Why are my Powerpoint charts getting stretched on my widescreen?

[Guest]

I have a laptop with a widescreen monitor. When I'm creating charts in
Powerpoint, the overal dimensions of the chart stay fixed when I'm done
editing, but the text all gets stretched horizontally, throwing the aspect
ratios out of what and making my fonts look terrible. I'm assuming there's
some weird bug where Powerpoint is stretching these based on some 4:3 vs.
16:9 confusion. The weird thing is that all the rest of my Powerpoint objects
are fine--e.g. ordinary text doesn't get stretched.

 

[Echo S]

Try turning off AutoScale on the Font tab (when you have a chart activated
for editing).

 

[Guest]

I tried that but it did work. It looks like it made things marginally better
but not by much. The worst part about the horizontal stretch is that it
completely kills the letter spacing so not only is the text ugly, but it's
hard to read.

Try turning off AutoScale on the Font tab (when you have a chart activated
for editing).

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

I have a laptop with a widescreen monitor. When I'm creating charts in
Powerpoint, the overal dimensions of the chart stay fixed when I'm done
editing, but the text all gets stretched horizontally, throwing the aspect
ratios out of what and making my fonts look terrible. I'm assuming there's
some weird bug where Powerpoint is stretching these based on some 4:3 vs.
16:9 confusion. The weird thing is that all the rest of my Powerpoint objects
are fine--e.g. ordinary text doesn't get stretched.

 

[Echo S]

Nuts. I was hoping that would resolve the problem.

I'm not sure what else to suggest, other than resizing the charts
(right-click, choose Format/Object) so that they're 100% x 100%.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

I tried that but it did work. It looks like it made things marginally better
but not by much. The worst part about the horizontal stretch is that it
completely kills the letter spacing so not only is the text ugly, but it's
hard to read.

Try turning off AutoScale on the Font tab (when you have a chart activated
for editing).

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

I have a laptop with a widescreen monitor. When I'm creating charts in
Powerpoint, the overal dimensions of the chart stay fixed when I'm done
editing, but the text all gets stretched horizontally, throwing the aspect
ratios out of what and making my fonts look terrible. I'm assuming there's
some weird bug where Powerpoint is stretching these based on some 4:3 vs.
16:9 confusion. The weird thing is that all the rest of my Powerpoint objects
are fine--e.g. ordinary text doesn't get stretched.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I have a laptop with a widescreen monitor. When I'm creating charts in
Powerpoint, the overal dimensions of the chart stay fixed when I'm done
editing, but the text all gets stretched horizontally, throwing the aspect
ratios out of what and making my fonts look terrible. I'm assuming there's
some weird bug where Powerpoint is stretching these based on some 4:3 vs.
16:9 confusion. The weird thing is that all the rest of my Powerpoint objects
are fine--e.g. ordinary text doesn't get stretched.

It's not really a bug so much as a side effect of the way PPT works.

It scales slides up to fit whatever monitor you're running on. If you've
designed a 4:3 ratio presenation (the default) and run it on widescreen, PPT
stretches everything. It can't stretch your text, so that stays the same; all
other graphics (and your charts) will stretch, most likely.

Have a look here for some more explanation and workaround:
Make screenshow fill a wide screen display
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00566.htm

 

[Guest]

I think you've misunderstood my problem. I realize that the slides will be
scaled up during presentation, but I'm talkign about a problem at the time of
creation.

Everything else on my slide looks fine. When I add a chart, it looks fine as
long as I'm editing it, but once I'm done editing, it stretches horizontally
and looks ugly. I can only assume this has something to do with PowerPoint
handles the graphics--similar to how icons get all screwy when you play with
the dot pitch on your laptop monitor, even though everything else looks fine.

Anyhow, the workaround I've found for the time-being is to pick a
conventional 4:3 aspect resolution setting and set my video card NOT to
stretch the image to fit the screen (i.e. leaving vertical black gutters on
the side of my monitor). When I do this, creating charts works fine. Then I
can open these files later on in PowerPoint (back in a 16:9 aspect
resolution) and the graphs still look fine--unless I edit them, in which case
the problem emerges again.

