Here are just a few of the issues I have found so far when trying to get from Inkscape into Powerpoint (2003) using EMF:

1. Line widths change.
2. Objects with zero line width end up with a nonzero line width.
3. Font sizes change (12 in inkscape may be 7 in powerpoint)
4. Font positions change (probably related to 3).
5. Rotated text loses rotation.
6. Subscripted text is broken into two pieces.
7. Wrapped text objects are broken into one text object per line.
8. Object order sometimes shifts (notably, single letters on top of circles often end up under them.)
9. If there are any dotted lines then each letter of text is converted to a path.
10. If there are any manually kerned text then each letter of text is converted to a path.
11. Greek letters (via ^U method) end up as ? inside powerpoint.

WMF tends to blow up and write nothing, so EMF is usually the only game in town.

There are a few others I cannot recall at the moment. The bottom line is that the imported figures often require considerable re-editing, which somewhat defeats the purpose of using Inkscape.

I wonder if issues 1, 3 and 4 are the result of the document size I have been using. Is there some way to match the inkscape document settings to what powerpoint expects, to minimize any of these issues?

mathog wrote:9. If there are any dotted lines then each letter of text is converted to a path.

Oops, that should have been:

9. If there are any dotted lines then the imported EMF cannot be ungrouped.

mathog wrote:3. Font sizes change (12 in inkscape may be 7 in powerpoint)

Don't forget that Inkscape uses 'px' as font size units and not points.

(Yes, this is a frequently complained about missing feature (selectable units for font size), already filed (multiple times) in the bug tracker and commented and 1+'ed as often). Search the forum for instructions how to convert between px and points (1), or use 'Edit > XMl Editor' to modify the font size in the style attribute by entering the size in points including the units -> Inkscape will auto-convert it to px when you click on 'Set' (see also (2) ).