I'm having a problem with vector images in Powerpoint (Mac 2008). On my Mac, I create the images in Adobe Illustrator (CS4), then either drag them directly into Powerpoint or import them (Insert > Picture). The images look great in Powerpoint. After saving, closing, and reopening the Powerpoint file, the images still look great, so I don't think the issue has to do with compression upon saving. I then send the Powerpoint file to a coworker. He opens the file on his PC, and the images are very blurry. Upon copying and pasting the images into another application, he's able to verify that their resolution is tiny, as if Powerpoint is only saving thumbnail versions.

I haven't done a thorough enough test to say for sure, but I recall that, in the past, another coworker was able to open the Powerpoint file on another Mac, and the vector images appeared fine, whereas someone opening the same file on a PC experienced the blurry problem. So it maybe be a Mac and PC issue.



As another theory, could it be that Powerpoint isn't actually importing and embedding my AI files, but it's merely linking to them, so when I send the Powerpoint file to someone else, the links are broken, and thus the person only gets a blurry preview? Or could it be that the AI files are embedded but that, in order to have them rendered, the viewer must also have Adobe Illustrator on his computer?

I'm in the dark here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

One thing I neglected to mention is that I also tried opening the Powerpoint file in OpenOffice Impress on my computer, in which the images didn't appear at all. This makes me think that a person must have special software in order to view an image in Powerpoint that was imported from Adobe Illustrator.

Hi American knight, Actually I didn't try this before, But what if you try (EPS) format?
Maybe this well help.

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried importing an EPS file, but it didn't make a difference. However, I was able to fix the problem by enlarging the image in Illustrator, not Powerpoint. After a series of more tests, here's the conclusion I came to:

When a vector is imported into a Powerpoint document on a Mac, it will stay in lossless vector format on other Macs. However, if the same document is opened on Windows, the vector information is lost, and the same image is rasterized at its original dimensions. Weird.

I'm glad that you solve this problem.
But why you don't just use (JPEG) or (PNG) files?
There is no problem at all when use it in PowerPoint!

When you have the option to use vectors over rasters, I think it's always a better practice to go with vectors. They're lossless, scalable, generally smaller in file size, and, when created Vectors in Illustrator, it needlessly complicates my workflow to have to rasterize them before importing.