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Re: What should be a simple task....

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg100668] Re: [mg100654] What should be a simple task....
• From: "David Park" <djmpark at comcast.net>
• Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:12:06 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <30526967.1244628476411.JavaMail.root@n11>

Kristin,

I want to apologize at the start because I am not directly answering your
problem (I hope you will get a simple effective solution, probably from one
of my favorite guys at WRI.), and what I say may sound a little critical -
but I hope not of you.

There has been a long-time running discussion, mainly between me and "AES",
on MathGroup concerning how Mathematica should be used. I think that
Mathematica should be used not only for calculations but also as a
communications medium. One should stay in Mathematica all the way. AES
believes one should only do basic mathematical calculations and plots in
Mathematica (which it would specialize in) and export everything to other
media for publication or communication. And, in fact, I suspect that most
users do it his way.

But there are quite a few complaints about problems in exporting Mathematica
output to other media that appear in this newsgroup. This process actually
takes quite a bit of special knowledge. We even see such problems posted by
people we know to be quite sophisticated users of Mathematica.

So why not stay in Mathematica in the first place? It's capabilities for
presenting technical information are immensely superior to any static or
semi-static medium such as PowerPoint. Why not convince the recipients of
your information that it is better to spend your time on the technical
problems, than on the problems of converting to a vastly inferior medium
that serves their interests less well?

If one of the reasons is that they don't have Mathematica then it is all the
more reason that WRI and everyone else would benefit from a free and easily
obtained Mathematica PlayerPro. 


David Park
djmpark at comcast.net
http://home.comcast.net/~djmpark/  



From: Nelson-Patel, Kristin [mailto:knp at ll.mit.edu] 


Hi :)

I am an analyst (applied physics and math) who has to present all
of my work in Power Point briefings, sometimes on paper, sometimes
electronically. I vastly prefer working in Mathematica to another system;
however, I'm currently ham strung by my inability to transfer simple
plots from Mathematica 7 to Power Point 2007 in a way that looks decent.

In previous versions of both, I was able to Copy As: Metafile by right
clicking on the plot in Mathematica and Paste Special: Metafile in
Power Point, and all would be well (Ok, I had to tweak line thickness
settings and fonts in my plots to make them survive the transfer, but
that was fine).   Now, I have select the whole cell rather than just
the plot to get the Copy As: metafile option, and I have to go all the
way to the menu bar to do it (no longer an option on the right click).
Fine, I can deal with that, but I can't deal with the fact that my simple
plots look completely ratty now upon pasting into Power Point.

There's all this stair stepping in curves which should be smooth.
I've played with the PlotPoints option-no effect. I've exported into
different form ats with varying ImageResolution and imported; Either the
fonts get screwed up or it looks even worse or there's ugly aliasing or
no effect on the stair stepping.  I've exported to PDF and snapshot-copied
from there; The curves look good, but now the whole image is just a little
bit blurry/soft, a little too much to pass muster with my supervisors
and sponsors.

I'm really getting frustrated now, have spent way too much time on what
*was* a solved problem before my "upgrades", and beginning to suspect
that the problem is some import or paste/display setting in Power Point
that I can't reach.  I really don't want to have two different briefings
for electronic vs. paper presentation, but I'm a little concerned that's
where this is heading, or I'm going to have to use the other system to
make my plots. Which would bea shame.

Has anyone figured this one out yet?  Help, please-I'm crying uncle.
This is one of those stupid simple problems that also happens to be
quite fundamental to the ability to make good use of Mathematica.

-Kristin

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Re: What should be a simple task....
    • From: Andrzej Kozlowski <akoz@mimuw.edu.pl>