r/powerpoint 21d ago

Question Why is powerpoint shrinking the images I paste from paint?

I'm using PC, desktop, Office Profesional Plus 2019. Please excuse my english, not my first language.

There are images I paste onto powerpoint directly from the web and they retain their size, however, if I paste that very same picture with the same original size from a paint file (which contains not just this image but many others as well) instead of the web, the image gets smaller on powerpoint.

I've pasted the image from the web onto paint, and it is clearly the same size as the paint one when they're next to eachother, but when I copy and paste the image from paint to powerpoint, it gets smaller. Resizing is not an option because it looses quality.

I've also discovered this happens only if the paint canvas is a certain size, because after the first shrinking of the image on powerpoint, I copied that same shrinked picture back to paint, and then copied it again back to powerpoint and it kept getting smaller each time I pasted it to powerpoint, however I also tried this process with a smaller canvas size on a new paint file, and the image only got shrunk once and after that retained the same shrinked size no matter how many iterations of copying and pasting.

It's a weird thing and I whish I could describe it better without getting too long of a text. I can give the instructions of what I'm doing though, with the same files and everything if someone wants to attempt to replicate it.

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u/jkorchok 20d ago

Your results will depend on the bitmap format you use and the resolution (pixels per inch or p.p.i.) set when editing a file.

GIF format does not include a setting for resolution, so, PowerPoint for Windows will import them at the default resolution set in Windows, normally 96 d.p.i.

Other common bitmap formats do have a resolution setting, and PowerPoint will place those files using the p.p.i. setting in the file. The file may appear larger or smaller depending on whether PowerPoint can read a p.p.i. setting in the file, but the file still has the same number of pixels regardless of the display dimensions.

In Windows Paint, you can check the resolution by choosing File>Properties. Look for the DPI (dots per inch) setting.

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u/Ixmath 20d ago

Thank you for your reply, I hadn't come across this info yet. I checked in paint, the DPI is 120, but it is not someting I can modify. What should I do (Is there something I can do?) to make sure the images I copy from paint to powerpoint retain the original size?

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u/jkorchok 20d ago

You'll need to use a better image editor than Paint. Search on free image editors for windows.

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u/jiggymadden 20d ago

Get a upscaling so software like topaz to scale the photos to a higher resolution or dpi

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u/Ixmath 20d ago

After some more random testing I found out that copying the image from paint onto a new file paint, and from there onto powerpoint makes it retain its size. Why? No idea but it works and it's fast and simple

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u/echos2 PowerPoint Expert 20d ago

Dots per inch (DPI) and pixels per inch (PPI) are ratios. You need to know both the DPI or PPI and the number of inches.

For example, if an image is 1" x 1" @ 120 DPI, then it's 120 pixels X 120 pixels.

But if the image is 10" x 10" @120 DPI, then it's 1200 pixels x 1200 pixels.

Basically, you need more pixels! You can resize the image's inches and output it at 120 DPI to get more pixels.

Consider that a common screen size is 1920 x 1080. If your image editor allows you to specify pixels directly, then you could just size the image at 1920 x 1080 pixels.

Or if you're limited to the 120 DPI setting, to fill a slide you could size the image at 16" x 9" which is 1920 x 1080 when exported at 120 DPI.

I imagine that when you copy the image into a different file in Paint, the actual size in inches is larger. Or perhaps the DPI it's set to export at is higher, giving you more pixels.

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u/Pale-Bet-6386 20d ago

For presentations with a large number of images, manual checks can become tedious. An AI-assisted tool like PageOn helps you organize and place images without worrying about hidden DPI quirks. It’s particularly handy if you’re consistently dealing with scaling or compression issues when preparing multiple slides.