Limitations, caveats, bugs
Please note:
ImageExport makes PowerPoint perform tasks automatically. Because of this, ImageExport may be affected by bugs in PowerPoint. An add-in can't correct flaws in PowerPoint itself, though wherever possible we try to include workarounds for known problems.
Sometimes we just have to live with problems until Microsoft fixes them. You can report PowerPoint problems directly to Microsoft here
Known Problems
Backgrounds become pixelated
This is a bug in PowerPoint 97. The problem doesn't occur in later versions of PowerPoint. Instead of using picture fills for your slide backgrounds, give them a solid color fill, then use Insert, Picture, From File to import the picture you want to use. Then choose Draw, Order, Send To Back to send the picture behind the other elements on the slide or slide master.
TIFF resolution incorrect
The TIFF export filter in PowerPoint 2000 exports images at 72dpi no matter what resolution is requested. This is a bug in the export filter; it's beyond our control, unfortunately.
Workaround: Export as PNG instead of TIF, then use PaintShop Pro, Photoshop, IrfanView or some other application that does batch conversions to convert the PNGs to TIF format.
TIFF files cause "Cannot parse" error in Photoshop, or can't be opened in some other applications
There is apparently a bug in the TIFF export filter in PowerPoint XP/2002 that randomly changes one byte in exported TIFF files. Some applications have no trouble reading the TIFF file, others can't open it at all.
Sometimes re-exporting the slide to TIFF solves the problem; if not, try opening the file in an application that can read it (PaintShop Pro or the excellent and free IrfanView for example) and saving as TIFF to a new filename.
Text in exported images is too large or bolded-looking
A user noticed this problem occurring on only one of several computers.
The view size also changed when running ImageExporter. The problem turned out to be a corrupt user profile in Windows 2000. Deleting and recreating the profile solved the problem.
Lines appear at the edge of JPG images when printed
JPG is a lossy compression method. It deliberately discards image data in order to get the best compression ratios. Sometimes it can go too far, or produce unintended side effects. This is one example of that.
JPGs made from PowerPoint may show slight lines at one edge of the image. Usually they're not visible to the naked eye, but appear when the image is printed. If you open the image in an image editing program and use the program's color sampler tool, you'll see that the RGB values of the pixels at the very edge of the image (the last 2 or 3 pixels next to the edge) change very slightly from one to the next, when they really should be identical.
This is due to a bug in PowerPoint's JPG export filter. If you run into the problem, here's a workaround:
Export your images to PNG instead of JPG
Use your image editing program's batch mode to convert the PNGs to JPGs. If you don't have a program with such a batch mode, we recommend IrfanView. It's excellent. It's flexible. It's free.
Can't create images wider than 3072 pixels in PowerPoint 2003
This is due to a deliberate limitation placed upon PowerPoint 2003 by Microsoft for reasons we don't understand. PowerPoint 2003 won't export images at anything over 307 dpi.
See this MS Knowledgebase article for more detailed information
There's also a limit on the number of pixels PowerPoint 2003 will export. It won't allow exports over 3072 pixels wide.
Images look pixellated, text seems bitmapped, jaggy
If you run into this problem with images exported from Image Exporter and your version is older than December, 2003, please download and install the latest version. We've added several fixes that solve this problem in most cases.
If you use PowerPoint 2002 or 2003, the text in your images will be ragged due to a bug in PowerPoint. We recommend exporting at much higher resolutions, say 2000 or 3000 pixels wide, then downsampling to the final resolution you need. We highly recommend the free (and excellent) IrfanView to batch convert your exported images to lower resolution.
In fact we have a workaround that allows you to set things up so that your images are automatically converted by IrfanView as they're exported.
To do this, you need to open the PPTools.INI file, which you'll find in the folder where you installed Image Exporter. Locate the line in the file that reads: [ImageExport] and directly beneath it, add this line:
PostExportHook=%quotc:\program files\irfanview\i_view32.exe%quot %quot%idrive%idir%iname%iext%quot /resample=(800,600) /convert=%quot%idrive%idir%iname%iext%quot
That all needs to be on one line. Please be certain that there are no linebreaks, or it won't work.
Replace c:\program files\irfanview\i_view32.exe with the path to IrfanView on your computer.
Replace (800,600) with the dimensions you want to resample your images to.
Here it is again with linebreaks so you can see it more easily:
PostExportHook=%quotc:\program files\irfanview\i_view32.exe%quot %quot%idrive%idir%iname%iext%quot /resample=(800,600) /convert=%quot%idrive%idir%iname%iext%quot
Images exported from PowerPoint 2000 and previous use wrong master
When you export from a presentation created in PowerPoint 2002 and later that uses multiple masters, you'll probably find that all of your images use the first master in the presentation. This is due to an unfortunate bug in PowerPoint 2000.
Though it does a commendable job of printing presentations that include multiple masters, PowerPoint 2000 isn't fully able to deal with these presentations in other respects; this problem is one of the outcomes. Until MS fixes the bug in PowerPoint, all we can suggest is upgrading to PowerPoint 2002 or 2003 if you need to work with multiple master presentations.
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