Powerpoint Font Issue

[goblynn93]

Powerpoint constantly mangles my fonts... is there a way to stop this? Its
worse with any animated font.

Please help! Powerpoint makes such ugly ugly fonts! No time to make png
images of all my text in Photoshop to keep it nice no matter what... anything
I can do to stop Powerpoint from totally wrecking the edges of my fonts???

 

[TAJ Simmons]

goblynn93

see
Anti-Alias Problems? Where?
http://www.onppt.com/ppt/article1043.html

Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp

awesome - powerpoint backgrounds,
http://www.awesomebackgrounds.com
free powerpoint templates, tutorials, hints, tips and more...

 

[goblynn93]

WOW TAJ!!!! Thanks for that incredibly USELESS LINK.... to what? A soap box
rant on how font issues are not an issue??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????

Font issues would not even be a topic, let alone a reason to post a
worthless web page on the supposedly non-existant issue...

So when my clients come to me, on a gig they've paid me very well to produce
powerpoint for them on, and they say "Hey... why does that font look like
sh|t... what exactly am I supposed to tell them? "Well ya know you're
audience will never see it..."

On a 20 foot wide projection screen? In a room of 3000 people? Are you
kidding?

Powerpoint MANGLES fonts... there is no denying it. I posted looking for a
solution and this is what I get... crazy talk from some lady on some web site
who has no clue WHY this is an issue, other than her little tiny 20 inch
presentations look great in her tiny office to an audience of 10 people...

So does anyone have any REAL information on this issue? Or a work around
other than using PS to produce images that powerpoint CAN'T mangle?? (not too
bad at least...)

So now I've written a nasty email, and posted a slight RANT.... all for an
issue that some web site, and it seems the M$ self help community feels is a
non-issue? Obviously no one cares... oh wait... I DO!

 

[goblynn93]

Someone has gone through and very sneakily eliminated all the posts for this
particular font issue as well... as if M$ doesnt want it spread across their
user boards, because it really is just a stupid issue, one that should have
been caught and fixed prior to release, but wasn't. Now who knows what's
going on. M$ denies there is an issue if you call their tech support... yet
monthly I get talked to by a cient because the Powerpoint fonts look like
crap and all I can do to fix it is spend hours (days on some presentations)
to build all the text in Photoshop, bring it in as a .png (transparency in
that is also REALLY ANNOYING since powerpoint CLAIMS to have full .png
support) and then I've lost the ability to animate single letters, words, or
anything else without just tons and tons and tons and tons of work going into
it.

How hard is it for M$ to just fix their engine and release a patch? Oh I
forgot... with that transparency issue in 2002 M$ told me there was a fix...
BUY OFFICE 2003!!! What kind of fix is that? Release broken product and then
the fix comes in an upgrade purchase? How about taking my software that I
paid full retail price for and MAKE IT WORK AS ITS SUPPOSED TO OUT OF THE
DANG BOX!!!

Yeah I'm ranting again... but its Microsoft that is going to drive me to
Macintosh forever... and I hate macs!

 

[John Wilson]

I'm tempted not to respond to rants but ... (and you're welcome to rant at
me, what do I know!)

Jaggy fonts rarely if ever causes me problems but you will get a lot less of
the jaggies with a plain color filled word art font. Not as flexible
obviously but easier than using pngs fron photoshop.
PS You shouldn't experience problems with transparancy in pngs if you are up
to date with service packs in XP.
--

Did that answer the question / help?
_____________________________
John Wilson
Microsoft Certified Office Specialist
http://www.technologytrish.co.uk/ppttipshome.html

 

[TAJ Simmons]

goblynn93,

We're all volunteers here. None of us take sides with MS.

I'm not trying to hide that there is an issue with fonts getting the jaggies
in powerpoint.

I'm also pretty sure that things are not being censored in this NG to do
with the problem...
http://groups.google.com/groups/search?hl=en&q=powerpoint+fonts+anti+alias

Certain color combinations make the fonts appear worse.

In ppt 97/2000 days, a light background with black text looked worse, than
ppt xp 2002/2003 days

If you do not animate the text, then I've not had issues.

I've not had issues on ppt 2003 with a RADEON X740.
I can make the jaggy fonts appear by animating a ppt graph (dark text /
light background)

Certain graphics cards / bit depths / etc can make the problem appear.

I don't have an answer as to why there is a problem - nor do I know how to
make it go away.

Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp

 

[Patrick Schmid]

TAJ,

As I have never seen jagged fonts myself (I hardly ever animate text),
do you have any idea if the issue still exists in 2007 with its new set
of fonts?

Patrick Schmid

 

[Kathy Jacobs]

I'll jump in here, since it is my article that caused the rant.I know that
article isn't much help by itself, but if you look at the linked
information, you can find out a lot more. We have done quite a bit of
research on what causes the jaggies. No one at Microsoft has an answer
beyond the workarounds that we have provided.

One piece of the puzzle that isn't well known: Flat Panel displays are much
more likely to show off the jaggies than regular displays. On the other
hand, if you keep the video drivers up to date, they are also better
handled. Another piece is that appears and disappears are less likely to
have jaggies if the animation is a motion path. So, you might try having the
animated piece disappear and a static copy just appear when the animation is
done. Sometimes it works - sometimes it doesn't.

That said... In 2007, there won't be these problems. the text and graphic
handling was totally re-done.

(OK - back to rest. Catch you all again later)

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft MVP PowerPoint and OneNote
Author of Kathy Jacobs on PowerPoint - Available now from Holy Macro! Books
Get PowerPoint and OneNote information at www.onppt.com

I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived

 

[goblynn93]

I am a fanatic about updates. Has caused me problems in the past by updating
to a bad update that M$ has given us but everything I have is up to date
typically week by week.

Depite all my updates I STILL have transparency issues with .png. If I use
photoshop and do a "Save As:" and choose .png and load that into powerpoint
all the transparency comes in black. To get it to work I have to do a "Save
For Web" and then the issue clears up. Not a big deal but really annoying. I
have the same issue in Internet Explorer with .png transparency... and this
is across 2 laptops and 3 desktops, all the same issue.

M$ told me, when I called about this issue in PPT2002 and the answer I got:
yea, its a problem... it will be fixed in PPT2003... What kinda crap is
that???

 

[goblynn93]

Heh sorry TAJ you misunderstood... I don't think any of the wonderful
volunteers on here would censor any issue... its M$ that has sensored this
issue. I've posted on this 4 times before this... all 4 of those posts and
their responses are gone... if I do a search for "Font" I get hits all the
way back to 2003... and I posted on this all 4 times in 2005... those are all
gone.

 

[goblynn93]

Every single link on that page related to this issue is dead. The only one
that still works is the one to email you presentations...

The jaggies are caused by poor programming by M$... on a PC its ALL M$...
and I have never seen these issues on a MAC with ANY version of powerpoint...

Also... you all keep talking about animated text... well for me animated
text makes the issue worse, for sure... but I get this issue with ALL text
over a certain size (and maybe in small text too but its too small to see...).

And I have heard great things about PPT2007... I just hope it will run good
under WinXP because if what I have seen of Vista is any clue to how it will
be I will avoid it like the plague and go totally Macintosh once it becomes
the mainstay. Vista is HORRIBLE.

I'm sure you have all been through and through this but does graphic card
make a difference? It seems it shouldn't, and specially since I use all
Radeon, same cards the macintosh use, and they dont have issues...

I see this on my desktop, laptop, laptop, desktop, desktop, desktop. One has
a nVidia card and has more issues than just mangled fonts. But its old and
used just as part of a render farm.

Work arounds are great, when you have the time to program for them. My
biggest issue, and the reason I use Powerpoint at all, is I have to be able
to make last minute changes on the fly, update slides, update formatting, all
kinds of stuff gets thrown at me literally 30 seconds before CEO's are
supposed to go on stage and present... awful, but oh well... its a living...

I would use Keynote if Powerpoint wasn't so available to all the corporates.
I would use Macs if M$ could get their act together and figure out a way to
prevent the awful and prevalant font corruption going PC to Mac or Mac to PC.
Powerpoint's terrible handling of fonts forced me to invest in Macs simply to
run mac built presentations. LAME.

If I never had to make changes I would use Flash or Quicktime to present
with but that can't happen at the speed Powerpoint can, or Keynote can.

Thanks for the responses... good to know there are still good people here,
willing to help, even for a ranting lunatic like me =)

 

[Patrick Schmid]

PPT 2007 runs on Windows XP SP2 (it does require SP2!), Windows Server
2003 and Vista.
Currently, Office 2007 seems to work a lot better with XP than with
Vista.

Patrick Schmid