Exporting eps to jpg to word to pdf

This Fat Girl Runs

I am working on my company's letterhead which is created in Illustrator.

We use the letterhead electronically on Word docs that we then PDF for issue. We take the letterhead as a jpg, insert it into the header, type the letter then print as a pdf.

My problem is the quality of the image degrades significantly so the final pdf looks really bad.

How can I export the eps file to a jpg that will still look sharp when we use it in Word so that the pdf will still be clear?

I have tried all the different settings and not getting anywhere. I have not been trained on Illustrator and did not design the original letterheads, I just update them.

ZENER

Convert the EPS file to a PNG graphics file instead. JPEG is a very lossy format which would contribute to the degrading quality.

Are you editing the file in Illustrator then saving out or are you editing the JPEG file ? Each time you save a JPEG file you lose some detail, better to do all the editing in Illustrator first then save out the final design to a lossless format like PNG.

Ken

This Fat Girl Runs

Yeah, I'm editing straight from the eps file in Illustrator then export as a jpg. I was told by our IT manager that png files are too large and would bloat memory on our servers.

The issue is we need to be able to insert the image in the Word document. We type all our letters and reports in Word, add the letterhead then print to pdf.

peneau

What's the DPI of your jpg and when you say print to pdf are you then printing to paper ?

This Fat Girl Runs

DPI is 300. It won't let me go higher. Print to pdf then email out, no paper copies.

peneau

Your DPI should be plenty high enough for electronic copies, have you checked the graphic/images settings on whatever you are using to create the pdf ?

This Fat Girl Runs

I have, they are the highest available settings.

I will try a png and see if that makes a difference.

ZENER

Surely a 5 or even 10MB PNG isn't going to bring the server to a standstill ?!

Ken

This Fat Girl Runs

Yeah, that's what I thought too.

I tried the png and that was even worse quality, but oddly enough less memory. Hmm, go figure!

Anyway, I checked my pdf settings and put them on highest quality then converted the word doc to pdf instead of printed. It made a difference and looks much better. It's not perfect but I don't think it ever will be.

beauf

Maybe print the letter heads first then, the word doc afterwards on the same paper.

Charles Babbage

I think in this case you are not getting the EPS quality but the bitmap preview in the EPS file, which is low quality.
One possibility is to convert the EPS to another vector format, like EMF that word can read.