Export word document with high resolution PNG to PDF

Question

I have a nice high resolution PNG. (Download from Dropbox) When I paste this into a new Word document, it looks good. I can't zoom in more than 500% but at that zoom level all lines are smooth, as expected.

Now I click File > Save as and select PDF from the Dropdown. From Tool > Compress Images (right next to the save button) I select "use document resolution". Then, I hit save.

Expected: The image in the PDF (viewed in Adobe Reader) should have a similar quality as the PNG.

Reality: The Image is much worse than the PNG. Maybe downsampled to 96ppi.

Notes:

• When I am in the save dialog and I go again to Tools > Compress Images, the selected option is reverted to "E-Mail (96 dpi)"
• I tried the same thing on a diffewrent computer with Word 2013, but no luck.
• I tried a different PDF viewer - same image quality
• I tried to encode normal 96 ppi within the PNG and resize the image in word.
• The option "do not compress images in file" is enabled. This option: ()
• This is a reduced problem, so please don't suggest GIMP. My real file has some text in it. Until now I am just reluctant of redoing it all in LaTeX.
• The problem gets worse, when the image is further reduced within word. This points to a resampling going on when the pdf is created.

Additional thing I have tried:

• When I use "Printing (220ppi)" instead of "document resolution" there is no discernible difference. (After all I thought that "document resolution" means that no resampling takes place and the full resolution is used.)
• Exporting to XPS format has the same characteristics.

Question: How can I preserve the image quality when exporting to PDF?

Solution 1

Any easier solution might be to forego the in-built pdf conversion and use a pdf printer (I use pdfcreator) You'll likely find finer grained control (including DPI settings of the printout - start w/ 600x600 but it supports up to 2400x2400 iirc).

This may be an easier solution as it won't force you to reformat existing docs. It's also free.

As discussed in comments, at some point pdfcreator was engaged in installing some unwanted software along with their package. I believe they have since stopped this practice but to ensure you do not ever have to deal with or think about this I suggest using Ninite to install. Ninite's installer will strip out all the BS (if any) and install silently for you, which is nice. You can also re-run the ninite installer any time to update the software, again without any BS. Just in case.

EDIT - as per ThomasK this printing will not preserve hyperlinks in your output PDF. (I assume they will print, just not be clickable)

Solution 2

If you are using Windows 10 then you are lucky: you don’t need any third party PDF printer. Windows 10 comes with a PDF printer called Microsoft PDF Printer that you can make use of. I tried and it printed with decent resolution.

If running on Windows 8.1 or below, or requiring more functionality/better quality, JoelAZ’s answer is better. Just pay attention to where you download.

Solution 3

None of the aforementioned solutions worked for me including enabling the "do not compress images in file" and "select ISO 19005-1 complaint" options. It did not matter if I saved-as a PDF or exported as a PDF.

What DID work for me, was to create the PDF using the MS Office Microsoft Print to PDF printer option.

• Select Print from the File Options menu.
• Select Microsoft Print to PDF from the Printer drop down menu.
• Print. Specify where you want the PDF file to be created.

Solution 4

I know this is a really old post. But I have a working solution (for me anyway).

I converted the png online to an EMF (enhanced metafile). When I use this in word and export to PDF it keeps full resolution.

Hope this helps some.

Solution 5

I discovered the trick: when you save as PDF, go to Options (under the PDF) and uncheck ISO19005-1 Compliant Problem solved!

View more solutions

Comments

[Zerobinary99]

Compliments to this very accurate and neatly detailed question! I wished every question would be like this. What kind of Office are you running? I gave it a shot with Office 2007, Microsoft's PDF plugin, a high-res png and the pdf came out alright

[DasKrümelmonster]

Thanks :-) I use Word 2010, but have the same issue with Word 2013 on my laptop.

[Admin]

FWIW I don't know of a way other than using a 3rd-party PDF maker with the relevant higher-res settings.

[Darius]

I would use Ginmp to open the PNG files and then export each to PDF. Check the result for quality and see if it's up to your standard. :)

[JoelAZ]

OP, this now 2 1/2 year old question is still getting answers, some not-very-high quality. Please select an answer so this can close.

[Christopher John]

Yes like yours JoelAZ was not very high quality in my experience today, it didn't work any better than the inbuilt windows option and installed unwanted software on my computer.

[StixO]

wordtopdfimage.blogspot.com/2012/02/…

[DasKrümelmonster]

The real document should be 85mm by 55mm, and the image is 10mm by 10mm. Changing that is not really a solution imho. The printer supports something like 600dpi, so 96dpi will definitely look blurry.

[Zerobinary99]

You can print the PDF in any size you want. Downscaling is preserving the quality. Try my solution and adapt it to a multiple of your expected resolution like 51cm x 33cm. Printing it to a smaller sheet with the same aspect ratio will preserve the image's quality. You could also get a proper pdf-plugin for Word that offers more options than the rudimentary built-in pdf support.

