It
may be tempting because it's simple and familiar. But its simplicity
can get you into trouble.
If
you want to print a poster, put a figure into a grant, or just
make a high quality print for a paper, PowerPoint is much more
limited than other drawing programs such as Illustrator or InDesign.
You may lose resolution, color and even object placement during
the process. The simplicity of the program makes it very inflexible
in working with other programs and performing sophisticated tasks
available in other applications.
What
to do then? PP is a good tool for presentations, so don't
despair. The key is to make figures in Photoshop or Illustrator,
save copies of them as jpegs or gifs, and then insert those into
the PowerPoint presentation.
Use compressed formats when inserting images,
such as JPEG
in Photoshop. Remember
to save the original documents for other uses and take note of where
you saved them!
