Troubleshooting copying and pasting graphs from Prism into PowerPoint

PowerPoint -- Potential problems and fixes

General issue with Windows: WMF vs. EMF vs. EMF+.  Prism Windows can copy graphs and layouts to the clipboard in three formats, EMF, EMF+, or WMF. EMF+ is new to Prism 6. Early releases of Prism 6 Windows could only copy EMF+ or WMF; starting with 6.02, you get all three choices. Choose between them in the File tab of the Preferences dialog. This choice applies both when you copy a graph or layout to the clipboard and also when you send a graph or layout directly to Word or PowerPoint. In theory, the three are equivalent, In fact, one or the other might work much better for your particular purpose. You can change the format of Prism objects already pasted into PowerPoint. Set the Preferences to either EMF or WMF. Then double-click on the object in PowerPoint to open Prism. Then drop the File menu and choose Close and Return. Now the object in PowerPoint will be the format (WMF or EMF that you chose in Prism). 

Fonts change (or graphs vanish) when you save the PowerPoint file as PDF.  See above. Try the different formats to see which works best for you. EMF+ (in Prism 6 and 7) seems to cause problems and WMF seems to be best if you want to create pdf from your Word or PowerPoint file. Prism 8 uses an improved EMF+ format that solves this issue.

After copy and pasting a Prism graph (or layout) into Word or PowerPoint, double-clicking on that graph doesn't launch Prism (or launches the wrong version). This page explains the possible workarounds.

The graph pasted into PowerPoint has an extra line on the right side. This happens with PowerPoint 2007 and 2010 running under Windows 7 when you paste a graph from Prism 7 as an object. Updating PowerPoint will solve the problem, as will pasting a picture rather than an OLE object. 

When I copy and paste a Prism graph into PowerPoint 2007, it pastes as a picture instead of an object. (1233)

When you copy from Prism and paste into PowerPoint, you expect to paste an object. That means you should be able to double-click and edit within Prism. While this has worked fine with several releases of PowerPoint, it does not work with PowerPoint 2007. Instead you just paste a picture. To read more about this and the workaround, click here.

When I copy and paste a graph from Prism to PowerPoint, the pasted graph looks fine, and double-clicking brings me back to Prism to edit. But the edits don't show in PowerPoint. (1002)

This can be a problem with Prism and PowerPoint 2000. Go to the File & Printer tab of Prism's preference dialog, and change the format used to paste the graph to the clipboard  to copy in WMF format. With this choice, you'll be able to edit embedded graphs just fine, but you'll notice that bar fills change appearance. Learn more.

When I use the Send-to-Powerpoint command in Prism 5 or 6 Windows, no graph appears in PP and eventually a message appears "Cannot start PowerPoint".

This problem can occur when UAC is turned on and Prism and MS Office are started in different permission levels - Prism as normal user, MS Office as administrator. To solve the problem, elevate the permissions of Prism or reduce those of Office. Note that the message doesn't appear for 30 seconds, so at first it seems as though Prism has frozen. 

When I copy and paste a graph from Prism (Macintosh) to PowerPoint, vertical and angled text doesn’t look right.  (470)

Prism has two ways it can copy vertical and angled text to the clipboard. If you are having trouble, try the other method. Switch on the Graph tab of the Preferences dialog. See this article if the problems occur when you create a PowerPoint file on Windows, and then open it on the Mac. If you use Office Mac 2004, be sure to get the latest update. An update in early 2005 vastly improved its ability to handle Pict files created by Prism.

When I copy and paste a graph from Prism to PowerPoint, parts of the graph are clipped off.

Sometimes Prism makes the wrong assumptions about a graph's margins. To work around this problem, put an "invisible" object on the graph (e.g., a text object that is just a few spaces) beyond the point where the graph was cut off. Prism will see this object and include it when copying to the clipboard. This has the effect of pushing out the boundary of the image.If you enlarged a graph before pasting it from Prism 3 for Mac, it may be much too large for the PowerPoint slide. PowerPoint shows that only the part of the graph that is actually on the slide. You then need to drag the graph to make it much smaller. A better approach is to choose a PowerPoint slide template that includes a graph object (placeholder). This object says "double click to add chart". Ignore those instructions which would bring up the Microsoft Graph program. Instead click once to select the graph object (but don't double-click). Then choose Paste from the Edit menu (or click the Paste button). PowerPoint will now reduce the size of the copied Prism graph to fit the object boundaries. Can't paste into other Windows programs from Prism 4 Go to the File&Printer tab of Prism's preference dialog (Prism 4), and change the format used to paste the graph to the clipboard. There are three choices: EMF, WMF and both. Try them all. We've had one report that after pasting into Corel Draw (8), no graph was visible. Changing the preference to copy in both formats resolved the problem.  

