Re: Quality posters from PPT?

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

In your previous posts, you mention being new
on the job there.  Perhaps there's no "hoodwinking"
involved and the people there really weren't capable
of producing scalable graphics themselves?

As primitive as it may seem, PPT drawing elements
and text are both scalable (as long as you don't use
a fixed font), and if the vendor is trying to minimize
mixed scalable and non-scalable elements in files
sent from clients with no Illustrator, CorelDraw or
similar tools, PPT is actually a fairly smart choice.
The only things you generally see in PPT slides that
cannot be scaled are pasted-in raster images.

PhotoShop CS3 "extended" can create scalable
vector graphics, but IIRC, its text is still not scalable
(I think scalable text was added in CS4), so to create
large format output in CS3 you'll need to size the
graphic prior to inserting text, select font sizes to
suit before inserting them and then output raster files.
Also, I don't think the proprietary "extended" versions
of PS files have been adopted as print industry
standards yet, so there's a good chance your print
vendor will not be equipped to use them.  It's been a
couple of years since I made any really big posters
though, so check with a printer on that.

If I was doing the work and was not intending to take
over all graphics generation from the engineers, I
would do what your graphics house is doing: have the
engineers and other non-graphics people create the
raw files in PPT, which they have, then transfer the
elements to Illustrator or CorelDraw.  Illustrator has
a slight advantage in that most print vendors can take
in native files, but with Corel and Acrobat you can
generate 2400 dpi PDFs that any printer ought to be
able to produce posters from.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris Morton" <salt -dot- morton -at- gmail -dot- com>
> The company I've recently joined likes to create posters of various 
> kinds.
> For some unknown reason, they create them in PowerPoint, then send the 
> PPT
> to an outside firm that (I'm told) cuts 'n' pastes elements into
> Illustrator, from which the posters are printed by yet another shop.
>
> This all sounds ludicrous to me. My suspicion is that the AI graphics 
> house
> has hoodwinked our marketing manager into believing that we are not 
> capable
> of producing scaleable graphics ourselves.
>
> Like most of you, I know my way around multiple graphic file formats 
> and
> related software tools. I do not bill myself as a graphic artist, per 
> se,
> but know enough to produce what I need when I need it. That said, what 
> would
> you recommend as a viable method of producing said posters, given that
> oftentimes it's the engineers who are producing the original PPT 
> versions?
>
> (The engineers do have access to Photoshop CS3 Extended, so this shop 
> isn't
> limited to pixelated BMPs. As for me, I've got access to CorelDraw7, 
> SnagIt,
> HiJaak, and GIMP. I can also access Acrobat if you think a PDF is the 
> best
> way to go.)

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