[Zerobinary99]

You wrote in your description that you "use document resolution" as a setting for the file. Using the original sheet measurements of 85mm x 55mm will thusly result in pixelation as the document resolution is just too low. I agree that adjusting the font sizes this way is a pain, but other than using third party add ons there's probably little you can do. You could try installing the pdf-update for Office 2007 since it doesn't have the options you described and may be allows for what you want. Other than that I can only recommend using Nitro PDF or something similar.

[Zerobinary99]

Another solution would be edit your pdf with an editor and replace the low-res picture with a high-res version. There are free editors available. There's even one that allows you to edit pdf-files online in your browser if you don't mind the lack of data security.

[Andreas Rejbrand]

But Word doesn't support SVG images.

[Kalle Richter]

You're right, wouldn't have thought about it in my worst nightmares... what a lack of feature!

[Iván Pérez]

You can convert SVG files to EMF format (vector image format from Microsoft), which is supported by Word.

[Dunc]

Thanks! Should be the answer IMO. When installing PDFCreator, I suggest using Expert Mode > Deselect PDFArchitect (60MB!) + help files/languages. When printing, default settings worked a charm for me.

[Dirk Boer]

Wow. It might be free, but it has been a while that I saw so many spamware in a download. I thought I ticked everything off and now I still end up with my Chrome default search settings screwed up.

[Dirk Boer]

Well @JoelAZ, I don't know when it was the last time that you tried it, but nowadays the bundle comes with BingProtect. And that's a really horrible one. Even trying to set back your search engine in the settings is being overridden by this malware. Despite that, the uninstaller didn't work. blog.mitechmate.com/how-to-remove-bingprotect-virus I'd say that's pretty evil. Anyone who is not a nerd like us would be really screwed.

[Dirk Boer]

Hi @JoelAZ no problem of course! You couldn't know what they would do with those installers. Just wanted to let people know that they should be really careful with this one.

[Dirk Boer]

And just to be clear: maybe I did screw up with one of the ticks, but I think BingProtect.exe is a really horrible type of Malware - and way worse than just a simple change of your homepage.

[JoelAZ]

@DirkBoer I'm not familiar with bingprotect but in the past it was either Ask toolbar or Yahoo toolbar. Annoying but not truly hurtful. This bingprotect thing sounds like they've crossed the bridge from tacky behavior to shady. Hopefully others users will take heed.

[Firee]

I did this and the picture is quite clear even at 200% resolution in PDF

[DasKrümelmonster]

Does not work for me. Same low resolution and the option makes virtually no difference.

[DasKrümelmonster]

I tried this option already (see question), to no avail.

[ivan walsh]

Have you tried using EPS files instead of Jpg/Gif?

[lizamcqueney]

doesn't work for me (in word 2010). resulting pdf is bad quality.

[fixer1234]

Welcome to Super User. This is more of a hint of something to explore than an actionable solution. Can you expand your answer to provide more detail of how to accomplish this? Thanks.

[Franklin Yu]

I think recently Windows 10 comes with a printer called Microsoft Print to PDF.

[JoelAZ]

@FranklinYu seems you are correct. I had to check to see if there was such a thing :) Much more simplistic but I'm sure it's perfect for majority users and basic tasks. Fwiw, I'm still using pdf creator for sefl and all my clients. Works fantastic and flexibility is very nice. I think the devs ultimately came around on the spamming toolbars/shit-ware BS but I still install w/ ninite because why not so I'm insulated anyway.

[nachose]

for me this made no difference (Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013)

[nachose]

for me this made no difference (Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013)

[Franklin Yu]

@JoelAZ You may as well mention it in the answer, so that people favoring built-in solution would appreciate it.

[JoelAZ]

@FranklinYu I don't agree. My answer is a standalone answer for 3rd party software and relevant across any Windows platform where the in-built solution you're talking about is Win10 only (and not relevant to the OP.) If you believe it's important, maybe add it as a new answer and see if it gets some upvotes.

[JoelAZ]

The OP specifies using "Save As -> PDF" built into Word. Suggesting settings for a paid solution you don't know the user has access to is not useful here. I suggest you edit or consider pulling the answer as imo it merits down-voting.

[JoelAZ]

Do you mean you tried pdfcreator as I suggested and it too did not solve your problem either? I find that a little hard to believe.

[Franklin Yu]

@JoelAZ Good idea.

[wrieedx]

@JoelAZ Your solution involves downloading third party software that may possibly contain spyware. So to answer your question, I did not attempt your suggestion and won't in the future.

[JoelAZ]

Fair enough. However to say "NONE of the aforementioned solutions worked" without having tried them is disingenuous so perhaps your answer should reflect that. Also, it was a browser toolbar. Further, we've established that vendor has corrected their course and no longer does that and, finally, I've provided a clean alternate installer that isolates one from those worries now and in the future. Try or don't try, it's up to you, but don't represent that you tried my solution and it didn't work for you.

