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How to Extract Images from Powerpoint Files

March 27th, 2007 by David Bradley >> 29 Comments

I work with a lot of scientists, who when asked for print quality images for publication in a paper or magazine often send me a Powerpoint slideshow or an Adobe PDF file. Occasionally, I’ll receive a half inch Gif they saved from their website at 72ppi. Such images rarely print properly, A half inch 72ppi Gif file will screen print at less than an eighth of an inch across, which is generally useless, irrespective of the fact that a Gif is also limited to 256 colors. Anyway, I digress.

Some of the Powerpoint (PPT) files I receive are huge and this beggars the question – are there image files within that might be extract at print quality resolution? The answer is almost certainly. yes. So, how do you extract high resolution images from a Powerpoint file?

The obvious approach is to open the File menu and choose “Save as…”, switching the “presentation” file-type to “TIFF” (or one of the other available graphic formats listed, such as JPEG. Powerpoint will then ask if you want to save the current slide or all slides, you pays your money and you takes your choice. But, there’s a serious downside to this approach: you won’t retrieve print quality graphics, these will be low resolution images exported from the slide.

There is a tool – PPTools – that allows you to up-rate the resolution on images you export from a Powerpoint file, but many users will be unwilling to pay for such a program. The basic program is a few dollars but if you want a batch processor that’s going to set you back $750. So, are there any alternatives? Thankfully, the answer that question is also, yes.

Instead of choosing to “Save as…”, you can choose to “Save as Web Page…” via the File Menu. But, before you do that, make the slide as big as possible and drag the corner of the graphic you wish to print to make it as large as possible within the slide. Then, choose that option and you are presented with yet another dialog box. Below the explorer window in that dialog is a button labeled “Publish”, click this and you are presented with yet more options and another button “Web Options”. Click this and, you guessed, it yet more options, select the Pictures tab on that dialog box and change the “screen size” to the highest value (1920×1200). In this case, screen refers to the computer monitor rather than a lithographic print screen. No matter. Next click OK in that dialog and Publish in the next.

The result will be a clutch of new files in your folder, a static website based on the original Powerpoint slideshow. Go to the web page files folder and open it. In this folder you will find a large-ish png file, which will hopefully have pixel dimensions of 1920×1200, which is perfectly adequate for printing at about six inches width screening at 300 dots-per-inch (not to be confused with desktop printer resolution, by the way), this is print for screened publications such as newspapers and magazines.

Anyway, I hope I’ve covered all the steps adequately, give it a try and let me know how you get on.


Leave a comment ↓

  • bob sievert // Dec 21, 2007 at 10:52 am

    seems complicated – why not just left click the graphic and save it as a picture? Choice of formats is given to suit most uses

  • David Bradley // Dec 21, 2007 at 12:03 pm

    Hi Bob, thanks for the comment. It’s not quite as simple as a right-click-save if you want to extract the image at the highest resolution for a print publication, it always save at some default low res size which is invariably too small for print screening.

    db

  • Chris Etheredge // Mar 15, 2008 at 2:02 pm

    1920×1200 is nice, but that is not big enough for a publication that requires a 600 dpi image. I’m in the process right now of re-submitting figures for a paper, and the journal has replied, telling me that the figure is not high enough resolution. I used the “Save As” function to create a 2250×2999 PNG image (300 dpi). This is the largest PNG that PowerPoint will spit out even though in the SaveAs options, the dpi values go up to 1600 dpi. I then took this image into Adobe Photoshop and upsampled the resolution to 600 dpi. I submitted this 4154×4362 image to the journal, and they’re still telling me it’s not enough. I feel like I’m in a tight spot if PowerPoint can’t generate an image any bigger.

  • David Bradley // Mar 17, 2008 at 9:13 am

    What publication requires 600dpi camera-ready copy? Most printing presses screen at 300dpi, or even 200 dpi (this dpi is not related to your desktop printer output by the way). If you’re sending them a 1920 pixel-width image and they’re screening at 600dpi for print, then that will be perfectly adequate at a print size of more than 3 inches across. How big do they need your image to print, for goodness sake?

    I sometimes wonder if journal sub-editors are ever actually trained in the business of print these days.

    db

  • Chris Etheredge // Mar 25, 2008 at 10:06 pm

    Thanks for your reply David. This must have been a case of the “untrained sub-editors,” because we re-submitted the same file, and they were happy! I was surprised too when they (the journal is PLoS Pathogens) required that high of a resolution, especially when the figures will only be printed at a couple inches across. Thanks again for your input.

  • David Bradley // Mar 26, 2008 at 10:24 am

    Good luck with the submission, let me know when it’s “in press”. As you probably know, I’m a science writer by trade and always on the look out for interesting science leads.

    db

  • BerntJarle // Mar 26, 2008 at 6:08 pm

    Great tip !
    + if you need some of the graphic PP produces (charts, etc.) you get them in png format, these you can import to Photoshop with full transparency.

  • David Bradley // Mar 26, 2008 at 6:11 pm

    PNG format is not lossless though, doesn’t it have a compressed color palette like GIF? Not so useful for print media…

    db

  • BerntJarle // Mar 27, 2008 at 12:10 am

    The picures in png format is in 32 bit (with a tranparent bit plane) the color is compressed but lossless so the quality is excellent . Great to get pictures with mirror effect etc. (with no pain) and then use them in othter graphic programs.

  • David Bradley // Mar 27, 2008 at 10:03 am

    So it is! I tend to work with RAW camera files, TIFF and JPEG, so haven’t really had a need to look into PNG, but it does look like a powerful format and infinitely better than Compuserve’s GIF…

    db

  • BriGuy // Apr 23, 2008 at 8:50 pm

    You can also resize your page under File – Page Setup, and then simply do a Save as PNG.

