Science PowerPoint tips and tutorials

Many journals may not accept PowerPoint slides as manuscript figures and illustrations and require conversion to .tif, or sometimes to .eps format. Since direct conversion to .tif format from PowerPoint Save menu does not give high resolution .tif, end user may be sometime left with few options, including re-doing illustrations using high-end graphical software. Fortunately, there is a convenient and simple way of converting PowerPoint slides into any acceptable format that is fully compatible with Adobe Illustrator.

For this conversion you need to have Adobe Acrobat Professional installed on you computer. Instead of saving slide using PowerPoint saving options, use Print command instead from the File pulldown menu and select Adobe PDF printer in the printer selection dialog box as shown in Fig. 21.

Figure 21. Printer selection list in Print dialog box.

Adobe PDF printer should show up on available printer list when you have installed Adobe Acrobat Professional. This is a virtual printer and it prints to file rather than sends it to the physical printer. After selecting Adobe PDF printer you may chose to accept default settings and proceed to save (convert) the slide to Adobe PDF format. Otherwise, click Properties in the same dialog box and select Edit -> Default settings (Adobe PDF Conversion Settings). You can change the resolution (default 600 dpi) and further adjust specific settings, and set black/white or color modes. After saving the slide as a PDF file you can open it in Adobe Illustrator and save as .eps, .tif, or .jpg file at any resolution. Since after conversion, vector graphics is preserved in Adobe Illustrator, you can also manipulate and edit objects in this and other Adobe programs.