Powerpoint to PDF conversion

June 11, 2009 2:38 PM

How do I set up my printer prefs / page settings to save an A0 size Powerpoint slide as a PDF?

Macbook running OS X 10.4 and Powerpoint 2004. I need to convert an A0 Powerpoint slide to a PDF for printing as a poster. At present the "Print" dialogue box shows a blank slide in preview, and is indeed saving it as a blank PDF when I choose "Save as PDF". Checking the "Scale to fit paper" checkbox produces a correct preview image, but only at A4 size.

posted by roofus to Computers & Internet (1 answer total)

Best answer: PowerPoint is really badly designed for large-format printing and Macintosh PDF export seems to default to the settings of whatever physical printer you have installed. At the last place I worked that had a large-format printer, we often handled the problem by copying and pasting the entire thing out of PowerPoint and into Photoshop or Illustrator. An alternative approach would be to format it A4, and assuming that your embedded images are of reasonable vector quality, rescale in Illustrator or perhaps Acrobat professional. I've heard of people using Pages from iWork for this sort of thing as well.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 6:28 AM on June 12, 2009