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Disable Automatic Image Compression in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007

Last Updated: June 14th 2008

If you create your digital scrapbooks in PowerPoint 2007, you should be aware that all the high resolution (150 dpi, 200 dpi, 300 dpi, etc.) content that you bring inside the presentation scrapbook gets automatically downsized to 96 dpi. That happens because PowerPoint presentations are primarily intended to be projected or shown.

Some images can look downright blurry because of this automatic compression -- however there's no reason why you cannot get over that limitation.

In these steps, I'll show you how you can disable this automatic image compression on a presentation-to-presentation basis -- scroll down below to learn more about resolving this issue permanently with a registrt hack.

1. When you start a new scrapbook in PowerPoint 2007, save it with a single blank slide that contains nothing. Click the Office Button, and choose Save As, as shown in Figure 1.
   
   
   Figure 1: Save As
   
   
2. This will bring up the Save As dialog box, as shown in Figure 2,
   
   
   Figure 2: Save As
   
   
3. Click the Tools button at the bottom right of the Save As dialog box (refer to Figure 2), which opens a context menu were you will find several extra options -- choose Compress Pictures (see Figure 3).
   
   
   Figure 3: Compress Pictures
   
   
4. This will open the Compress Picture dialog box, as shown in Figure 4. Click the Options button.
   
   
   Figure 4: Options
   
   
5. Clicking the Options button will summon the Compression Settings dialog box, as shown in Figure 5.
   
   
   Figure 5: Compression Settings
   
   Under the Compression options, uncheck "Automatically perform basic compression on save" and under Target output, select the "Print (220 dpi)" radio button, and click OK.
   

This ensures that the images in your scrapbook presentations are not compressed or down-sized in resolution -- thus providing you with optimum print quality.

Note: These steps have to be performed every time you make a new scrapbook presentation -- it might be a good idea to do this once and save the resultant file as a scrapbook template that you can always use.

Resolving this Issue Permanently with a Registry Hack

Registry hacks are something geeks do -- so if you are not comfortable doing this, just use the earlier method explained on this page.

For those who want to do the registry hack, remember you are doing this at your own risk.

These two sites provide more information on the process:

• Fermu Website has a detailed explanation on the whole concept of PowerPoint 2007's compression options, along with steps on editing the registry.
  
  
• Steve Rindsberg's PowerPoint FAQ has another detailed explanation on the entire process -- Steve also explains why he is not too happy with Microsoft's decision to take away control from the end user.