2010 July | Glenn Ward

Saving down graphics from powerpoint as a picture, png or jpg

I didn’t realise that this was an unknown to many but often there is a need to pull things out of PowerPoint for alternative uses rather than put them in. This is often the case for me when produce video reports where the findings have been visualised in PowerPoint. So, it’s as simple as this, File > Save As > under the naming form fill change the drop down to png or jpg and hit save, you will then be prompted current slide or every slide, choose every slide and each slide in he deck will be saved as a separate picture or image.

If you just require an element if the slide you can right click and save as image in much the same way.

Top tip,
If your output proposed use is a higher quality than the resolution of the ppt you can often scale up your deck to A3, any vector graphics will be re sized and the quality of the output increased. Go, File > Page Setup and adjust the page accordingly.

Should we be filming in HD for corporate / presentation video output?

The time has come to make the decision. HD or not to HD? And for those still getting mixed up, HD is High Definition and HDD is Hard Disc Drive, be sure you know the difference when you are purchasing you video camera! For a few reasons I have still been shooting in SD (Standard Definition) for corporate and by corporate I mean presentation video output (video for PowerPoint etc) File size being one, especially as I have footage backed up from my edit suite to a server daily and then an off site tape backup. Also, shooting to DV tapes provided a simple short term backup solution. Many of the videos produced are also not to be viewed on a television but accompanying information on a PowerPoint slide, so is often shown at in smaller dimension.

The thing is, more and more, stand alone presentation pieces are played on the desktop or from an online portal with the ability to display at full screen, now obviously standard definition is 720 x 576 against most monitor screen dimensions being at least 1024 px wide, in which case a SD is stretched to fit the screen causing massive pixelation.

A point to note that file compression is much better than it used to be so producing HD videos as mpeg4 with a h.264 codec has less file size implications and doesn’t cause your machine to grind to a halt when you try and play it back on desktop software.

My final point in my HD or not to HD argument that is fast leaning toward A HD win is that of Hardware. Even prosumer HDD cameras like the Everio have moved away from mere TV playback through your AV cables but not record in edit suite friendly formats. This means, drag and drop functionality that saves hours on your production work flow and produces better output.