Enormous file sizes when printing

  • Thread starter Thread starter Cindy
  • Start date Start date
C

Cindy

I have a 1.5MB file that rips as 220MB file in the
printer. We are printing the background. The original
background image was saved as a JPG, 96 dpi with a
compression of 5.

Why it it making the file so big when printing???

Thanks!
 
I have a 1.5MB file that rips as 220MB file in the
printer. We are printing the background.
Click to expand...

Turn off background printing in PPT for starters. Windows already does printer
spooling; PPT's background printing seems to be mainly useful for botching
print jobs. ;-)
The original
background image was saved as a JPG, 96 dpi with a
compression of 5.
Click to expand...

96dpi tells us how many dots there are per inch, not how many dots or how many
inches. In short: nothing. How large is the image in pixels?
Why it it making the file so big when printing???
Click to expand...

Need more info. See above for starters.

Also, how large a page size are you ripping to and at what DPI?

Also, are there any images with transparency, or has transparency been applied
to any shapes in the presentation? That can really bump the file size.

--
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================
Featured Presenter, PowerPoint Live 2004
October 10-13, San Diego, CA www.PowerPointLive.com
================================================
 
Steve,

:) We don't have "background printing" on, what I was
trying to say is that we are printing the background
image.

The background image is the size of the slide: 960x720.

We do have about 4 logos that we have set the background
to be transparent using the "set transparent color" tool
in PPT.

The page size is letter, and I'm not certain at what dpi
it prints at. I hit print... and then ok... and that's it.

Oh yeah, and when I create a pdf of the PPT file and print
from the pdf, it goes MUCH faster...

-cindy
 
We do have about 4 logos that we have set the background
to be transparent using the "set transparent color" tool
in PPT.
Click to expand...
OK...what resolution (number of pixels) are the 4 logos.

When you print...can you check the "printer properties" to see what resolution your printer is set to print at?

e.g. 300dpi 600dpi 1200dpi

It is normal for a "print file" to be very big compared to the powerpoint file.

Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp

awesome - powerpoint backgrounds,
free powerpoint templates, tutorials, hints and tips etc
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com
 
I don't know what resolution the logos are. Usually we
have them inserted at 96 or 150 dpi... They're all about
2.5"w x 0.95"h, in this particular instance, they were
pulled directly out of another PPT file...

Ok, and the printer's resolution says that it's set to the
printer's default...

Yeah, I know they always get bigger when you print them...
but only on certain presentations does it seem to have a
MAJOR slow down at our printers. We're talking about
1/10th of the normal printing speed.

Thanks!!!
-----Original Message-----
OK...what resolution (number of pixels) are the 4 logos.

When you print...can you check the "printer properties"
Click to expand...
to see what resolution your printer is set to print at?
 
:) We don't have "background printing" on, what I was
trying to say is that we are printing the background
image.
Click to expand...

Good ... we like that better. ;-)
The background image is the size of the slide: 960x720.
Click to expand...

?? A slide isn't any particular size in pixels.
We do have about 4 logos that we have set the background
to be transparent using the "set transparent color" tool
in PPT.
Click to expand...

Try resetting each of those images to lose the transparency for starters.
It's amazing how much printing overhead that can add.
See if that helps; if so, we'll go forth from there.
The page size is letter, and I'm not certain at what dpi
it prints at. I hit print... and then ok... and that's it.

Oh yeah, and when I create a pdf of the PPT file and print
from the pdf, it goes MUCH faster...
Click to expand...

--
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================
Featured Presenter, PowerPoint Live 2004
October 10-13, San Diego, CA www.PowerPointLive.com
================================================
 
I don't know what resolution the logos are. Usually we
have them inserted at 96 or 150 dpi
Click to expand...

Now now now ... you're babbling again. ;-)

Copy them in PPT then paste them into MS Image Editor if you want to find out
how big they really are.


... They're all about
2.5"w x 0.95"h, in this particular instance, they were
pulled directly out of another PPT file...

Ok, and the printer's resolution says that it's set to the
printer's default...

Yeah, I know they always get bigger when you print them...
but only on certain presentations does it seem to have a
MAJOR slow down at our printers. We're talking about
1/10th of the normal printing speed.

Thanks!!!

to see what resolution your printer is set to print at?
Click to expand...

--
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================
Featured Presenter, PowerPoint Live 2004
October 10-13, San Diego, CA www.PowerPointLive.com
================================================
 
This may help with visualizing what the computer has to do, and why the
print files can get so big.

