PowerPoint to Illustrator

["Smith, Martin" <smithmr -at- encorp -dot- com>]

Some time ago there was a thread about converting PowerPoint slides into a
format suitable for editing and printing. Today I found a way to edit
drawings created in PowerPoint with Illustrator (for Windows 95/98/NT).
Here's how:

1) Using Adobe's PS Print driver, define a printer that writes PostScript
code to the hard disk. Make sure to check the "Optimize for Portability"
option.

2) Print the PowerPoint slides as you normally would to the printer defined
above. Enter a name for the resulting PostScript file when prompted to do
so.

3) Use Acrobat Distiller 4.0 to distill the PostScript file to Acrobat
format. Make sure to disable compression.

4) Open the resulting PDF file in Adobe Acrobat.

5) Select Export -> PostScript or EPS from Acrobat's File menu. The export
dialog box will open. Save the file in EPS format, using PostScript level 3.

6) Open Adobe Illustrator.

7) Select Place from Illustrator's File menu. Place the EPS file in the
Illustrator drawing. Do not select the link option.

That's it. Illustrator will convert the EPS file into an editable
Illustrator drawing. 

I had to figure this out in order to use a vast number of schematics that
our engineers created for training purposes. The drawings only exist as
PowerPoint slides. The color schemes and inconsistent word usage make the
drawings unsuitable for inclusion in the documentation without editing. 

Note that Acrobat 4.0's export function will export each page of a PDF file
as a separate EPS graphic, making it possible to convert an entire slide
show by performing steps 2 through 5 only once.

Enjoy,

> Martin R. Smith
> Technical Writer / Audiophile 
> ENCORP: The Energy Automation Company, http://www.encorp.com 
> (970) 686-2017 x 223