Good format to insert company logo in template

[giovanni]

I need to insert our company logo in some templates and I am debating on the
best format to do so. We have Word 2007 and the logo currently is in AI
format.

1) EPS seems to be widely recommended, but it only renders properly on PS
printers and looks horribly on screen. We could use it internally, but might
end up looking pretty bad on some partners printouts.

2) WMF or EMF: Word seems to understand them very well, but Illustrator does
not seem to be able to export them in a decent way: paths are distorted,
colors are inconsistent, etc.

3) High def PNG or TIFF: I would like to keep the vector format as it can be
scaled indefinitely, but it seems that only raster formats are represented
correctly on multiple platforms. 300 dpi should do it or you would go higher?

4) I am surprised I did not find any other XML/Silverlight picture format
that can be inserted into word, am I missing something?

Thank you for your input.

 

[CyberTaz]

What are the Options settings for the Illy EPS? There's no reason why an
8-bit TIFF preview shouldn't render clearly in a Word doc. It should also
print at an acceptable quality if the Transparency options are set
accordingly... Non-PS printers will print using the TIFF preview. The major
concern should be the file size.

If you're actually referring to color fidelity, though, it may be that the
image is CMYK. Since displays & most local printing devices are RGB-based
any color that isn't within the CMYK-RGB gamut overlap (which is a very
small range) will render erratically based on the color space of the display
where it's being seen.

As an alternative you may want to consider PDF, but it isn't unlikely that
you'll actually need more than one version of the logo - one for web, one
for local printing & one for commercial. When it comes to quality graphic
output there is no such thing as "one size fits all"

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

 

[giovanni]

Hi Cyber,

Thank you for your reply. Yes, there is rarely a one size fits all and in
fact we had to adjust our logo for different purposes (for the website we
even use a slightly different shade to better match the color scheme of the
site).

However, it would be great to have a one size fits all for Word and Excel
documents: as you say color are horrible when seen on screen. Most people who
have laser printers don't even know they have PS drivers: they print with
regular PCL drivers. I am being a little picky because, as you say, the TIFF
preview looks ok when printed (thought its color render horribly on screen),
but "ok" is not good for us.

PDF is one solution, but it defies the purpose of sending a word document
for editing...

The best workaround I found, besides exporting greately oversampled PNGs, is
to export AI files to SVGs (AI exports horrible EMF natively) and to open
them in Visio (the only Office program that seems to support them). From
Vision you can save decent EMF files which look pretty good on any printer
and on screen once in Word, Excel, etc.

What I would like from Microsoft is an easy way to obtain good EMFs from
other apps or to offer a way of exporting vector art from Expression Designer
(which plays very well with Illustrator). and embedding it in Word as an XML
Canvas (arent graphs saved as XML based vector art?).

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello again;

Apparently I didn't make my point as clearly as I thought I had

<snip>)

PDF is one solution, but it defies the purpose of sending a word document
for editing...

<snip>

I didn't mean to send the Word document (containing the logo) as a PDF. What
I was suggesting is that you export the logo from Illy in Adobe PDF format.

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

 

[giovanni]

My bad for not understanding. I tried adding a PDF object, but they don't
look as good on screen. I think I need to do some more testing. Thank you