    I had a .wmf figure that I wanted to export at high-resolution. I increased the page dimensions to 30 in x 20 in and the resulting PNG was beautiful at 2880 x 2112. You could go even larger than that

  • David Bradley // Apr 23, 2008 at 9:15 pm

    That’s useful to know BriGuy…thanks for the tip

    db

  • Mack // Jun 14, 2008 at 2:25 am

    See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827745
    on how to change the resolution of a PPT slide that you export as a picture. Max resolution permitted is 300 dpi. However, you can 600 dpi by exporting as enhanced meta file, which is (at least on my computer) at 600 dpi. Then you can convert EMF to other formats like TIFF in e.g. MS Office Pict. Manager. If you do use MS-OPM, don’t forget to resize the image by 100% before saving as TIFF.

  • David Bradley // Jun 14, 2008 at 9:34 am

    Thanks for that Mack, I’ll try it next time I need to extract

  • Chris Etheredge // Jun 16, 2008 at 9:55 pm

    Hi David. Our paper was finally published on June 6th. You can find it here: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1000082
    The figures aren’t much to look at, but those are the ones they were giving us a hard time about. They ended up being fine. Thanks for your help!

  • David Bradley // Jun 17, 2008 at 9:41 am

    Ah, well done Chris on making it into PLoS. I just gave your paper a mention in my Geeky Bits micro blog on http://www.sciencebase.com

  • Ruwan // May 1, 2009 at 4:44 am

    Hi David,

    I came across your website while looking for ways to convert images derived in Excel to 300dpi TIFF or EPS files (for reasons similar to those of Chris).

    Have you ever had to do this for the scientists that you work with? I’m afraid sometimes we don’t have a lot of foresight when we are preparing our figures!

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    Ruwan

  • David Bradley // May 1, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    @Ruwan I haven’t tried to extract images from Excel, I presume the saving as web pages and choosing highest res for the images would be the best option.

  • Claire Voiante // Jan 25, 2010 at 10:47 pm

    Good information here to be sure. I elected to change the registry settings for my PP application. Problem is that I was trying to capture a single image off of an individual slide, not the entire slide.

    For those considering using the Adobe Photoshop option to ‘upsample’ the resolution, there is a FREE (and easy) alternative. Suggest downloading the PAINT.NET (freeware) program for this.

    According to Wikipedia, “Paint.NET is a raster graphics editing program for Microsoft Windows. It has evolved from a simple replacement for the Microsoft Paint program into a powerful editor with support for layers, blending, transparency, and plugins.”

    In any event, thanks for the info…

  • Joan Scarfe // Apr 1, 2010 at 1:45 am

    Your instructions saved me. I needed to produce a “camera ready” ad proof in very little time. I don’t use any publishing programs so was stuck with Powerpoint. It printed OK, but the onscreen proof was not professional.

    I had to go through a few more steps:
    1. Print/Save powerpoint slide to .pdf
    2. Screen print the .pdf and paste back into powerpoint.
    3. Crop the screen print.
    4. Stretch the slide and image per your instructions.
    5. Save as web page
    6. Open web page
    7. Do another screen print
    8. Paste screen print back into powerpoint
    9. Crop the screen print
    10. Adjusted the cropped screen print to the necessary size.
    11. Print/Save to .pdf
    12. Voila, a clean, crisp “camera ready” proof ready for approval.

  • Juan // Apr 9, 2010 at 6:42 pm

    great tip! However, I use powerpoint 2007 and there is not an option to save ppt as website. What do I do?

  • David Bradley // Apr 12, 2010 at 8:02 am

    @Juan Yes, there is. “Save As” –> other formats –> “Web page” (.html)

  • gianluca // Nov 9, 2010 at 4:52 pm

    Why don’t just Print/Save powerpoint slide to .pdf (as suggested by @Joan Scarfe) and simply import the generated pdf into Adobe Photoshop. Just a couple of important points:
    1. When saving the pdf set the pdf distiller (or cutePDf, that is free) preferences so it will save at 600dpi and not compress the pictures.
    2. When importing, set the document dpi as 600.

  • markinboone // Nov 10, 2010 at 5:45 pm

    With PowerPoint 2007/2010 (maybe 2008/2011?) the .pptx file is actually a compressed folder. Copy the file, change its file extension to .zip, and you can extract its contents. In the extracted folders \ppt\media you’ll find jpegs for all the images at the highest resolution they have been saved.

  • Nick // Oct 10, 2011 at 10:53 am

    We did the following

    make sure print quality images in ppt file
    highlight all on a page, right click and save as image
    select emf
    load emf in irfan viewer then save as jpg
    open jpg in paint shop pro, apply any fixes/crops then save
    done

  • David Bradley // Oct 10, 2011 at 4:07 pm

    Nick if someone sends you a powerpoint, how can you tell in advance of extracting them if the images are print quality? Moreover, your method requires two additional programs irfan viewer and PSP…

  • jp // Jan 17, 2012 at 7:04 pm

    what about…
    right-click on pic > save as > and then in the dialogue box click the drop-down arrow next to “save” and select “save original”. (Not sure if this is available on ppt < 2010)
    …this seems to recover the original photo res. for me

  • David Bradley // Jan 17, 2012 at 9:07 pm

    No idea. Wasn’t available when I last tried this in the version I had.

  • David Bradley // Jan 17, 2012 at 9:07 pm

    Post was March 2007, after all!