Color Differences Between Versions

[Joseph N.]

I had to edit a presentation prepared in PPT 2003. I was viewing
it in PPT 2002. The colors were different than they appeared to
the author. Purples were blue. The same color shift appeared when
the author viewed the presentation on a different (third) machine,
using PPT 2000 (or whatever shipped with Office 2000).
Interestingly, the colors were rendered accurately when the
presentation was opened in Lotus Freelance Graphics, ver. 9.8. Is
there any way to ensure that the colors I am seeing on my
configuration in PPT 2002 are the same as the author is seeing in
her setup with PPT 2003, other than the minor shifts that different
monitors or video cards would cause?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I had to edit a presentation prepared in PPT 2003. I was viewing
it in PPT 2002. The colors were different than they appeared to
the author. Purples were blue. The same color shift appeared when
the author viewed the presentation on a different (third) machine,
using PPT 2000 (or whatever shipped with Office 2000).
Interestingly, the colors were rendered accurately when the
presentation was opened in Lotus Freelance Graphics, ver. 9.8. Is
there any way to ensure that the colors I am seeing on my
configuration in PPT 2002 are the same as the author is seeing in
her setup with PPT 2003, other than the minor shifts that different
monitors or video cards would cause?

It's hard to tell from this description exactly what's going on.
It sounds, though, as if the author was using some sort of system-level color
calibration software and a profile targeted to a CMYK output device or process.
That would render a normal RGB 0/0/255 blue as a royal purple.

 

[Joseph N.]

It's hard to tell from this description exactly what's going on.
It sounds, though, as if the author was using some sort of
system-level color calibration software and a profile targeted
to a CMYK output device or process. That would render a normal
RGB 0/0/255 blue as a royal purple.

Thanks Steve. FWIW, two notes which I'll make only in case this issue interests you or Microsoft. One is that the author did not use any software as you described. She worked on a fairly new IBM ThinkCentre PC with OEM Office 2003. She e-mailed me the presentation file unchanged from PPT 2003's output onto her hard disk. The other item is that the template she used was "Glass Layers," which she saw (on an IBM PC with an IBM monitor) as having shades of blue areas and light purple areas (which is also how Lotus FLG interpreted it). On my IBM PC with an IBM monitor using PPT 2002, it is all shades of blue; same on an IBM ThinkPad laptop using PPT 2000 (I think). Frankly, it looks good either way, but it's a concern because of the potential for unforseen changes on client machines.

 

[Sonia]

If you go to View > Master > Slide Master and then to Format > Background and
click on the color box and select Fill Effects and then on the Gradient tab you
click on the chevron next to Color 1, click on More Colors and then click on the
Custom tab, what RGB settings do you see?

I see Red=0, Green=128, and Blue=0 which is a very pure green color. Doing the
same for color 2 I see 0,204,0. So I would say that someone has played with the
colors in your version of Glass Layers. What are the RGB values for the two
colors in your version of the template? That will tell us whether you should
both be seeing purple as one of them.

 

[Joseph N.]

What are the RGB values for the two
colors in your version of the template?

The Glass Layers template from my setup has the same RGB values as yours. The Glass Layers presentation from my colleague has a different set of values: 0,0,153 and 0,0,255. Hers, in other words, is blue, not green. However that may be--I have not yet asked her if she played with the colors, although that is very unlikely--the problem is that the *same* values show differently under different versions of Power Point on different systems. It's not the RGB color scheme that is the cause; it's something to do with PPT. (I do not think the computer system or monitor or video card is involved because a different program on my machine "sees" the colors the same way that PPT 2003 on the author's machine sees them, which is different than the way PPT 2002 sees them on my machine.)

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

It sounds as though you may want to set up a couple of simple test slides to get
to the bottom of this. A few rectangles with their fills set to some of the
values in question will simplify things, eliminate variables.

Also include a few pure gray patches (127/127/127 for middle gray and perhaps one
at 225/225/225 as well). See if they all display identically on different
systems.

There's always going to be a certain amount of variation from one system to
another; monitor and video cards, the settings for both (and don't forget that
both monitor and some video cards can have their color balance adjusted by users),
and system level color profiles can all affect the way color is displayed.
Utilities like Adobe's gamma correction gadget might also come into play.