Improve PowerPoint's GIF, BMP, PNG, JPG export resolution

Exporting from PowerPoint to other file types

To export your PowerPoint slides to other file types (BMP, WMF, JPG, PNG, etc)

• Open your presentation and choose Save As from the File menu.
• In the Save As Type dropdown listbox, choose the file type you want to save.
• Give the file a name and click OK.
• PowerPoint asks whether you want to export just the current slide or your entire presentation. The question is worded a little oddly, so read the message carefully before clicking Yes or No.

When you save the entire presentation rather than a single slide, it uses the name you give it, makes a folder of that name, then creates the exported files in that folder, giving them names like Slide1.jpg, Slide2.jpg and so on.

Increase the resolution/quality of bitmaps from PowerPoint

The RnR PPTools Image Exporter add-in for PowerPoint gives you complete control over the resolution, destination, filenames and format of bitmaps you export from PowerPoint. It also gives you better quality images than you can get from PowerPoint in most cases.

Increase the resolution of your exported bitmaps without an add-in

When PowerPoint exports bitmap files, it uses the current Slide Page Size to determine the resolution (ie, number of pixels) in the files it makes. Here's the formula:

Image-width-In-Pixels = Slide-width-In-Inches x Magic-DPI-Number

What's the Magic-DPI-Number? That depends on the version of PowerPoint and (in PowerPoint 97 your video driver settings as well). The easiest way to find out:

• Start a new presentation.
• Check File, Page Setup. Make sure that the presentation's set to the default 10" x 7.5" slide size.
• Choose File, Save As; select JPG in Files of Type, give the file a name and save.
• When asked, choose Current Slide Only.
• Open the saved JPG in your favorite image editor and find the width of the image in pixels. If you don't have another editor handy, use Microsoft Paint (right-click the image's icon, choose Open With, click Paint) and choose Image, Attributes (Ctrl+E).
• Divide the image width in pixels by 10 to get the Magic-DPI-Number for this particular PowerPoint setup.

Here are a few rules of thumb in case you don't have access to the system you're supporting:

• For PPT97, the Magic DPI Number is 96 if your video is set to Small Fonts, 120 if Large Fonts.
• For PPT 2000 and 2002, the Magic DPI Number is 72.
• For PPT 2003, the Magic DPI Number seems to wander from 80 to 96, perhaps depending on the service pack you have installed. But you can change that: See HOW TO: Change the Resolution of a PowerPoint Slide That You Export As a Picture
• For PowerPoint 2007, the Magic Number is back to 96, 120 or whatever your Windows video display resolution is set to. But for PowerPoint 2007 with Service Pack 1, if you use the registry setting above, you'll get higher resoluton images, but they'll be corrupted. Apply Service Pack 2 and the problem is solved.
• The answer to Life, The Universe and Everything is, of course, 42, but that has no relevance here.

That's the default -- how to change it?

To get higher resolution but bitmap exports, choose File, Page Setup (or File, Slide Setup) and increase the size of your Slide page. Keep the new size proportional to the old, please, or you'll distort your graphics, set text boxes to wandering randomly around the page and so on. We don't want that.

OR ... if you have PowerPoint 2003/2007 and have read the link above, you can fiddle with the registry each time you want to change resolutions. Not recommended for the faint of heart. Or anyone else.

OR ... if you use PowerPoint Mac

• Choose File, Save As.
• In the SAVE dialog box click the OPTIONS button
• Under SAVE SLIDES AS GRAPHICS FILES choose:
• Save current slide only
• Set to 96 dots per inch
• Uncheck Compress graphics files
• Click OK
• Toggle FORMAT popdown to JPEG or PNG then click SAVE

OR ...

A kinder, gentler way ...

The RnR PPTools Image Exporter lets you decide

• Where images are saved
• How they're named
• What range of slides to export
• What resolution to export them to

No registry fiddles, no slide size changes, just set a few options and go, and all for less than 30 bucks.

Note that text in images exported by PowerPoint 2002, 2003 and 2007 usually look shabby no matter what resolution you choose. Since MS has let this go for three generations without a fix, we assume they don't care. We do. We've pretty much solved the problem in Image Exporter.

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