Creating a PDF from a PowerPoint file

[paulor1684]

I create PDF in PowerPoint by selecting print, then the PDF dropdown menu and save as PDF.  Today, my PDF conversions have started being very low quality - unusable.  I have not changed anything.  Any idea what is happening?  Has some recent update messed up conversions to PDFs?  is there a virus.  I tried converting on two computers.  And I have asked my business partner to try on his computer.  All computers have the same problem.

[AnandSri]

Hello Paulor,

We apologize for the inconvenience caused, as per the description above, when creating a PDF from Microsoft Powerpoint, the quality is very low, Is that correct?

Try creating the PDF from Acrobat application, use File>CreatePDF>PDF from File>and see if this brings any difference in the quality.

Also, navigate to Acrobat's Preferences>Edit menu -> Preferences -> Convert to PDF categories -> Microsoft PowerPoint -> Edit Settings -> Adobe PDF Settings: High-Quality Print and see if this brings any difference in the quality.

You can also change the settings from the ACROBAT ribbon available in PowerPoint>ACROBAT>Preferences>Conversion Settings> High-Quality Print.

Make sure that you have the latest version of Adobe Acrobat installed, check for any pending updates of Acrobat from help>check for updates, reboot the machine after updating Acrobat.

What is the dot version of Adobe Acrobat installed? To identify refer to Identify the product and its version for Acrobat and Reader DC

Is it a Mac or Windows machine and what is the version of the operating system installed?

have you tried with any other PowePoint file? Is it specific to one file?

Let us know how it goes and share your findings.

Regards,

Anand Sri.

[ARRIAcademy]

Dear Anand Sri,

we have the same issue. We used to generate our participant document out of Powerpoint (Current Version 16.14.1) for Mac (Current Version 10.13.5) with the print menu and Safe as Adobe PDF -> High Quality Print -> (Acrobat Pro DC, 2018.011.20040)

The file from about 2 weeks looked fine but yesterday we got an unusable pdf.    

Images are compressed and lines are much thicker. Was there an update deployed within the last two weeks which could cause this issue?

Thanks and best regards,

Hari

[razorleafattack]

ARRIAcademy​ My team is having the same exact issue. It seems to be stemming from a recent PowerPoint update. This also affects printing for us as well. Letter spacing, font size and position, stroke weights and a bunch of other things are all messed up.

I thankfully have Microsoft's auto-update disabled, so I can still export PDFs and print PPTs without issues. I'm on version 16.12 while everyone else is on 16.14.X. I'm guessing 16.13 was fine, since we just started having big issues with Powerpoint. I'm going to have to look into installing old versions of PPT so we can actually use it.

[ARRIAcademy · Accepted solution]

Hi razorleafattack,

I downgraded to PowerPoint version 16.13.1 and everything looks fine again. Thanks for the advice.

I downloaded the installation package for 16.13.1 here:

https://officecdn.microsoft.com/pr/C1297A47-86C4-4C1F-97FA-950631F94777/OfficeMac/Microsoft_Office_2...

I just deleted the PowerPoint software in my Mac/Applications folder and closed all other office programs. After the installation all office programs will be still on 16.14.1 except PowerPoint will be back to 16.13.1.

Please also check in PowerPoint -> Help -> Check for Updates that Automatically Download and Install is switched to Automatically Check.

I hope that works for you as well.

All the best,

Hari