Truncation of inserted PDF files (not rasterizing)

Question

When I close and open a presentation, inserted PDFs (for example data figures) are truncated along the bottom. This is a new issue, separate from the longstanding inscrutable downsampling of inserted pdfs despite setting the preference to not do this. This is true on both of my Apple computers, one running OSX 26 the other running 15.7.3. It is not specific to the given presentation. Thanks to all.

Answer 1

Office for Mac converts placed PDFs to EMF vector format or a low-res PNG bitmap. You cannot choose which format gets used. To work around this issue, convert PDFs to EMF format using the open-source InkScape program. They always appear sharp. Doing the conversion yourself makes it more likely that the placed file will appear correctly in the document.

Answer 2

Hello Shlomchik, Warren David

May I ask how you are inserting the PDF into PowerPoint? For example, are you dragging and dropping the PDF file directly onto the slide, right? If possible, could you also share a screenshot that shows the “truncated along the bottom” behavior? That would help me better understand what is being rendered incorrectly.

Unfortunately, I’m not able to reproduce this issue on my side at the moment. To help narrow this down, could you please confirm:

• The exact version of PowerPoint for Mac you’re using

• Whether Office was recently updated before the issue started occurring

During my research, I found reports indicating that PDFs inserted into PowerPoint for Mac are not stored internally as PDFs. Instead, PowerPoint converts them to either:

• a high‑resolution vector format (such as EMF), or
• a low‑resolution PNG, which can lead to visual issues after reopening the file.

As a workaround, you may want to try:

• Converting the PDF to EMF or PNG format before inserting it, to see if this avoids the truncation
• Using macOS screen capture (Command + Shift + 3 or Command + Shift + 4) to insert the content as an image

Please try the above suggestions and let me know the results. I’m looking forward to your reply so we can continue troubleshooting together.

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