What determines the physical size of a pasted bitmap?

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When a bitmap on the clipboard is pasted to a (truly) blank powerpoint slide,
what determines the physical size of it, relative to the size of the slide?

I am often pasting a graphic of a fixed number of pixels wide and high, but
on different computers, the pasted graphic appears smaller or larger (~25%)
relative to the slide. Manually re-sizing it can lead to inconsistency
and/or is tedious.

The two PCs have the same, normal 96 dpi display settings, but different
screen resolutions. Both use PowerPoint 2002.

Thanks in advance for any help.

--Ian
 
When a bitmap on the clipboard is pasted to a (truly) blank powerpoint slide,
what determines the physical size of it, relative to the size of the slide?

I am often pasting a graphic of a fixed number of pixels wide and high, but
on different computers, the pasted graphic appears smaller or larger (~25%)
relative to the slide. Manually re-sizing it can lead to inconsistency
and/or is tedious.

The two PCs have the same, normal 96 dpi display settings, but different
screen resolutions. Both use PowerPoint 2002.
Click to expand...

Have you tried setting the PCs to the same resolution to see if that eliminates
the problem?
 
Steve Rindsberg said:
Have you tried setting the PCs to the same resolution to see if that eliminates
the problem?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately the two computers (laptops) have very different native screen
resolutions (1400x1050 & 1024x640(?) ). Next time I have access to the latter
I'll try using an external monitor on each to enable a common screen
resolution.

Meanwhile, I did run one PC at both 1280x1024 and 1280x768, and the graphics
pasted to the same size on the PPT slide. So there is a difference between
the PCs...

I the issue is how the slide size (i.e the boundaries of the white "paper"
in the Normal view) defined? A dimension in inches, coupled with a DPI value?
Or just a set number of pixels horizontally and vertically?

This must be related to the "File>Page Setup>Slides sized for:" setting, but
the Help does not give much info on this setting, especially the on-screen
setting. My next step is to test that setting on both PCs......
 
Unfortunately the two computers (laptops) have very different native screen
resolutions (1400x1050 & 1024x640(?) ). Next time I have access to the latter
I'll try using an external monitor on each to enable a common screen
resolution.
Click to expand...

Or set them identically and don't worry if they look a bit nasty (temporarily) due
to mismatched video display vs LCD native rez.
Meanwhile, I did run one PC at both 1280x1024 and 1280x768, and the graphics
pasted to the same size on the PPT slide. So there is a difference between
the PCs...

I the issue is how the slide size (i.e the boundaries of the white "paper"
in the Normal view) defined? A dimension in inches, coupled with a DPI value?
Or just a set number of pixels horizontally and vertically?
Click to expand...

The paper size (File, Page Setup) is more a mental thing than a real value, at least
insofar as what's displayed on screen in pixels, since you can change the zoom value
to change the on-screen size of anything on the page.

But the page size does control things to some extent.
For example, if I take a 384pixel wide image that I happened to have handy and
insert it into PPT 2003 via Insert, Picture, From File, it comes in at 4.8 inches
wide on the default 10" page. This fits with what I already know about PPT2003:
that it uses 80dpi as a default setting. 384 pixels / 80dpi = 4.8"

If you double the size of the page to 20", the dpi is effectively cut in half, so
the same image comes in at 384 / 40dpi = 9.6"

Now to confuse things further, some images can contain data that says "I don't care
how many pixels you think I have or how many DPI you think you're working at, make
me 10 inches wide. Got it?" And generally PPT gets it and does what it's told.

All very confusing. If you're shooting for screen shows, IMO it's far simpler to
decide what the projector's max resolution is, set the computer to match that, size
your images accordingly (ie, 1024x768 projector? make full screen images 1024x768
and smaller images proportionally fewer pixels). And ignore the size PPT brings
them in at, since you know better. ;-)

For consistent sizing, a tool like our free PPTools StarterSet
(http://starterset.pptools.com) is handy; lets you pick up and memorize the size of
an image or other shape, then set any other shape to exactly that size/position with
a single click.
 
Thank you Steve -- good answer, and lots for me to pursue!
Click to expand...

You're welcome. Best summary I can give you is:

You're smarter than PPT.
You know the ultimate resolution that the projector will use. Make your images that size
(in pixels) and ignore what PPT thinks about it.
You're smarter than PPT.
 
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