Embedded Excel Objects in Word convert to pictures

[zwentibald]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel I often need to create word (docx) or powerpoint (pptx) files (presentations, memos, reports...) that include excel tables or charts.

most preferable is the obtion to paste the selectet excel parts as an "MS Excel Sheet Object" since it stays editable.

When I want to print the word or ppt files as an pdf (via print to pdf or safe as pdf), the embedded excel parts seem to be converted to pictures and have sometimes a lower resolution.

As they are pictures then, the context in the created pdf-files cant be selected. also the file size gets higher (sometimes significantly) than when pasted as an pdf-object.

is there a way to prevent the objects to be converted into pictures when printing?

thanks for your help!

 

[CyberTaz]

Well, perhaps I'm missing something here but you seem to be describing what
"PDF" is all about It's primary purpose is for electronic distribution
of documents in order to insure that they arrive & display as designed
regardless of their destination. Further, they're intended to help deter the
recipient from making changes to the content. For local printing there is
very little - if any - reason to save the document in PDF format, especially
if you have any expectation of having to make further revisions.

As you've found, there is absolutely no guarantee that a PDF will render at
the same file size as the original from which it's generated, let alone
smaller. It isn't a file compression tool, although many PDF generator apps
do provide options for output quality which do impact file size. The PDF
utility provided by OS X or Microsoft, however, are very basic low-end
implementations supplied as convenience tools.

Essentially, a PDF is a 'picture' of each page of content in the source
document. Although objects embedded in the source are stored as information
in the PDF, PDF format doesn't support displaying them as such so a picture
of each is created for screen display & printing purposes. Unless you invest
in a dedicated PDF app I'm afraid you'll have to take what you get
unless you want to save the objects as images then insert them in place of
the original objects before creating the PDF.

But if your objective simply is to print at optimum quality why not just
print the Word/PPT file in the first place?

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[John_McGhie_[MVP]]

If you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat Professional, you can include
the original documents and Excel files in the PDF as "baggage" or
"Attachments".

The recipient can then open the originals if they want to edit them.
However, Bob is quite correct, this will have no effect on the print results
if they print the PDF. Most people never even notice that a PDF has
attachments...

But you need a full copy of Acrobat to do this, the PDF in Mac OS X is the
free "lite" version.

Cheers

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel
I often need to create word (docx) or powerpoint (pptx) files (presentations,
memos, reports...) that include excel tables or charts.

most preferable is the obtion to paste the selectet excel parts as an "MS
Excel Sheet Object" since it stays editable.

When I want to print the word or ppt files as an pdf (via print to pdf or safe
as pdf), the embedded excel parts seem to be converted to pictures and have
sometimes a lower resolution.

As they are pictures then, the context in the created pdf-files cant be
selected. also the file size gets higher (sometimes significantly) than when
pasted as an pdf-object.

is there a way to prevent the objects to be converted into pictures when
printing?

thanks for your help!

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[pjonesCET]

But you need a full copy of Acrobat to do this, the PDF in Mac OS X is the
free "lite" version.

What are you talking about there is no free lite version of Acrobat?

Now Reader is Free but then only time reader can do anything other than just read is Rights have been conferred by Acrobat.

 

[John_McGhie_[MVP]]

Where do you think Apple got the PDF mechanism in OS X from? It's PDF
one-dot-something, copyright Adobe Systems

It makes perfect PDFs (from the previous standard...) but it has a number of
"limitations"

free "lite" version.

What are you talking about there is no free lite version of Acrobat?

Now Reader is Free but then only time reader can do anything other than just
read is Rights have been conferred by Acrobat.

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[Jim Gordon Mac MVP]

Where do you think Apple got the PDF mechanism in OS X from? It's PDF
one-dot-something, copyright Adobe Systems

It makes perfect PDFs (from the previous standard...) but it has a number of
"limitations"




--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

PDF is sort of Open Source. Apple may not necessarily have paid Adobe
for the ability to create PDFs. Just the same, Acrobat is the solution
for the person posting the question.

-Jim

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

PDF is sort of Open Source. Apple may not necessarily have paid Adobe
for the ability to create PDFs. Just the same, Acrobat is the solution
for the person posting the question.

