Help about Microsoft PowerPoint -Reply

[Jacques Presseault]

I have received a shareware program which allows me to open GIF files
and save them as PCX.

Problem solved.

Thank you all!

Thomas Dowling wrote:
> 
>  ----
> From: Dan Lester <DLESTER at bsu.idbsu.edu>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
> Date: Tuesday, June 03, 1997 11:49 AM
> Subject: Help about Microsoft PowerPoint -Reply
> 
> >...From what I can see, there is NO reason to not
> >convert all your web images to .jpg, since the last several
> >versions of all the browsers support them.  In addition, the
> >files are smaller and you don't have to worry about being
> >sued on licensing.
> >
> >I still have a couple of .gifs on some of my pages, but only
> >because I've not had time to convert them.  I sure don't put
> >any NEW ones on them.
> 
> I disagree.  I think there's still a place for GIF, though mostly because
> PNG has not yet received widespread support.  It's lossless, so I can edit
> and re-edit the same image without eventually getting noticeable
> degradation; it supports transparency in its endearingly simple way; and it
> allows me to reduce colors, which I think is a bonus to someone displaying
> a handful of different images on a display with less than 24-bit color.
> It's obviously not the best choice for large and/or photorealistic images,
> but I don't think it's a bad choice for smaller images like line art,
> icons, and logos.  That's especially true for extant GIFs--converting GIF
> to JPEG always seems to look worse than converting something like TIFF to
> either GIF or JPEG.
> 
> BTW (since this question seems to come up every time GIF's future gets
> discussed), Dan points out that there are intellectual property issues
> regarding the GIF format.  That's true; the compression algorithm used in
> GIF87a and GIF89a is protected by a patent currently owned by Unisys, but
> Unisys is extracting royalty payments only from software developers whose
> software reads or creates GIF images, not from end users, web authors, etc.
>  My guess is that for a product like PowerPoint, Microsoft will consider
> the royalties to Unisys a justifiable expense for a long time to come; my
> copy of PowerPoint from Office95 inserts GIFs with no problem.
> http://www.unisys.com/LeadStory/lzwfaq.html for Unisys's statement.
> 
> Thomas ("But those XBM files have *got* to go") Dowling
> OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
> tdowling at ohiolink.edu

-- 
Jacques Presseault		jacques at olsn.on.ca
Ontario Library Service - North (Sudbury)
http://www.library.on.ca/index.html
Tel.:	(705) 675-6433	Fax:	(705) 671-2441