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Thread: [OT Techie Question]: Pasting Wordart (Read 5603 times) |
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Secret Drinker
MV Fixture
Paul Gunningham, MoM
Posts: 207
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[OT Techie Question]: Pasting Wordart
« : 11.10.05 at 19:04 » |
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Apologies for using this forum for OT Techie stuff, but I've been trying to find a solution to this particular problem and I've had some helpful responses from you before, so I hope I can get some ideas this time.
In the past I've been using WordArt in MS Word, to create text for use in graphics. I often use the two-colour fill effects. If you choose two colours, the WordArt appears to gradually change, or "cross-fade" (to use a sound analogy!), from one colour to the other - for example, if your two 'colours' are black and white, you see the text black at one edge and white at the other, with a gradual change from black to grey and then to white, and no obvious lines anywhere. I don't know what the technical term for this effect is, but I hope you can understand it from my description.
So far, so good. The problem is, that if I copy the WordArt and try to paste it into an image in, say, Paintshop Pro or Photosuite, the text appears to have definite, distinct solid bands of colour across it (typically 6 or 7 of these), instead of the gradual change from one to the other. Again, I've no idea what the effect is called. For example, I just tried the two colours red and green, and on pasting into Paintshop Pro I can see about 7 colours - red, orange, brown(ish), then various shades of green.
It used to work fine on my older PC with Windows 98, but now I have Windows XP it no longer works the same way. I've tried to find any settings in Paintshop Pro that might change the way it works, but so far I've had no luck. Then I discovered the same thing happens in Photosuite so maybe it's not Paintshop Pro that's the problem (?).
Anyway, if anyone knows what I'm talking about and has any ideas what the problem or solution might be, I'd be grateful. I've tried searching the Internet, Google groups etc. without finding this particular problem described anywhere, although not knowing the technical terms for this phenomenon probably doesn't help.
(If it would help to see an example I could post one somewhere)
TIA and Cheers
Paul
Keeping a horizontalish profile in Herts, much of the time
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https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=tech&action=display&num=1129053878&start=0#0  |
Staving off the pressure... by drinking real ale
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S J Birkill
MV Administrator
just a sensible reserve
Posts: 883
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Re: [OT Techie Question]: Pasting Wordart
« Reply #1: 11.10.05 at 21:44 » |
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Paul
Are you by any chance pasting into an image with low (e.g. 16 colours, 4 bit) colour depth? If so, the pasted image will be limited to this number of colours. Before pasting, try (in PSP) Colors -> Increase Color Depth -> 16 Million Colors (24 bit), and then paste. Sorry if this is so obvious it's the first thing you checked...
SJB
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https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=tech&action=display&num=1129053878&start=1#1 |
Stephen J Birkill
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Snoopy
MV Feature
Alexis Birkill
Posts: 44
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Re: [OT Techie Question]: Pasting Wordart
« Reply #2: 11.10.05 at 22:42 » |
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As explained above, if the image you are pasting into has insufficient colour depth, you'll see this effect. GIF images are limited to 256 colours in total, so if you're trying to paste into a GIF that'd almost certainly be the problem.
However, if your image depth is at 16 million colours, a workaround would be to use the Print Screen button (often abbrieviated to Prt Scrn or similar) to take a screenshot of the desktop, while the WordArt in question is in view (i.e. with Word open, hit Print Screen).
You can then paste this into your graphics application (in recent versions of Paint Shop Pro, Edit Menu -> Paste -> As New Image). You'll have to crop this image down to the bit you want, but it should get around the banding.
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https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=tech&action=display&num=1129053878&start=2#2 |
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Secret Drinker
MV Fixture
Paul Gunningham, MoM
Posts: 207
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Re: [OT Techie Question]: Pasting Wordart
« Reply #3: 12.10.05 at 09:51 » |
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Thanks for the replies, Steve and Snoopy.
The destination image was 16M colours (24 bit) so that isn't the problem, unfortunately. (No apology necessary Steve!)
Snoopy, your workaround will certainly work, and thanks for that - I hadn't thought of it. So at least I should be able to achieve what I want to now.
I'd still like to know why it doesn't work properly as it did before though, so if anyone knows what else could be wrong then please let me know!
Cheers
Paul
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https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=tech&action=display&num=1129053878&start=3#3 |
Staving off the pressure... by drinking real ale
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Snoopy
MV Feature
Alexis Birkill
Posts: 44
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Re: [OT Techie Question]: Pasting Wordart
« Reply #4: 12.10.05 at 10:39 » |
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Doesn't help you fix it, but I've just tried doing the same thing on my work machine, running XP, Word 2002 and Paint Shop Pro 7.04, and see exactly the same banding issue. So it definitely seems like a bug.
Interestingly, I can paste the WordArt back into MS Word in a number of formats (including JPG) without any banding being present...
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https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=tech&action=display&num=1129053878&start=4#4 |
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Secret Drinker
MV Fixture
Paul Gunningham, MoM
Posts: 207
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Re: [OT Techie Question]: Pasting Wordart
« Reply #5: 12.10.05 at 12:09 » |
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on 12.10.05 at 10:39, Snoopy wrote:Doesn't help you fix it, but I've just tried doing the same thing on my work machine, running XP, Word 2002 and Paint Shop Pro 7.04, and see exactly the same banding issue. So it definitely seems like a bug.
Interestingly, I can paste the WordArt back into MS Word in a number of formats (including JPG) without any banding being present... |
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Well, it's nice to know it's not just me doing something daft 
My Paint Shop Pro is only v6. As I said, it used to work fine on the W98 system I had (same version of PSP). I think the Word I have now (2002) is a different version though. I can't remember what version the old one was offhand, but it had some useful features in WordArt that seem to have been removed in the newer version, in particular the ability to rotate the WordArt in Word itself.
Thanks for the help, and if you ever find out what the problem is please let me know!
Cheers
Paul
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https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=tech&action=display&num=1129053878&start=5#5 |
Staving off the pressure... by drinking real ale
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Jan
MV Fellow
Posts: 312
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Re: [OT Techie Question]: Pasting Wordart
« Reply #6: 12.10.05 at 12:36 » |
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If I can add an off topic comment to an off topic question, I'd recommend Hoversnap as a tool for taking screen shots:
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/hoversnap.html
Its freeware and allows you to select the bit of the screen you want to copy as an alternative to the active window or the full screen.
All the usual disclaimers of course!
Jan
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https://peteatkin.com/forum?board=tech&action=display&num=1129053878&start=6#6 |
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