-Jim

Think about it if Apple the most up to date version of PDF from Adobe.
Adobe would have Acrobat for the Mac Platform. The PDF specs is open
source. but not the latest versions. In other words all version up to
Acrobat 9 are open source. Acrobat 9 for now until version 10 comes out
is not. So Apple can not use new features that are in Acrobat 9.

With the current rock throwing contest between Adobe and Apple. It may
not be long Before Acrobat will no longer work on the Mac Platform.

 

[John_McGhie_[MVP]]

Hi Phillip:

With the current rock throwing contest between Adobe and Apple. It may
not be long Before Acrobat will no longer work on the Mac Platform.

Now, THAT would be a bit of a leap: the entire Mac OS X desktop and user
interface is all done in PDF

Cheers

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[pjonesCET]

Yes. And if Adobe said no longer. That would render OSX useless. But they have the power. Of course if they did Adobe business and reputation which now is worse than Intuit's, will be even more beat up. But they have the ability.

 

[John_McGhie_[MVP]]

Which is why I suspect that Apple are paying for the Adobe PDF technology
they are using: I cannot imagine Jobs exposing himself to that risk without
a contract that prevents Adobe from jerking his user interface out from
under him

Yes. And if Adobe said no longer. That would render OSX useless. But they have
the power. Of course if they did Adobe business and reputation which now is
worse than Intuit's, will be even more beat up. But they have the ability.

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[Jim Gordon Mac MVP]

Which is why I suspect that Apple are paying for the Adobe PDF technology
they are using: I cannot imagine Jobs exposing himself to that risk without
a contract that prevents Adobe from jerking his user interface out from
under him




--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

Indeed, there was a big squabble between Apple and Adobe when OS X first
came out. There were several builds of Mac OS X where saving as PDF was
not working as expected as a consequence. If I remember correctly, for a
short while Apple considered abandoning the idea of including PDF in Mac OS.

-Jim

 

[pjonesCET]

That's possibly true about the contract. But adobe is just stupid enough, and angry enough that could rescind the contract.

Why Jobs decide to use PDF as part of the OSX system I will never know.

 

[John_McGhie_[MVP]]

Hi Phillip:

Adobe may be stupid enough, but they're not RICH enough. Apple is now worth
more than Microsoft: and they have a large and vigorous Legal Department.

Only someone with a death wish would take them on in American courts

The PDF choice for Apple was a "quick" (and eloquent...) fix to a problem.
You either hand-code EVERYTHING that appears on the screen, pixel by pixel,
in multiple sizes because pixels won't scale, or you adopt some kind of
system-wide vector-based graphics format for your display interface.

Apple always used QuickDraw. Microsoft still uses GDI. GDI is a flavour of
WMF.

Come the new generation, Apple had a choice: either re-invent QuickDraw to
do all the fancy transparency and layering tricks PDF will do, or "buy
something in". Microsoft had the same problem.

Microsoft got lucky: GDI already supported layers and transparency. They
just tweaked it a little, and gave it a new name: "Silverlight".

Apple looked around and realised that if they grabbed PDF they could not
only solve their immediate problem, but they could get knock-on benefits.
Once you have a robust PDF implementation as a system service, you can call
it everywhere, including for things such as printing and file-saving.

Microsoft, on the other hand, had to run down the road to the Adobe Shop and
pay for an implementation of PDF to use in Microsoft Office on the PC. On
the Mac, they just use the system version

Now, there may be cheaper, less complex, and more CPU-efficient ways of
drawing circles and triangles on the screen these days (which is what the
current slanging match between Apple and Adobe is all about...). But PDF
works, and the side-benefit is that the vast majority of other applications
out there can use it, and their developers are already familiar with it.

I am by no means an expert in this area, but I understand that one issue
that is elevating Mr Jobs' blood-pressure is that Microsoft kicked a goal
with Silverlight. Not only is it murderously efficient (it has to be, it's
part of the Windows core...) but its internal architecture made it easy to
update it to do all the modern "shock and amaze" tricks. So Microsoft got
their "pretties" almost for free, Steve has to work for his...

Worse, Steve sees the future of computing as being in your pocket. And
Silverlight is a lot more battery-friendly than PDF. Recall that a modern
computer spends 80 per cent of its time drawing pictures on the screen? If
you use half the battery capacity for 80 per cent of what you do, you have a
compelling attraction.