Think of it as those neat pictures in the old encyclopedias where you could
add layers to the human body. While this isn't a perfect analogy, it does
hold up pretty well. On these pictures in the encyclopedias, they start
with the skeleton on a regular page and have several clear plastic pages
that lay over this basic skeleton. They add the layer with the blood
vessels, then the layer with the muscles, then the skin. Each layer was
mostly clear plastic (only the parts that changed were drawn on the
plastic), but it was a full page overlay.

Each object with a transparency adds a new page layer to the printer's
output file. The reason that PDF works so much faster for printing, is that
the slides layers have been flattened to a single layer. Adobe software
does the layering of transparencies and generates a single layer picture
that is sends as a single layer page.

I crashed a printer once, by creating a slide with a couple of hundred
partial transparencies on it. Poor thing, I think it is still wheezing.

Hope this helps,

Bill Dilworth
Microsoft PPT MVP Team
===============
Please spend a few minutes checking vestprog2@
out www.pptfaq.com This link will yahoo.
answer most of our questions, before com
you think to ask them.

Change org to com to defuse anti-spam,
ant-virus, anti-nuisance misdirection.
..
..
 
Each object with a transparency adds a new page layer to the printer's
output file.
Click to expand...

FWIW, it's worse than that.

Before transparency:

Rectangle B, atop
Rectangle A

After transparency:

A huge series of little 1-pixel high bitmaps that, together, look like
Rectangle B, transparently sitting atop Rectangle A.
 
Steve... what in the world??? I pasted a logo from PPT
(measurements from PPT indicate that the size was H:0.95";
w:2.87"--sorry, that's all I have to go on!)

And when I pasted it into MS Photo editor (aside from
going on huge canvas) after being cropped ended up as:
H: 3" x W: 8.5

AHHHHHHH!!!! This is so frustrating!... what's going on?
 
Oooooooh.... actually, that worked quite well as a
visualization...

So, does this same thing happen when you make it
transparent in MS Photo editor? Or does that not even
matter?
 
Steve... what in the world??? I pasted a logo from PPT
(measurements from PPT indicate that the size was H:0.95";
w:2.87"--sorry, that's all I have to go on!)

And when I pasted it into MS Photo editor (aside from
going on huge canvas) after being cropped ended up as:
H: 3" x W: 8.5

AHHHHHHH!!!! This is so frustrating!... what's going on?
Click to expand...

Take a pill, close your eyes, breathe deeply, think calming thoughts.

OK.

Short version: Ignore it. It signifieth not. Means nothing. Except that
maybe the image is bigger than it needs to be for your purposes.

Here's the thing. Images are just collections of numbers that represent the
colors of the dots that make up the image. The dots themselves don't really
exist until the image is displayed or printed, so ... KEY POINT HERE ... they
have no size. None.

Some file formats allow us to store info in addition to the color info that
says "Let's pretend that I'm 8.5 inches wide". If you import one of those into
a program that also likes to play pretend, it'll import the image at that size.
That's handy sometimes.

If the file format or the program don't have such a vivid imagination, then the
image comes in at ... well gee. What size should we make it? How do we decide?
Well, most apps apply an arbitrary figure; depending on the PPT version you
use and other stuff, it might be 96 or 120 or 72 or something else. But it'll
take the number of dots (pixels) in the image, divide that by our arbitrary
number and voila! Inches!

And if after that you scale the image up or down in PPT, it doesn't change the
number of pixels in the image, just how big it's displayed.

So your image might have originally been 216 pixels high and shrunk down to
.95" in PPT, but when copy/pasted to Photo Editor and brought back into PPT,
PPT might have applied its arbitrary 72 (dpi) magic number ... 216/72 = 3".


--
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================
Featured Presenter, PowerPoint Live 2004
October 10-13, San Diego, CA www.PowerPointLive.com
================================================
 
Oooooooh.... actually, that worked quite well as a
visualization...

So, does this same thing happen when you make it
transparent in MS Photo editor? Or does that not even
matter?
Click to expand...

Visually, yes, pretty much the same deal, though transparency in PhotoEditor
will be on/off, not "on a sliding scale from 0 to 100", kind of like the
transparent pixel wand on the Picture toolbar in PPT.

And it'll still give your printer fits.


--
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================
Featured Presenter, PowerPoint Live 2004
October 10-13, San Diego, CA www.PowerPointLive.com
================================================
 
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