Formatting a Screen Shot for Client Report - Big Problems

[NoNothingGuy]

Hopefully someone here can help.

In a report, we have been formatting screen shots within Word for a client. What we just realized, after having somewhat of an issue, is that when the client receives the report and views it over their iPhone, the screen shot is no longer cropped, and the entire screen can be seen. This does not happen if they open the doc and view it through their desktop email.

Why is this happening, and is there a way to avoid this in the future (as it is unprofessional and possibly harmful). This is not something we normally do, but have to share screen shots for a particular client (I imagine this is going to happen more and more).

Is there a program where I can make sure the image is permanently cropped?

Thanks so much, I really appreciate any help.

 

[tj100]

It's an oddity of MS products that you can 'uncrop' things in Word/Powerpoint. The easiest way around it is to send the document in .PDF, rather than native PPT or Word.

You could also import the screenshot into photoshop or paint, crop it, resave it as a new file, and then copy and paste, but that's a bit of a hassle.

 

[celery]

If you don't have photoshop (and paint will work, but is fairly terrible) you can download GIMP for free and it has most of the features of photoshop.

 

[NoNothingGuy]

You are both amazing. Thank you. I figured photoshop/paint would work, but hearing it from you makes me feel more comfortable.

Thank you both very much.

 

[Master-Classter]

yeah, use gimp or paint.net. control+shift+X will crop to whatever you've highlighted

 

[rdaws]

I screenshot all the time, and I use this handy tool that's saved me hours: http://www.zapgrab.net/ Launch it, drag a frame around the area to be captured, and paste right into the document. It's literally three steps.

 

[Some consulting guy]

+1 vote for cropping the image before you add it to the document. The cropping tool in word is not a good way to get this result.

 

[Blackhood]

I believe that once an image is compressed then any cropped out areas are permanently deleted. This is conjecture though.

 

[Matt]

ya, I think that's right - I forgot where it is, but there is a reduce image size option in there somewhere - doing that rids it of cropped areas and (I think) recompresses it. But still, you are better off either using a screenshot app (I use the Screengrab plugin for Firefox) or else cropping in an image editor first.