Translating graphics with Paint.NET

Step 1: Extracting the image and opening it in Paint.NET

To transfer the image into Paint.NET:

• If the image is stored in a Microsoft Office document (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc):
  1. Select the image (click anywhere inside it);
  2. Copy the image to the clipboard (Office 2003 or earlier: click Edit -> Copy; Office 2007 or later: click Copy from the Clipboard group on the Home tab);
  3. Open Paint.NET and create a new file by clicking File -> New...;
  4. In Paint.NET, click Edit -> Paste to insert the image from the clipboard. If you see a prompt that the image is too small, click 'Expand canvas'.

  However, Microsoft would not be Microsoft if this method worked perfectly. Sometimes, the image will not get copied into Paint.NET correctly. To fix this, follow this procedure:

  1. Open Microsoft Powerpoint and click Edit -> Paste to insert the image from the clipboard (this time it will be inserted correctly);
  2. Right-click the image and choose Save as Picture... from the pop-up menu;
  3. Save the image in PNG or JPEG format (PNG format is better since there is no quality loss);
  4. Open the file in Paint.NET (File -> Open... menu);
  5. If you don't have Powerpoint, you can use Print Screen button on your keyboard to copy the entire screen to the clipboard and then paste it into Paint.NET. Before you press Print Screen button, I would suggest to increase the zoom ratio so that the image looks bigger than it actually is. This will allow you to increase the print quality of the image in the translated document. When the image is pasted into Paint.NET, you will need to crop the screenshot down to your image: use the Rectangle Select tool from the Tools panel to select the image on the screenshot, and then click Image -> Crop to Selection.
• If the image resides in a PDF file:
  1. In Adobe Reader, click the image. The image should become selected (it will look shaded). You can also select an area within the image;
  2. Click Edit -> Copy to copy the image to the clipboard;
  3. Open Paint.NET and create a new file by clicking File -> New...;
  4. While in Paint.NET, click Edit -> Paste to insert the image from the clipboard. If you see a prompt that the image is too small, choose 'Expand canvas'.

  Note:
  The above technique will not work if the PDF file is protected (in this case the Copy command on the Edit menu will be disabled). Use the Print Screen button to copy the entire screen to the clipboard or request the image from your client.

• If the image is stored in an OpenOffice document (Writer, Calc, Impress):
  1. Select the image, right-click it and choose Save Graphics... from the pop-up menu;
  2. Save the image in PNG or JPEG format (PNG format is better since there is no quality loss);
  3. Open the file in Paint.NET (File -> Open... menu)

As an example, I have copied the following graphic from a TV manual in PDF format:

Figure 1: Original image extracted from a PDF