating a presentation that is destined for printed output, the best workaround is to avoid using semitransparent objects if you can. If you must use semitransparent objects and the way PowerPoint simulates the transparent effect for print is not satisfactory, there are workarounds to blend the transparent pixels together before it is sent to the printer. To do so, you create an image of the slide or a portion of the slide. This blends transparent pixels together correctly when the image is created.

If there is only a small region of the slide that is covered with a semi-transparent object and that area has an opaque background, a better workaround is to group those shapes and convert them to a single image. Again, this blends the transparent pixels together when you create the image.

Method 1: Converting Objects to Images

  1. Select the items on the slide that you want to convert to an image. To select multiple items, press and hold CTRL while you click each object.
  2. Right-click one of the selected objects, point to Grouping, and then click Group.
  3. On the Edit menu, click Cut.
  4. On the Edit menu, click Paste Special.
  5. Click Picture (PNG), and then click OK.
  6. Reposition the image on the slide.
If the transparency effect includes many objects on the slide, you may want to consider saving the whole slide as a graphic and print it separately or as part of the presentation.
  1. On the File menu, click Page Setup.
  2. By default, PowerPoint saves all graphics with a size of 540 by 720 pixels. To increase the size of the image for printing you must increase the slide size. 1 inch of slide size corresponds to 72 pixels. For the best looking printed output, match the printer resolution. If your printer has a printed resolution of 144 dots per inch, you would set the slide size to 20 inches wide by 15 inches tall.
  3. Make sure that the slide you want to save as a graphic is the slide that is visible in the slide pane.
  4. On the File menu, click Save as.
  5. In the Save as type box, click PNG Portable Network Graphics format (*.png). The PNG format uses a "lossless" compression algorithm that makes it more suitable for printing than other formats.
  6. Click Save.
  7. Click Current Slide Only.
After the slide is saved as a PNG picture, you can either insert the picture back into the presentation as a picture on a slide, or print the image from a picture-editing program.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:3/24/2003
Keywords:kbprint kbui kbprb KB815001
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