However, while both the print version and the Adobe version look fine, Adobe Acrobat handles such things as transparency much better 1. Also, in the additional Options menu, you will find the Optimize for image quality setting which should be turned on. If you use the Save As option and select PDF as the filetype, you will see an additional Optimize for option allowing you to optimize for online and print publication. In recent versions of Office (e.g., Office 2019) there are also import options in the PDF save dialogue. If you choose to select ‘Do not compress image files,’ Office will ignore the ‘default resolution’ and just use the original image file’s resolution. This alone will drastically improve the quality of your PDF files. In the following example, I have changed the default resolution to ‘High fidelity’ - the highest setting available. Unfortunately, you have to do this for all Office products individually. This can be done in the Office options menu. If file size (high fidelity PDFs are much larger) is not really an issue for you, it seems reasonable to just change the defaults setting in PowerPoint and Word. The bottom left and right examples are exports from PowerPoint 2016 (print settings) and Adobe Acrobat DC respectively. However, once you’ve spotted them, they really spoil an otherwise beautiful PDF export. Often, especially with smaller logos or background images, the compression artifacts are hard to spot on first glance. On the top right, we can see a PDF export from PowerPoint with default settings.
The top left image is a screenshot directly from PowerPoint 2016. The following example shows exported PDF versions of a cat photograph with various settings. Unfortunately, the default settings of Microsoft Office (as far as I know in all versions) produce rather unimpressive results when it comes to images. Just think of presentation slides or handouts that you want to put online. Hence, often it makes sense to export PDF files from Microsoft Office (e.g., Word or PowerPoint) in order to make them available for others. PDF (Portable Document Format) files are, in many ways, perfect for exchanging documents that don’t need to be changed after the fact.
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