How do I scan slides (35mm) straight into powerpoint slides?

[Guest]

I am supposed to scan slides into PowerPoint for someone. I was scanning them
into the program that came with the scanner, saving the images as tiffs, and
then inserting them into powerpoint as background images for each slide. This
was working, but when I tried to open it after 140 slides, it froze every
time. I was wondering if there is a way to make each tiff a slide in
PowerPoint. If not, how can I scan them in as slides.
Thanks,
D

 

[Bill Dilworth]

It is fairly simple, don't.

Well, you can use the Insert => Picture => From scanner commands (depending
on the version of PowerPoint you are using and if you have set up your
TWAIN/WIA interfaces), but I strongly recommend against it.

Most scanners come with software that saves the images to the hard drive.
Some of these will even automatically sequence the image file names for you.

The preferred method for inserting scanned pictures, documents, or slides
into a PowerPoint presentation, is to:
1) Scan the document
2) Save to the hard drive
3) Insert from the hard drive as an image

--
Bill Dilworth
A proud member of the Microsoft PPT MVP Team
Users helping fellow users.
http://billdilworth.mvps.org
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
vestprog2@ Please read the PowerPoint FAQ pages.
yahoo. They answer most of our questions.
com www.pptfaq.com
..

 

[Guest]

Should I insert them as backgrounds or just pictures? Also, how big should
the pictures be if I want 140+ in a powerpoint?

Thanks,
D

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I am supposed to scan slides into PowerPoint for someone. I was scanning them
into the program that came with the scanner, saving the images as tiffs, and
then inserting them into powerpoint as background images for each slide. This
was working, but when I tried to open it after 140 slides, it froze every
time. I was wondering if there is a way to make each tiff a slide in
PowerPoint. If not, how can I scan them in as slides.

How large is each TIFF file from the scanner. It sounds as though you're doing
things more or less the right way but possibly the images are far larger than
they need to be.

Open one in an image editing program and find out what the dimensions are in
pixels. Anything over 1024x768 is over the top for most purposes (but before
making any firm decision, let us know how the presentation will be used).

 

[Guest]

Some slides are text only and others are pictures of skin diseases. Each tiff
is 4.08 MB and I think they were 1024x768 each. Should I insert them as
backgrounds or some other way?

Thanks,
D

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Some slides are text only and others are pictures of skin diseases. Each tiff
is 4.08 MB and I think they were 1024x768 each. Should I insert them as
backgrounds or some other way?

The size doesn't seem right. Even uncompressed, they should be 1024x768x3 or only
about half that size.

Historically, PPT's had trouble with some TIFF varieties also.

I'd doublecheck that size and re-save as PNG or even JPG for the images that are
photos rather than text and try again.

Have a look here as well:

BATCH IMPORT images into PowerPoint
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00050.htm

 

[Guest]

Each scan was 8-bits deep. Could that be the memory problem? Also, should I
keep the text slides as tiffs or convert those to jpeg, too?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Each scan was 8-bits deep. Could that be the memory problem?

Scanner manufacturers and their software companions have a habit of inventing their ow
terminology for everything. Let's try this:

In Windows Explorer, rightclick one of the TIFs. Choose Properties. Look at the
Summary tab. There it'll tell you the height and width in pixels and the bit depth.
What are those values?

Also, should I
keep the text slides as tiffs or convert those to jpeg, too?

TIFF or PNG but not JPG, which'll usually make them look fairly horrible. PNG is a
better choice for use in PPT than TIFF