Unembedding an image in PowerPoint

January 13, 2006 2:30 PM

Is there a way to isolate/extract a .jpg image that has been inserted in the background of a PowerPoint slide? It has not just been placed on the master. Instead somebody did the Format>Background>Fill effects>Picture thing which embeds the image. HELP!

PowerPoint help needed

posted by punkfloyd to grab bag (5 comments total)

Just do a screengrab. Shift+Print Screen. And then paste that into your image editor of choice!

Crop, rinse, and repeat as necessary!
posted by Botunda at 2:36 PM on January 13, 2006

Do a Save As...Web Page

It will then export all the elements. The background will be slide0002_background.png or something like that.
posted by vacapinta at 2:49 PM on January 13, 2006

Another option could be to save the slide as a jpeg. when saving change the "file type" to some other graphic file format. if you have multiple pages with different background images you want to retrieve, you can save the multiple pages as separate files. Of course you will probably have to obliterate any other elements, but this should get your backgrounds back, maybe even at their original resolution. (make sure powerpoint isn't resizing your stuff on save)
posted by freq at 2:54 PM on January 13, 2006

Can you drag/drop to a location outside of powerpoint? (e.g. to photoshop, or maybe even the desktop?) Probably the same thing as copy/paste using the clipboard if it does work...
posted by misterbrandt at 4:24 PM on January 13, 2006

Vacapinta's is the easy answer (File-->Save as Web Page...) that can exactly preserve the elements in their original form.

From the dialog, if you push on the "Publish" button, it will open a window where you can tinker with the export settings. The "Web Options" include a "Picture" tab that allows you to set a target screen size. From my experience, this actually doesn't seem to cause PowerPoint to downsize the individual pictures, but setting it to its highest resolution will prevent any surprises.

A screenshot of the desired image will give you a re-compressed image with lower quality which requires further editing.
posted by bafflegab at 5:06 PM on January 13, 2006