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I want to make 300 DPI images. Or 96 DPI. Or 72 DPI. Or ....
In the ImageExport preferences dialog box, you can choose to size your images in either DPI or pixels.
If you want a 300 dpi image, simply choose 300 dpi. ImageExport will export your images at the DPI value you choose times the size of the slides (in inches). The readout in the dialog box will tell you how large your image will be in pixels. For example, if you have a standard 10 inch wide slide and choose 200 DPI, your images will export at 2000 pixels wide.
For reasons too complex to explain here, if you choose any combination of slide width and DPI that leads to images 3000 pixels or larger, the image size (in pixels) will be correct, but the DPI may be set to 96. There are several workarounds for this.
- Download and install the current version of ImageExport, which fixes this problem, as of 12 September, 2010
- Set DPI to a slightly lower value; anything that results in an image size of under 3000 pixels will do.
- Set the image size in pixels rather than DPI; set it to anything less than 3000. ImageExport will then set the image to 300 DPI.
- Modify the PPTools.INI file as explained below.
Forcing the DPI
Edit the [ImageExport] section of your PPTools.INI file. It should begin like this:
[ImageExport] ResampleFrom=3070 ... other settings
Save the file and do your export again. As long as you choose a size that's LESS than 3070 pixels, the DPI will be set as you've requested.
To edit PPTools.INI, click the Help (? button) on the ImageExport toolbar, then click Edit PPTools.INI on the dialog box that appears. PPTools.INI will open in Notepad for editing.
But before you export ...
Understand that not all image file formats support DPI information. If you need to create images at a specific DPI for some reason, try TIF or JPG, but do a bit of testing. And because of a bug in PowerPoint 2007 SP1, you can't always export images at higher resolutions. We recommend Service Pack 2 (SP2), which fixes the problem.
More than you really want to know about images and DPI
Strictly speaking, "300dpi" doesn't mean much when you're talking about images. It's a ratio between the number of dots in the image and the size of the image in inches. Without both pieces of information, dots and inches, it means nothing. If you have an image that's 3000 dots wide, you don't know the DPI until you know how many inches it will be output at. If it prints at 10", it's 3000/10 (Dots / Inch) or 300 DPI. The same image at 5" would be 600 DPI.
So when somebody tells you they need 300 DPI images, they haven't told you anything unless they also tell you how large the images will be ... in inches.
We can look at the image file in any image editing program and determine the number of dots or pixels, but inches? Not really. A computer image is a collection of numbers that represent the colors of each image pixel. How big is a 12? Or a 17? Who knows?
But, and this is the biggie, some image formats (not all) can also include size and dpi information. And most programs will respect this information when you import a picture. So you can have the same image (same number of pixels, same file size) stored in two different TIFF files. One says "Make me 10 inches wide" and the other says "Make me 2 inches wide". Even though the image data is identical in every other respect, the images import at different sizes.
Sometimes it's more convenient to include size/dpi information in images for one reason or another.
And with ImageExport you can.
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