[wrieedx]

@JoelAZ Look, I don't know who you are, but can you see how weird and petty it is to comment on a stranger's post in such an aggressive way? Maybe you should rethink what you are doing and try a different method in the future.

[DasKrümelmonster]

The "Microsoft Print to PDF" Printer retains the image quality better than the "Save as PDF" function, but looses quality nonetheless. The resolution is higher (maybe 600dpi?) but there are some JPEG artifacts visible. This uses no third party software and will be adequate for many use cases, therefore I'm marking this as answer for visibility. For getting the best image quality I'd recommend the answer from @JoelAZ.

[JoelAZ]

my apologies if you took some offense. I really don't see my post as being aggressive and certainly it wasn't meant to be. My intent was to point out that if you say none of the solutions worked for you, you're implying you tried them all. You then clarify that you didn't. So the point was asking you to not represent having tried a solution that you hadn't and your answer would serve better without that implication. Again, my apologies if you're offended by my words or tone. There was no intent to.

[Erik A]

Note that in later versions of Word 2016, SVG support has been added, so this can be used.

[z2z]

This worked for me in Office 2016 32 Bit :)

[ch271828n]

work for me! thanks! P.S. adobe pdf printer results in much worse resolution than microsoft one

[Christopher John]

Neither the windows PDF printer or the pdfcreator preserve high quality image resolution in the PDF for me.

[Franklin Yu]

@ChristopherJohn It has been commented above that Microsoft PDF Printer is expected to lose some quality. If you have question about pdfcreator, I recommend asking JoelAZ since I don't use it myself… Sorry.

[Christopher John]

OK I got it to work, basically you need adobe DC and to customise the settings for PDF printing so that there is no image compression. Now the PDF images are perfect.

[Christopher John]

I literally tried everything on this page and unfortunately the only one that gives high res images from a word file with png images embedded in it, is adobe DC.

[Christopher John]

pdfcreator gave as bad results as the inbuilt word pdf printer and it installed unwanted software in the background which is a pdf viewer I didn't even want which is annoying. The only method that works for me is the adobe DC method.

[TheSciGuy]

Worked for me! Other solutions did not!

[JoelAZ]

@ChristopherJohn it's been commented above to use Ninite to install PDF creator or be very careful when clicking through. The unwanted software is "offered" in the install but defaults to on. As for resolution/degradation, I have not had or seen that problem with pdfcreator. But I'm glad you found a solution that works for you.

[s.co.tt]

I'm baffled as to why this is the accepted answer. Today I'm specifically attempting to export a DOCX to PDF. It looks fantastic printed to an actual printer, but abysmally pixelated via the Microsoft PDF Printer. But I've been down this road before, and I've never seen good performance out of that "printer" with images containing detail or text. (E.g. with screenshots for software documentation in this case.) This answer even says that JoelAZ's answer is better, as the original question was indeed concerned with quality.

[Christopher John]

Thanks Joel so am I. Adobe DC seem to be in some kind of unholy relationship with Microsoft so you have to buy their pdf software to get the best resolution. The free pdf makers are not as good, I tried all of the ones recommended here pretty much I think.

[Thomas K]

While I had better results with pdfcreator than saving/exporting/printing to PDF from Word, it does not preserve links, which is a severe downside to be aware of!

[TJJ]

And while it may provide better image quality, you lose functionality like hyperlinks to references.

[JoelAZ]

Thanks @ThomasK. I don't often print with links so I guess I never noticed. Will update my answer to reflect.

[Pedro77]

Can you add more info, step by step?

[bers]

This does not seem to influence PDF export.

[bers]

Does not work for me.

[shemadolev]

Unfortunately, for me the PNG and EMF have the same resolution after exporting to PDF (Word 365)

[Coanda]

I had a vectored image in PDF and this solution worked for me. I opened the PDF in the open source program Inkscape and saved it as EMF. I was able to add the EMF vectored image in Word. The details/vectoring remained intact after saving the Word file in PDF.

[Tonatio]

It worked for me: Word 2013.

[TJJ]

I've found the only acceptable way for me is to use Adobe Acrobat and let Acrobat do the conversion from Word to PDF.

[TJJ]

Doesn't work in Office 365/2019. Still bad resolution.

[TJJ]

Same for me. Only Acrobat works reliantly (there's a trial version!). It also preserves all the Word features like links inside the document (e.g. table of contents, table of figures, bibliography, etc). Everything else came with huge disadvantages. Unfortunately, conversion time can increase quite a lot, especially when using lots of SVG as well.

[Admin]

This works great, thank you! Please add more detailed detailed descriptions how to get from the "Acrobat" tab in MS Word to the "Adobe PDF Settings" window. If you're done with changing settings, finally, you have to use "Create PDF" (might be a sligthly different term) from the Acrobat tab to create the pdf.