This is probably something Microsoft needs to fix at the source in a later
release.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I think you've misunderstood my problem. I realize that the slides will be
scaled up during presentation, but I'm talkign about a problem at the time of
creation.

You're right, I'd missed that.

Anyhow, the workaround I've found for the time-being is to pick a
conventional 4:3 aspect resolution setting and set my video card NOT to
stretch the image to fit the screen (i.e. leaving vertical black gutters on
the side of my monitor). When I do this, creating charts works fine. Then I
can open these files later on in PowerPoint (back in a 16:9 aspect
resolution) and the graphs still look fine--unless I edit them, in which case
the problem emerges again.

Very odd. I use several versions of PPT regularly on a wide-screen laptop (though
mine's a 1.666... aspect ratio where yours is 1.77...) No similar problems here. I
wonder if it triggers because of that little extra bit of width? Can you set your
video to say 1280x768 and see the same problem? That'd give you a bit extra width
if not.

 

[Guest]

I'm having the exact same problem -- I'll give your fix a try - what a pain!

Cheers,

PR

 

[Echo S]

Can't tell what fix you're referring to. If it's turning off autoscale on
the chart font, it's not *that* big a pain.

 

[Guest]

Hi Echo,

I'm referring to the pain of altering the scren size for working in
PowerPoint. By the way, the fonts look normal now that I've made the screen
size 1024 x 768. It makes two large black columns on either side of the
working area (why bother having a widescreen?) but at least it works. Is
there a way to suggest to MicroSoft that this quirk is addressed? I'd much
rather be working with the full screen

Thanks to all for advice!

PR

 

[Echo S]

I agree that would be a pain. So, again, have you tried turning off the
autoscale on the font charts? Does that fix it?

 

[Guest]

No, the software is flawed. The only way around this was changing the monitor
resolution.

I agree that would be a pain. So, again, have you tried turning off the
autoscale on the font charts? Does that fix it?

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

Hi Echo,

I'm referring to the pain of altering the scren size for working in
PowerPoint. By the way, the fonts look normal now that I've made the screen
size 1024 x 768. It makes two large black columns on either side of the
working area (why bother having a widescreen?) but at least it works. Is
there a way to suggest to MicroSoft that this quirk is addressed? I'd much
rather be working with the full screen

Thanks to all for advice!

PR

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

No, the software is flawed. The only way around this was changing the monitor
resolution.

It might be worth checking to see if there are updated video drivers available
for your setup. I'm not seeing the same distortion on a system running at 1280
x 768.

Or perhaps it only occurs in systems with an even wider screen than that
proportionally?

I agree that would be a pain. So, again, have you tried turning off the
autoscale on the font charts? Does that fix it?

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

Hi Echo,

I'm referring to the pain of altering the scren size for working in
PowerPoint. By the way, the fonts look normal now that I've made the screen
size 1024 x 768. It makes two large black columns on either side of the
working area (why bother having a widescreen?) but at least it works. Is
there a way to suggest to MicroSoft that this quirk is addressed? I'd much
rather be working with the full screen

Thanks to all for advice!

PR

:

Can't tell what fix you're referring to. If it's turning off autoscale on
the chart font, it's not *that* big a pain.

 

[Guest]

That's a good thought - I'll research to see if there is anything more up to
date.

Thanks!

No, the software is flawed. The only way around this was changing the monitor
resolution.

It might be worth checking to see if there are updated video drivers available
for your setup. I'm not seeing the same distortion on a system running at 1280
x 768.

Or perhaps it only occurs in systems with an even wider screen than that
proportionally?

I agree that would be a pain. So, again, have you tried turning off the
autoscale on the font charts? Does that fix it?

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com


Hi Echo,

I'm referring to the pain of altering the scren size for working in
PowerPoint. By the way, the fonts look normal now that I've made the
screen
size 1024 x 768. It makes two large black columns on either side of the
working area (why bother having a widescreen?) but at least it works. Is
there a way to suggest to MicroSoft that this quirk is addressed? I'd much
rather be working with the full screen

Thanks to all for advice!

PR

:

Can't tell what fix you're referring to. If it's turning off autoscale
on
the chart font, it's not *that* big a pain.

-----------------------------------------
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
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