Now some very strange things have happened in computing. Apple is now using
Intel chips, for example... But I somehow don't think Mr. Jobs will be
doing his UI in Silverlight any time soon However, Adobe better sharpen
their pencils, real soon now, otherwise Steve's going to use something else.

Cheers

That's possibly true about the contract. But adobe is just stupid enough, and
angry enough that could rescind the contract.

Why Jobs decide to use PDF as part of the OSX system I will never know.

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

Indeed, there was a big squabble between Apple and Adobe when OS X first
came out. There were several builds of Mac OS X where saving as PDF was
not working as expected as a consequence. If I remember correctly, for a
short while Apple considered abandoning the idea of including PDF in Mac OS.

-Jim

they would have been better served if they had. Adobe use to be a Great
Company. But they have spread their self way to thin with the takeover
of MacroMedia. Support use to be top notch you could call get an answer
in 5 minutes. Today support on Adobe is worse than Inuit's. You simply
can't get much lower than Intuit. But Adobe has succeeded very well in
doing so.

I am likely to eventual move to latest version of Acrobat, DreamWeaver,
and FireWorks. But I wouldn't recommend at this time any Adobe products
to anyone due to their poor service and Treatment of Apple in General.
If it had not been for apple when adobe was getting started in anything
other than fonts. They would not exist today. Yet, now adobe blows off
Apple as if a fly speck.

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

Hi Phillip:

Adobe may be stupid enough, but they're not RICH enough. Apple is now worth
more than Microsoft: and they have a large and vigorous Legal Department.

Only someone with a death wish would take them on in American courts

The PDF choice for Apple was a "quick" (and eloquent...) fix to a problem.
You either hand-code EVERYTHING that appears on the screen, pixel by pixel,
in multiple sizes because pixels won't scale, or you adopt some kind of
system-wide vector-based graphics format for your display interface.

Apple always used QuickDraw. Microsoft still uses GDI. GDI is a flavour of
WMF.

Come the new generation, Apple had a choice: either re-invent QuickDraw to
do all the fancy transparency and layering tricks PDF will do, or "buy
something in". Microsoft had the same problem.

Microsoft got lucky: GDI already supported layers and transparency. They
just tweaked it a little, and gave it a new name: "Silverlight".

Apple looked around and realised that if they grabbed PDF they could not
only solve their immediate problem, but they could get knock-on benefits.
Once you have a robust PDF implementation as a system service, you can call
it everywhere, including for things such as printing and file-saving.

Microsoft, on the other hand, had to run down the road to the Adobe Shop and
pay for an implementation of PDF to use in Microsoft Office on the PC. On
the Mac, they just use the system version

Now, there may be cheaper, less complex, and more CPU-efficient ways of
drawing circles and triangles on the screen these days (which is what the
current slanging match between Apple and Adobe is all about...). But PDF
works, and the side-benefit is that the vast majority of other applications
out there can use it, and their developers are already familiar with it.

I am by no means an expert in this area, but I understand that one issue
that is elevating Mr Jobs' blood-pressure is that Microsoft kicked a goal
with Silverlight. Not only is it murderously efficient (it has to be, it's
part of the Windows core...) but its internal architecture made it easy to
update it to do all the modern "shock and amaze" tricks. So Microsoft got
their "pretties" almost for free, Steve has to work for his...

Worse, Steve sees the future of computing as being in your pocket. And
Silverlight is a lot more battery-friendly than PDF. Recall that a modern
computer spends 80 per cent of its time drawing pictures on the screen? If
you use half the battery capacity for 80 per cent of what you do, you have a
compelling attraction.

Now some very strange things have happened in computing. Apple is now using
Intel chips, for example... But I somehow don't think Mr. Jobs will be
doing his UI in Silverlight any time soon However, Adobe better sharpen
their pencils, real soon now, otherwise Steve's going to use something else.

Cheers



--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

If I was Job's I would do it ASAP and tell Adobe they are going to play
by their rules.

The whole huhaa is not about PDF. its about Flash, its slow and buggy on
Mac, and Causes the majority of crashes on Macs and I believe it I can
view crash reports and there is always mention of Flash or Flash Plugins
as problem wit what crashes I have.