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Trying to put a screen capture in Word and it looks blurry but in Pages it looks fine

Anonymous
2013-09-26T22:04:32+00:00

I am trying to put a screen capture (charts, text etc.) in Word. 

I have tried saving the file as TIFF, BMP, PNG and GIF and inserting it.

I have tried copying the file as all of the above and pasting it.

I have changed the way screen captures are stored on the clipboard each time (using terminal) to ensure the original is in the correct file format.

I have tried changing the resolution to 96dpi.

It is still blurry.  In Pages it is crystal clear but I cannot use Pages for work (I wish I could).

My colleagues on Windows use >paste special >BMP for their screen captures (I think a PNG would be sufficient) but it would seem I do not have the option for paste special BMP or any other file format for that matter.

I can only assume Mac Office either has a resolution issue that I haven't figured out yet or it defaults to JPGs for images put into word (photos do seem to look absolutely fine).

Can anyone advise how to change the way an image is inserted or pasted into Word and resolve this issue?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2015-09-07T02:33:09+00:00

@anneblerg I don't know if you have found an answer but I did find a work around.  Go into file and select Save as and save the document in a lower word version (Word 97-2004.doc).   I went through the same thing trying to find a solution-- it is really irritating!

it is a shame we have to go backwards to fix this.  Microsoft needs to correct this issue!

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-09-28T15:10:21+00:00

    What version of Office 2011 do you have, or do you have 2011.

    Current version of Mountain Lion (OSX.8.x) is 8.5

    Current version of Office 2011 is 14.3.7.

    Instead of copy/paste do the following:

    1. In your screen Grab application (Grab, Skitch, SnagIt, SnapDrag.  I use all but Grab. SnapDrag  is the easiest to use and you can put a Line board around the clipping. I like Skitch [by Evernote] you can annotate, add arrows, text in balloons and other effects, Skitch does similar but allows timed save so it give you time to open a drop down window on a menu choice). Save to desktop.
    2. In Word, choose desired location and click to place cursor.
    3. Next go to insert menu.
    4. Scroll down to Insert Picture.
    5. Click and choose from File.
    6. Picture will be placed.

    Usually placing an item ends up showing a Picture  with better detail than pasting. Again use PNG when you can. Try to avoid jpeg when possible

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-09-27T05:05:07+00:00

    Another option.  Is this perhaps yet another Microsoft incompatibility issue with Retina?

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-09-26T23:52:26+00:00

    I have tried using Apple Grab as BMP and GIFF.

    I have changed the screen capture file format in terminal using "defaults write com.apple.screencapture type bmp/giff/png/tiff"

    I have tried copying the screen capture to clipboard and using paste or paste special (there is no option for file format bmp in paste special like there is on windows).

    I have tried saving the image as all of the above file formats and inserting it.

    I have tried saving the image, changing the dpi to 96 and inserting it.

    I have tried resizing the image so that when inserted it is the same size as the saved version.

    I have not tried a JPEG format as it is a text/chart capture and as JPEG uses lossy compression it will lose detail and look blurred.  As the image is lacking in colour but has fine lines then a lossless GIFF or PNG format will be ideal but I cannot even get it to work with an uncompressed BMP or TIFF.

    It looks fine as a saved file.  It looks fine in Pages.  It looks terrible in Word.

    I can only think that Word for some reason is pasting/inserting it in as a JPEG.  How to change that I have no idea.

    Otherwise maybe there is a dpi conflict with Word.

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-09-26T23:31:20+00:00

    What are you using for the screen capture. If your using Apple Grab for example you can set in Preference to use PNG. 

    For screen Grabs be it PC, Apple, UNIX the best is PNG or TIFF. TIFF is the largest format usually not usable if you want to email because file size is often larger than most mail boxes allow.  TIFF and PNG are a Loss-less format. 

    Jpg is Lossy format which means each time (on Mac) jpegs are decompressed when in use then when closed they are compressed again when closed. Each and every time they go through this cycle they lose detail. Take a Jpeg example just created and magnify it 200-300% look at the detail.

    Now open and close 5 or 6 times and do the same the detail will have splotches and looks like over heated 16mm film or someone poured water on some ink and made the ink run.

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