what you need to know before you use powerpoint

I recieved my book and it turned out great - I hope my previous response helps.

I too had problems when I tried to submit my book that I made in MS PowerPoint 2007. I had done a book previously in XP using PP 2003 that I converted using Adobe Acrobat 6 and it came out great. When I made my most recent book, it was after updating to a new computer with Vista and MS 2007 and I couldn’t get it to convert. I too tried to convert it to a JPEG, but had similar problems with page size as well as issues with the fonts and formatting. I tried to convert it to a PDF using Acrobat 6 and 7, but neither would work (I could get them to convert to a PDF but every time I submitted them to PrestoPhoto, they were rejected for various reasons – mostly dealing with fonts not embedding). I tried to save as an earlier version of PP, but there were font and formatting issues with that conversion and then converting that file to a PDF added a host of additional problems as well. MS has a PDF add-on for their Office 2007 products, so I downloaded that (you can find it on their website) and it converted wonderfully – the problem was I couldn’t get it to completely embed all the fonts and every time I sent it to PrestoPhoto, I got an error message (MS help options weren’t very helpful, unless you were willing to pay dearly – I wasn’t). I have found out that Office 2007 has some issues with the way they embed fonts (it will change fonts, etc – even if they’re embedded) and it appears to be an internal issue within the software. Adobe Acrobat 8 is the only version that will work with Vista, and you have to make sure you download upgrades (they only recently – mid February – fixed the issues with embedding the fonts in the MS 2007 suite). Also note, when you convert to a PDF using Adobe Acrobat 8, if you use common fonts (such as Times New Roman) that Adobe figures everyone in the free world already has, it will not embed them – you will have to go into the screen where it lists fonts for embedding and all the common ones are listed in a box that says “never embed” – you have to move them over to the box that says “always embed.” Take all this with a small grain of salt as I haven’t receive my “proof” copy back (I’m expecting it this week); however, if it prints acceptably I have told the VERY helpful people at PrestoPhoto that I would give them a summary of the steps required to make MS PP 2007 work by converting to a PDF. Good luck.(:mrgreen:)

Don't use powerpoint for books larger han 10x10. I wish someone would have told me this 2 weeks ago.

I've made a 14.25 x 11.25 book using powerpoint 2007. I made the slide sizes 3 times larger (42.75 x 33.75) because of viovio's message board recommendations. When it came time to save as jpeg, after MUCH experimentaion, I've found powerpoint 2007 can't save slides larger than 32x32. It cuts off part of each and every slide if the size is larger than 32x32. So instead of designing the slides 3 times larger, you can only do 2.25 times larger if the book size is 14x11.

And, even when clicking "Use current resolution", it won't save a slide larger than 96 dpi. 96 dpi x 3 = 288, but remember, powerpoint only lets you save slides up to about 2.25 times larger if it's a 14x11. So a 14x11 book is 96 x 2.25, which equals 216 dpi. If you're still with me, this translates to not close enough for the 300 dpi recommended. :-(

So I have 2 options - redoing everything in Adobe PageMaker, or submiting my finished powerpoint in pdf. What do I do??? Experts out there - can you tell the difference in a 14x11 photo book whether the pages were made from a jpeg or pdf? Thanks in advance.