SuccessPNG works best for Microsoft Office

The PNG format is best for exporting Illustrator files to Microsoft Office applications, such as Word and PowerPoint. PNG files can be exported for the web in the Save for Web dialog box. However, you won’t be able to control resolution, because it is fixed in this dialog box at 72 dpi for web output. PNG format does an excellent job of preserving transparency and other Illustrator effects, but you lose scalability since PNG is a raster format. If scalability is essential and quality is less important, try the EMF format for illustrations destined for Word or PowerPoint. Illustrator has configured the best settings for saving PNG files for Office applications, and they are available by choosing File > Save for Microsoft Office. Which of the three web-compatible raster formats should you use?

• JPEG is best for online photos because it supports more colors than GIF.
• GIF is best for images in which the background must be transparent because it allows the web page background to show through behind the illustration.
• PNG combines good color support with transparency, but it is not as widely supported by browsing environments such as JPEG or GIF.

To save to any web-compatible format, choose File > Save for Web to open the Save for Web window. Then select a format from the Optimized File Format pop-up menu.The following options are most essential for configuring web graphics and are available for JPEG, GIF, and PNG formats:

• Transparency assigns a single color to “knock out” and make invisible, allowing the web page background color or image to show through.
• Interlacing (for GIF and PNG) or Progressive (for JPEG) allows images to “fade in” as they download to a browser, reducing the annoyance of waiting for images to appear on a page.
• Quality defines how much compression will be applied to reduce file size. Higher quality requires a larger file size. You can preview quality on the left side of the Save for Web dialog box. If you choose the 2-Up or 4-Up options from the tabs at the top of the dialog box, you can preview and compare file formats and compressions (Figure 2).