Copying and pasting graphs from Prism 5 or 6 Mac to PowerPoint, Word, Pages or Keynote.

Word 2008 and 2011

Copying and pasting from Prism Mac (version 5 or later) to Word 2008 or 2011 just works. Since the graph (or layout) is transferred in PDF format, the pasted image will be compact and crisp even when resized. However, Word does not let you ungroup it. The issues with cropping mentioned below regarding PowerPoint 2011 do not seem to affect Word 2011.

Word 2011 (and others?)

If you first paste some text, then immediately paste a Prism graph, it can appear as a frame only (no graph or image) and be partly off screen. This is a Word bug that is easy to work around. After pasting the text, do some editnig or set its line spacing (ie.single space or double space). Then paste the Prism graph. Pasting a Prism graph immediately after pasting text can lead to problems.  

PowerPoint 2011

Copying and pasting from Prism Mac (version 5 or later) to PowerPoint 2011 pastes a crisp pdf version of the graph. Since the graph (or layout) is transferred in PDF format, the pasted image will be compact and crisp even when resized. However, PowerPoint does not let you ungroup it. PowerPoint 2011 is aggressive about cropping graphs pasted from Prism (and also Numbers, so it is not a Prism problem), and you may find that the top or bottom titles of your graph are partly clipped. The crop controls in PowerPoint can solve this problem. There are two ways to access these controls:

• Select the graph in PowerPoint, drop the Format menu and choose Format Picture. Then choose Crop, and make the height larger and crop less from the top.
• Select the graph in PowerPoint, make sure the Ribbon is showing, choose the Format Picture tab and click the Crop button near the left end of the ribbon. Then grab the cropping handles at the top and bottom of the graph objects and drag.

PowerPoint 2008

When you copy a graph or layout from Prism Mac (version 5 or later), Prism puts a crisp pdf image on the clipboard. It uses vectors and fonts, and so will look great at any size. Mac OSX converts this pdf to a low resolution bit-map picture, for use by older programs that cannot paste pdf.  If you paste into Word 2008 or Excel 2008, the pdf version is pasted. However, when you paste into PowerPoint 2008, the low resolution fuzzy bitmap picture will paste, rather than the crisp pdf image. PowerPoint knows how to paste the PDF version of the graph or layout, but doesn't do so by default. But there is any easy work around. Don't use the Paste command. Instead, drop the Edit menu, choose Paste Special, and then choose the PDF format. It is worth the extra effort. We reported this problem to Microsoft in 2008 and several times thereafter, but they have not fixed the problem as of June 2010.

Even when you paste the PDF format (based on fonts and vectors), PowerPoint does not let you ungroup it.

Prism  (since 5.0b)  has a Send-to-Powerpoint command and button, which automatically use the pdf format. Use that feature, instead of copy and paste, to avoid the bug within PowerPoint.

PowerPoint 2004, Word 2004 and earlier versions

Prism 5 copies and pastes using a PDF format, which has replaced PICT as the Mac standard. Older versions of PowerPoint and Word, however, don't recognize the PDF graph on the clipboard. Instead, older versions of Word or PowerPoint will  paste a 150 dpi bitmap format. You can get a sharper image by making the graph larger in Prism before copying, and then making it smaller again in PowerPoint or Word. You can also export your Prism graph to a high-resolution graphic format like TIFF and import it into your Office 2004 application.  Because the pasted graph is a bitmap, it cannot be ungrouped, as could PICT graphs pasted from Prism 4. We'd recommend upgrading to a newer version of Office.

Keynote and Page

With Keynote and Pages, copying and pasting a Prism 5 Mac graph works fine.  We even offer a one-button send-to-Keynote button in the Mac version (like the one-button send to PP in Windows). However, neither program lets you ungroup a graph once pasted.