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I need to implement several images which exist in Microsoft Powerpoint into a latex document. The images are detailed.

Would anyone have suggestions for a method which will improve resolution over the standard raster export or will automatically crop down to a selection unlike the standard vector export?

Raster option: .png

Selecting the objects and right clicking to exporting as .png produces terrible results, as the default export resolution of Powerpoint is not high enough.

Export resolution can only be increased in Powerpoint by editing a registry value, to my knowledge. This is not possible for me, due to work security policies. Obtaining new software is also quite difficult.

Vector option: .pdf

Printing to .pdf prints the whole slide. I would like to print only a selection or a very easy method to autocrop the edges down to the minimum.

kando
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  • For a raster solution, I make the image as big as it will fit on my screen (PC), and do a screen capture with CTL-ALT-PrtScn. Then I copy the buffer (CTL-v) into graphics editing software, crop the extraneous stuff, and save it as a raster image. The resolution seems adequate for most situations. – Steven B. Segletes Jul 10 '15 at 16:14
  • @StevenB.Segletes Print screen does not have enough resolution. – kando Jul 10 '15 at 16:21
  • A much more labor intensive variant on my earlier suggestion is to fit subsections of the image into the screen resolution and do as I said earlier. Then, the added difficulty is to crop the images at exactly the right spot, before remerging them. I must ask, though, what is your output medium? Paper? Projected screen? Unless one is printing things like blueprints, posters, or glossy PR for customers, the output medium's resolution is usually no finer than a hi-res screen. – Steven B. Segletes Jul 10 '15 at 16:34
  • Even if you print the whole slide, once you have the pdf image, you can clip it in \includegraphics and select only the fragment you need. – Ignasi Jul 10 '15 at 16:42
  • @StevenB.Segletes Oop. The print-screen issue was Simulink-related, not powerpoint related. I'm mixing my issues. Printscreen is fine, aside from needing to zoom-center-printscncopypasta-crop-save for each image rather than simply save for each image. – kando Jul 10 '15 at 16:46
  • @kando Well, yes, there is no free lunch (that I am aware of). Bill Gates saw to that! – Steven B. Segletes Jul 10 '15 at 16:48
  • @Ignasi This is similar to the printscreen method. I should have specified that I was hoping for a 1-stop shop to export to a high-res or vector image which was cropped to a minimum without the need for fine tuning. – kando Jul 10 '15 at 17:02
  • You can use this method to crop: http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/9562/17423 – Sean Allred Jul 10 '15 at 17:23

3 Answers3

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I would suggest to you to print to .pdf and then use a tool to select the area you need and cut it from the pdf. Then import the pdf to you latex

Charles Henrique Porto Ferreir
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  • Some have mentioned that increasing the size of the slide can improve its resolution, but this sounds like a dirty method. Do you ever do this? I'll also have to see if our .pdf reader has crop capabilities. – kando Jul 10 '15 at 16:27
  • Do you know a method to automate the crop to base minimum? Is this what the standalone package can be used for? I don't always completely understand it's original intentions. (I use standalone for creating section and subsection files in hierarchal format; I have not used it for creating standalone images.) – kando Jul 10 '15 at 16:28
  • @kando Not standalone. The command line tool pdfcrop on the other hand, does exactly that. – Torbjørn T. Jul 10 '15 at 16:45
  • In my macbook i've used the standard image viewer to cut pdf. You can find it in the tool bar. I already did it with ubuntu, but i don't remember the tool i used :( – Charles Henrique Porto Ferreir Jul 10 '15 at 17:36
  • A vector image was best, but I still need to find a Windows tool which will crop the .pdf down to the minimum. Any suggestions? (I have Foxit PhantomPDF [Standard Edition] - it seems to retain any crop data in history, when I really want to remove all but the crop data.) – kando Jul 13 '15 at 12:14
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In Lyx page, you can find Metafile to EPS Converter software. Once installed you can copy a figure from PowerPoint, paste into MetafiletoEPSConverter and obtain a perfectly cropped eps file.

enter image description here

Later on with epstopdf, eps2pdf or imagemagick you can obtain the corresponding pdf file.

enter image description here

Ignasi
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  • This is a good start, but this requires several steps and several softwares. For steps, I'm looking for the 1-step process, if possible. For softwares, all softwares will need to be risk assessed by my company. Risk assessment is a process which can take months, even if it shouldn't. – kando Jul 10 '15 at 16:32
  • At least in combination with modern PowerPoint 2016, this tool just embeds a raster graphic into the EPS file, so scalability and accessibility are lost. – Christoph Thiede Jan 16 '23 at 19:21
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Assuming that you created the diagram with the powerpoint tools.

1) Draw the diagram

2) Right mouse extended select just you diagram, not the entire slide.

3) Left click INSIDE of one of the outlined pieces of the diagram.

4) Choose save to file as a *.png to the folder with the *.tex file.

5) Now just use \includegraphics{filename} and just the portion of the slide which you highlighted will be displayed.

Note: When I was teaching my Technical Writing Using LaTeX course, I would have the students use PowerPoint as a graphic file conversion tool, since you can drag and drop almost any graphic into powerpoint and then export it out as a *.png

R. Schumacher
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