PowerPoint arrow bug when printing

Question

Hi,

Is it a bug or am I doing something wrong here. When I print straight lines with different widths, lines look good on screen and on paper. When try to print lines with arrow on the other end, lines look good on screen but on paper they all have same width. 

Does anyone know how to fix this annoying problem? I'm using Powerpoint for Mac, version 15.28

Thanks.

Answer 1

I can confirm this bug. The plain lines are exported to PDF as lines, so 0.5 point line will export as that same weight.

When an arrowhead is added, the line is changed to a rectangle, not a line. After opening a similar PDF in Illustrator, it appears that PowerPoint cannot or will not create a rectangle thinner than 0.0093" or 0.67 points. So any arrow thinner than that will be 0.67 points in a PDF.

Please create a slide with graphics that show the before and after as shown in your post. Then click on the small smiley-face icon in the upper-right corner of the program window and choose Tell Us What Can Be Better. Describe the issue in detail and include a screen shot showing the issue. Submitting sends the report to the Mac programming team. I've already reported this.

Answer 2

Bug reported. Thank you for your help.

Answer 3

I saved the file as PDF in safe mode and normal mode but it didn't help. When I opened the pdf-file with acrobat reader or with mac's viewer, the problem was visible already. Normal lines are as they should but arrows have the same width.

Here's a screenshot of PowerPoint. Everything looks ok.

And here's a screenshot of PDF which was exported from PowerPoint.

I added the lines and arrows by clicking the insert tab, clicking shapes and then selecting the shape and then I just drew it. 

I have office 365 Business Premium subscription.

Thank you for your help.

Answer 4

Hi Whisky,

I'd like to first troubleshooting the issue, you can try the following methods to check the outcome:

1. Save the file as PDF first and then print it.
2. If possible, use another printer to print the page.
3. Restart Mac in safe mode.

It the issue persists, please let us know the following information so we can assist you further:

1. The screenshot of the line width before printing and after printing.
2. The detailed steps you add the lines with arrows and set the width of them.
3. Your Office 365 subscription.

Regards,

Jared