Y-axis title of graphs (created with Prism 3cx under Mac OSX 10.2, "jaguar") pasted into Word or PowerPoint print badly, with lots of extra stripes converging at a point.

Prism 3a and 3c (for OS 8.1-9.1), convert vertical text into bitmaps. If you paste a full size graph, the vertical text looks jagged. If you choose to copy an enlarged graph (a choice in the Options dialog), then reduce the size in Word or PowerPoint, the printouts look great.

Prism 3cx (for Mac OSX) uses a newer technique for handling vertical text. It converts the text to a bunch of polygons. This avoids the problem of grainy, jagged vertical text. With many programs and many printers, it works perfectly. But, unfortunately, this method does not work well with many printers and Word or PowerPoint for OSX 10.2. The text looks fine on screen, but looks striped or hatched on the printout.

Work arounds include:

• Upgrade to Prism 5, which uses a different method for dealing with vertical text, so bypasses this problem.
• Try another printer. Ink jet printers work better than laser printers, it seems.
• Don't copy and paste. Instead, export as a TIFF file, then insert that picture file.
• Create the graph without any vertical text, and then add it within PowerPoint.
• Use an earlier release of OS X. This problem was introduced in OS X 10.2 (Jaguar).