Pasting screenshots in some of the MS Office products

[Julien Tosoni]

Hi,

I am using 4.8.5 and have an issue with Office 2007, 2010 or 2013 (aka O365) for many months, that started with earlier versions of SC, but I can't recall which one...  

This affects only Word, Outlook or Powerpoint, not Excel, when pasting screenshots in these programs. Straight-forward paste (control-V for instance) will paste a very small bitmap. I should use the paste-special feature (and select the bitmap format) to get a correct size for these screenshots, instead of letting MS use the default DIB format.

So, the DIB image properties seem to not be properly set in the clipboard. If I close ScreenshotCaptor, further screenshots are properly sized. Interestingly, somedays the size is correct. I also observed this behavior after closing SC and restarting it, so it looks like something is not always initialized constantly. Most of the time, the size is not correct unfortunately...

I have checked this on two different computers. Both have a US copy of Windows Seven pro installed, with an i5 or i7 core 4 to 8 GB ram on HP platforms.

Any clue what can cause this?

Thanks in advance.

PS: Amazing product, second to none  

Julien Tosoni - Goodyear Dunlop Tires France.

[mouser]

Hi Julien.

One thing you might try is changing the DPI setting on the Image File Format tab -- especially if your DPI there is set to something higher than 96 -- since the default is now 96.

Keep in mind this would only effect NEW captures, not ones captured prior to changing the setting.

[Julien Tosoni]

Hi Mouser.

Thanks for your fast reply. I have already tried this but to no avail...

Today started as a good day: I could paste normally in Office programs without using the paste special feature. But then, once I stopped and restarted SC, the issue was back. Definitely it looks to me that SC does not like my machines 

The setup on these two computers I use is quite different: One of them is running Seven 32bits, the other one Seven 64bits. The 32bits one has PGP activated, the other one has no such disk encryption program. One has Dameware, the other not (could make a difference, as this tool inserts in the clipboard chain). Other than that, I see no program running in the background that can cause SC to behave differently.

I have downloaded 'Free Clipboard Viewer', a nice utility, to compare data in the clipboard when the issue is there and when it is not. I'll try to find any difference if that can help to pinpoint this issue (maybe the order the different formats are copied into the clipboard makes a difference?). I'll post as soon as I have a normal behavior (more rare than the 'abnormal' behavior).

Julien Tosoni - Goodyear Dunlop Tires France.

[mouser]

And this is pasting from a screenshot capture (not a scanner capture) right?

See if you can figure out more clues about when the problem happens and when it doesn't.

[tomos]

I think this was the same problem -
https://www.donation....msg355741#msg355741

[mouser]

Nice find Tomos.  Julien do you use the "Don't Autosave Captures" option, or any other unusual copy-to-clipboard process? Or can you check different ways of having SC put the image on the clipboard and see if it makes a difference?
It does sound like perhaps some situation is happening where CHS Screenshot Captor is not saving the correct DPI value.

[rjbull]

where CHS is not saving the correct DPI value.

-mouser (June 19, 2014, 04:07 PM)

er...  SSC?

[mouser]

oops.  corrected.

[Julien Tosoni]

You guys rock !

Indeed, I ticked this option, and once I unticked it, the screenshots pasted normal size in MS word for instance  

I never had the idea of changing this option, as it had nothing to do **apparently** with the issue I faced.

Does that qualify as a "bug"?

Many thanks, this was driving me crazy  

Julien Tosoni - Goodyear Dunlop Tires France.

[mouser]

Awesome teamwork.  That's definitely a bug i need to fix.

[mouser]

Ok well I went to try to fix this and got lost.. I can't figure out how to reproduce it.
Can you guys give me a step by step walkthrough on how I can tell when this bug is happening and test when I have it fixed?

[Aquasixpack]

Hi mouser,
ok my try for a step by step description:

1.

• open Preferences an make sure the option 'Advanced Tweaking › Miscellaneous Tweaks › Don't Auto Save Captures' ist not checked
• make sure, the 'Default DPI' is set to 96 and the 'Post Capture Options › Copy to clipboard: is set to 'Image bitmap'
• Accept the changes

2.

• Make a screenshot an paste it into an Outlook message (or in a document of another 'DPI-sensing' application like Word)
• The pasted image will appear 1:1 in the Outlook message because Outlook works internally with 96 DPI and the image has 96 DPI as well

3. Now to the bug

• open the preferences again, go to 'Advanced Tweaking › Miscellaneous Tweaks › Don't Auto Save Captures' and check this option
• Accept the changes
• Now make another screenshot an paste it into the same Outlook message (or Word document)
• The image will appear much more smaller than before because the screenshottsed image was wrongly set to 300 DPI (I found out with Photoshop)

I guess there is a step in the save procedure, that sets the image to the desired DPI and that step is missing, when Auto Saving is switched off. Just an assumption.
Hope that helps you.

Best,
Aquasixpack

[mouser]

Those are excellent and clear instructions.
Initially I thought from reading the instructions that the problem might be that in my previous testing I was not using the post-capture-automatic-copy-to-clipboard function.

However, I cannot reproduce the problem when I follow these instructions.  Pasted images appear the same in both cases.

I used MS Word. Using latest version of Screenshot Captor.
Anyone else?

[Julien Tosoni]

Hi Mouser,

Aquasixpack's instructions are excellent indeed. However, to reproduce the issue, I must exit SC after the change is accepted as step 3, and reload it.

Interestingly, unchecking the option takes effect immediately without exiting SC.

I have also observed in the past that this DPI issue did not always occur (but in very rare occasions).

Julien Tosoni - Goodyear Dunlop Tires France.

[mouser]

BINGO.
You guys are good.

Ok I have now reproduced the problem so I should be able to solve it. 

[Julien Tosoni]

Glad to read that  !

As a programmer myself, I had to fix bugs that needed a certain combination of circumstances to happen, and not been able to know what the user did precisely to get the bug was certainly the most frustating. I always trust users when they report bugs (until I can demonstrate that the bug is not a bug !).

Julien Tosoni - Goodyear Dunlop Tires France.

[mouser]

I believe this is fixed in the beta version i am about to post (4.8.7)