Transparency

[Dave]

I have a windows Powerpoint 2003 presenation that has text with a
colored background which has been set to "semi-transparency". On some
Windows computers this appears as nicely transparent while on others
it appears transparent but with a pattern in the background. Any idea
what causes this or how to fix?

 

[Echo S]

I have a windows Powerpoint 2003 presenation that has text with a
colored background which has been set to "semi-transparency". On some
Windows computers this appears as nicely transparent while on others
it appears transparent but with a pattern in the background. Any idea
what causes this or how to fix?

Make sure that all the computers are using display color depth of at least
16-bit or higher. If they're in 256 color mode, semitransparencies can look
pretty bad. Those settings can be found by right-clicking the desktop and
choosing Properties.

It's also possible that the other computers are using PPT 2000 or 97. The
semitransparencies there are just a set value; there's no slider as with PPT
2002 (aka PPT XP) and 2003, so they may not show as nicely.

If you really need these transparencies to be perfect, create the textboxes
with the semitransparent fills using layer opacity or a mask/channel in
something like Photoshop. Then save as a PNG (or TIF) and use
Insert/Picture/From File to insert the PNG into PPT.