Arrows and lines moving

Apr 15, 2011

Hi there,

I am creating training material with lots of diagrams that require lines, arrows and circles (vector diagrams).  I spend ages to perfectly line them up but when they are published they have all moved - just a few mm, but enough to make me look careless and lazy.

Here is an arrow in PowerPoint:

Here it is in the published output:

(FWIW In many cases (but not all) I am using animations to move an arrow from one place to another, or fading them into view, etc.  In this case there is no animation.)

Is there a way to stop that from happening?

I am using XP, PowerPoint 2007 and Presenter 6.3.1009.1313 Pro.  I have been using Presenter for years.

(Sorry, could not find a post on this - I can't believe I am the only one to have this problem.)

Jason

13 Replies
Justin Wilcox

Becky Rasmussen said:

When I put a border or frame on a photo in PowerPoint it shifts and looks more like a hard drop shadow when published. Is this the same issue Jason is referring to, or is there a solution for this?

I would suggest you submit a case by following the steps below.Please create an Articulate Presenter package, then upload the zip file to our server. You can review how to do this here: http://www.articulate.com/support/presenter09/?p=457Upload the resulting zip file from your computer to our server using this upload form: http://upload.articulate.com/Please be sure to include a description of your issue, your version of PowerPoint, version of Windows and version of Presenter '09 which you can find in Help and Support -> About Articulate Presenter. Please also include the URL for this thread so we can follow up with you in the forums.
Jason Tranter

I appreciate the suggestions, but I have over 2500 slides to edit...  Having to group, capture as an image, import, etc. is not only time consuming but it is then very difficult to edit.  Plus I use some screen animations (moving lines, etc.); they'll have to go - or I will have to drop the shadow on all the lines, etc.

Jason

Dwayne Schamp

I did just test this with no-shadow on the line and shadowed line. The non-shadowed line did not move. So, as Justin says, remove the shadow, and it should work fine. it does look good, i admit, but for vector, pinpoint graphics, do you really want a shadow on them? it might be confusing to some, not all, but some.

2 cents, no charge.

Jason Tranter

I am kind of surprised - I thought it would be a problem for a lot of people.  Of all the fancy things that Presenter has to do, keeping an arrow in the right place (with shadow or not) should be a simple functional requirement...  The world won't end if I have to remove the shadows (even if I think it looks better and would keep it consistent with everything else in my training), but it should work.

Sasha Scott

I find this issue also, any vector shape really, sometimes text position change is also noticeable. And the amount of shift is unpredictable. I'm sure Articulate is well aware of it and working hard to fix (please)

I believe it's the way the PPT content gets rendered to SWF when publishing (as the output isn't PPT after all), I've seen it mentioned before on the forums. The best solution I have found is pretty clumsy - when you find a problem, turn off snapping in PowerPoint, then nudge the item with the arrow keys, preview the slide in Articulate, repeat until perfect. It will look out of place in the PPT but in the right place when published...

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