Preview New from clipboard drawings copied from Microsoft Powerpoint have inaccuracies

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Level 1

11 points

Preview New from clipboard drawings copied from Microsoft Powerpoint have inaccuracies

I'm using Microsoft Powerpoint and Preview to make drawings for my thesis report using the following method:

Create lines, text, + shapes drawing in powerpoint
Copy the drawing elements to clipboard
Open Preview and select File -> New from clipboard (this creates a pdf of the drawing)
Save pdf file for use in Latex report

This has worked in the past but now I notice the drawings in preview are poor quality, with many visible aberrations, compared to the original drawings in Powerpoint.

Here are two screenshots to illustrate the problem.

1. Screenshot of original drawing in open Powerpoint file

2. Screenshot of pdf file in Preview with annotations to highlight selected aberrations

Note that in the drawing after importing into Preview, some off the circles are oval-shaped. One of the arrows does not align with the circle.

Anyone know what is causing this? How to fix it, or an alternative work-flow that would achieve what I am doing (I want vector graphics drawings not raster graphics for the latex document).

Posted on Aug 24, 2022 11:28 AM

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Answer 1

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billtubbs Author

Level 1

11 points

Aug 24, 2022 1:32 PM in response to billtubbs

UPDATE: I just found out that in powerpoint you can right-click on the selected object(s) and then select 'Save as Picture' then choose 'pdf' format. This produces a correctly-rendered pdf of just the drawing objects. So I don't need to use Preview anymore.

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Answer 2

billtubbs Author

Level 1

11 points

Aug 24, 2022 1:29 PM in response to dialabrain

Yes I can export the presentation as a pdf and it works correctly. But I only want to make a pdf of the drawing area (not the whole slide). This is the only way I have found to do that. The drawings are for figures in a Latex report.

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