When I copy and paste a graph from Prism to PowerPoint, the pasted graph is fine at first, but then it changes with repeated viewing.

This suggests that Windows is running low on "resources". Resources are a special, limited part of computer memory shared by all programs. When they get depleted, all programs can act strangely. Loading fonts requires resources, so one symptom of limited resources is strange fonts showing up. Other symptoms are text that goes from vertical to horizontal orientation, labels disappearing (possibly replaced by white boxes), colors changing, and line thicknesses changing.Resources can get depleted for two reasons:

1. Too many programs open at once. The solution, obviously, is to close applications that you don't need.

2. Badly written programs that take resources, and don't give them back, even after you quit. The solution for that is to reboot. Some people leave their computers running for days or weeks without rebooting; this will gradually deplete resources as programs grab resources and forget to give them back.

Adding more RAM (memory) will not help, since the amount of memory dedicated to "resources" is fixed. Upgrading Windows might help, depending on which Windows you use.

When I paste several Prism graphs onto a PowerPoint slide and I then use PowerPoint's animation to make the graphs appear sequentially. All graphs except the first are fuzzy. 

This appears to be a bug in all versions of PowerPoint (up to PowerPoint 2007), but not in PowerPoint 2010. We can see the same problem with graphs created by a different program, convincing us that the problem is with PowerPoint rather than Prism.  When a graph is invisible until made to appear via animation, it loses resolution and appears grainy. Here is an approach you can try to work around the problem (let us know if you find a better way to avoid the problem).

1. Create solid white (or background color) rectangles that cover up all but the first graph.

2. Place those rectangles on top of the graphs.

3. Use the Animation tools to make the rectangles go away when you click the mouse.

In other words, the way to work around the problem is not to make the graphs appear one by one. Rather make objects that cover up the graphs disappear one by one.

When I create an area fills in my Prism graph, they don’t show when I export it or copy and paste it into PowerPoint. (797)

There is a bug in PowerPoint 97 that can cause this to happen. There are several ways to work around this problem:

1. Upgrade to a newer version of PowerPoint. PowerPoint 2000 and 2002 (XP) work fine.

2. Don't use the one-click send-to-powerpoint button. Instead, copy to the clipboard, switch to PowerPoint, make a new slide, and then use Edit.. Paste Special to paste. Choose "Picture (Enhanced Metafile)" or "Device Independant Bitmap".

3. Export the graph as a tiff (bitmap) file. Then use PowerPoint's Insert..Picture command to include the graph.

When I have multiple graphs with different area fills in my Prism layout, the fills don’t export or copy and paste correctly. (797)

This seems to be a problem only with Windows 98, when you create Prism graphs with more than one area fill, and then print (or export) from a layout. The work-arounds are to use a new version of Windows or to print (export) from the graph itself, and not the layout.

Prism 2, 3 or 4 general issues:

I am having trouble copying and pasting graphs from Prism 4 for Windows into a Microsoft Office 2000 program. (1002)

To read about copying and pasting to Microsoft Office applications, click here.

When I copy and paste from Prism Windows into PowerPoint, Prism simply shuts down. 

We know of one situation where this can happen: You copy and paste-link data from Excel into a Prism file, and then move to a different computer. Then copy and paste a graph of those linked data into PowerPoint. Prism tries to update the linked data, but can't find the file, and crashes. One workaround is to move the excel file when you move the prism file between computers. The other work around is to right click on the data object (linked excel data within Prism) and choose to unlink it. This problem was fixed in Prism 4.03.

Distortion problems pasting graphs from Prism 2 to PowerPoint.  After pasting from Prism 2 for Windows, Office 97 and 2000 may not always interpret the graphs properly (especially a problem when "ungrouping" the graphs within PowerPoint). One of our customers found a work around: Don't use the simple "Paste" command in PowerPoint. Instead, choose "Edit.. Paste Special"and then use the "Enhanced Metafile" format. Avoid the "Device Independent Bitmap" and "Bitmap" options offered by PowerPoint.

To learn about making PowerPoint slides from Prism 4 graphs Consult this step by step example (or this one for version 3).