What is a reasonable resolution for A4 or 8.5x11 Keynote slides printing?

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Level 1

41 points

What is a reasonable resolution for A4 or 8.5x11 Keynote slides printing?

Hello

I am building templates for our company: standard, 16x9 etc. One of the templates is destined for Printed Reports only i.e. it will use much smaller fonts and will be formated for paper reading only. I am trying to establish which size I should set my slides at for optimal printing and file management using a colour laser printer (standard office workhorse).

Taking A4 as an example (same issue with US sizes), if I want to set the slide at 300 dots per inch, then it should be 3508 x 2480. This is likely to give me problems with some photos and lots of (non vector) graphics which will need to be blown up way beyond their resolution.

The alternative is to go for 72 dpi equivalent, that is 842 x 595. Would I then get the opposite problem of blurry printing and unsharp fonts?

Any advice from practitioners appreciated!

Thanks

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7.3), i7 - 4/240

Posted on Apr 15, 2012 7:18 AM

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Answer 1

kostby

Level 4

2,964 points

Apr 16, 2012 10:23 AM in response to Moscool

Welcome to Apple Support Communities.

Let me suggest another approach that might solve your problem.

Does your printer driver software let you print multiple 'slides' on a single page?

Then you don't have to resize/redesign everything manually.

The Keynote and the printer software do the resizing.

For example, my (monochrome) HP LaserJet 1320 driver can print from 2 to 16 'pages' on a single sheet. (It also offers a 'booklet' option.)

I used a 1024x768 screen slide resolution and selected '4 pages per sheet' (landscape orientation) in the default printer driver under Layout.

In the Keynote options, I selected 'Individual Slide' option, but Keynote also offers Slides with Notes, Outline, and Handout options, and I think all Keynote choices are independent of printer selection. (If I did not select '4-pages on 1' in Layout, the Keynote would only offer 1 slide per page in this view.)

Message was edited by: kostby

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Answer 2

Moscool Author

Level 1

41 points

Apr 16, 2012 10:34 AM in response to kostby

Thanks kostby, this is not really what I had in mind. Let me explain my challenge more clearly: I am creating a report template for those cases where instead of writing a Word document, you actually create a landscape document (a slide) but using much smaller fonts and a lot more text than in a presentation.

Each slide will normally print well at any resolution because modern fonts are vector objects, but it is different for photographs and logos (gif or png for example).

Intriguingly I ran some tests this morning on files saved at the equivalent of 72, 150, 240 and 300 dpi and ran them through my HP colour laser (600 dpi) and found very little difference except when you had a graphic that clearly needed scaling up (e.g. a small logo blown up to fit 3500 pixels resolution).

I think that unless somebody shows me differently I will optimise my slides for reports at 2048x1448: it is paper A4 size equivalent at 175 dpi and neatly fits the iPad Retina display if I want to show off a report on the tablet.

François

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Answer 3

kostby

Level 4

2,964 points

Apr 16, 2012 11:05 AM in response to Moscool

Thanks for the additional info. Sounds like you've found a solution!

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