Troubleshooting pasting a Prism graph into Microsoft Word for Windows

I pasted a Prism graph into Microsoft Word for Windows and then moved the Word file to MS Word on a Mac. Why was some text lost?

The best way to transfer Prism graphs between Windows and Mac platforms is within the Prism files themselves. They are totally transportable--just save the file using Prism in one platform, and then open using Prism in the other platform. Prism automatically changes fonts, if necessary, which might make some very minor changes in text positioning. Other than that, the files just work.

After you put the graph into Word or PowerPoint, transition between platforms is not always seamless.

Prism Windows  pastes a WMF or EMF file (you can choose in Preferences). Prism 4 Mac pastes a vector PICT file. Prism 5 (and later) Mac copies both a PDF (the new Mac standard) file and a bitmap PICT file.  

When you open a Word file on the other platform, Word has to convert the image. Of couse, this is outside of our control.Three suggestions:

• We know there is a problem when the text includes Greek, it is copied to the clipboard in EMF+ format (the only EMF used by Prism 6.00 and 6.01), pasted (or sent) to Word for Windows, and then opened in Word for Mac 2011. The Greek is lost. The workarounds are either to not use EMF+ (Use WMF, or in Prism 6.02 or later choose the old style EMF) or to upgrade to a newer Word for Mac. The bug appears to be within Word Mac, so we can't fix it.
• Make sure you install all updates (service packs). Newer versions of Word are smarter about converting graphics.
• Since the fundamental problem is that Windows and Macs use different file formats for images, one way to bypass the problem is to use a format that doesn't require conversion. From Prism, don't use copy/paste. Instead, use "File.. Export.." and choose either the TIFF or BMP formats (which work well on both platforms).  The only choice you need to make is the resolution. 100 dpi is screen resolution--too low. But don't jump immediately to 1200 dpi either, which makes for enormous files. Pay attention to the original size of the graph in Prism relative to its location in the word document. If you shrink it 3-fold, then a 100 dpi file is really 300 dpi, which is pretty good. After exporting, switch to Word and select  "Insert.. Picture". 

A graph pasted into Prism appears as a frame only

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 editing 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.