Image problems with Windows PowerPoint
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008It’s been quite a while since I had to explain compatibility problems between programs running on Macintosh and Windows PCs…here we go again.
If you’ve created a PowerPoint presentation (or Word document) on a Macintosh and transfered your file to a Windows PC in a campus classroom or lecture hall, you may have been greeted with the following caution:
QuickTime(TM) and a Photo - JPEG decompressor are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime(TM) and a TIFF decompressor are needed to see this picture.
The problem is in HOW the image is inserted into Powerpoint or Word. Any image that is inserted using the menu option “Insert:Picture: From File…” will be viewable on both platforms. If you drag and drop from the web, for example, or paste into Powerpoint, the image will appear in Powerpoint on the Mac, but will NOT be viewable on PC’s.
The problem, in a nutshell, is that Windows PowerPoint doesn’t support QuickTime compression and installing QuickTime on the PC won’t help. You’ll need to go back to the Mac to fix the problem by re-inserting the graphic into PowerPoint.
DO NOT drag and drop or copy and paste the graphic into PowerPoint. That’s what probably caused the problem in the first place. Save the image to a folder on your Mac. Then use the Insert:Picture: From File… options to insert the image into PowerPoint.
There are several variations of this problems that require additional consideration. If you have experienced any of these problems, let us know. If you have found other solutions, we would be happy to share them on this blog.