Figure 1: Pasted object is offset from the original

Before you unleash your PowerPoint-fueled sorcery, here’s the first step: you need to know how to run VBA scripts in PowerPoint. Think of it like discovering a hidden trapdoor backstage — once you find it, you can rig all kinds of magical effects.

It’s not complicated, but it’s a bit like finding the remote that controls the presentation behind the curtain. Once you’re in, you’ll meet VBA — Visual Basic for Applications — a kind of techy whisperer that tells PowerPoint to behave exactly the way you want. Like pasting objects exactly in place instead of letting them wander like lost ducks.

Then, you will use this code. Explore the code a bit though.

Option Explicit
 
Sub PasteInPlace()
 
Dim sld As Slide
Dim shp As Shape
 
Set sld = Application.ActiveWindow.View.Slide
 
Dim y As Single
Dim x As Single
 
y = ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange.Top
x = ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange.Left
 
Windows(1).Selection.Copy
ActivePresentation.Slides(sld.SlideIndex).Shapes.Paste
 
ActivePresentation.Slides(sld.SlideIndex).Shapes(ActivePresentation.Slides(sld.SlideIndex).Shapes.Count).Top = y
ActivePresentation.Slides(sld.SlideIndex).Shapes(ActivePresentation.Slides(sld.SlideIndex).Shapes.Count).Left = x
End Sub

Alright, you’ve just dropped that magical VBA code into PowerPoint’s secret command center — the VBA Editor. Now, close that window and return to your slide deck like a superhero stepping back from their gadget lab.

But hold up! Before you start testing your macro-powered wizardry, save your file — and not just any old way. You need to use the PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Presentation format — the one with the .PPTM extension. If you save as any of the other file formats, PowerPoint will offer to remove the macros, and then, of course, the code to paste in place will not work! See our PowerPoint File Formats page to learn about these file formats.

Now that your macro is ready for action, it’s time to flip the switch — like starting the popcorn machine before movie night.

1. Switch to the right slide deck: Open (or hop over to) the PowerPoint presentation that contains those embedded videos. Think of it like switching TV channels to the one with the good stuff.
2. Summon your macro: Press Alt + F8 — it’s like shouting “Accio macro!” (yes, Harry Potter fans, that was for you). Doing so opens the Macro dialog box, where your code lives.
3. Set your macro GPS: In the box next to Macro in: choose All open presentations, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2, below. This is kind of like telling PowerPoint, “Look everywhere, not just in this one drawer.”
4. 
   Figure 2: Run the PasteInPlace macro
4. Pick and launch your spell: Click the macro name — PasteInPlace — and then hit Run, highlighted in blue within Figure 2, above. It’s like pressing the play button on a very specific playlist that only includes magic tricks.

We ran this code using PowerPoint 365 for Windows, and it behaved like a well-trained puppy — responsive, obedient, and surprisingly agile. Now here’s the twist: we haven’t tried it on PowerPoint 365 for Mac yet. It might work like a charm… or throw a tantrum like a vending machine that eats your coins. Only a brave Mac user can tell us! So, if you give this VBA code a spin on your Mac — and it does work (or even if it flat-out rebels) — we’d love to hear about it. Drop us a comment below like you’re giving Yelp feedback for a secret recipe.

Windows users, you’re not off the hook either! If you spot quirks, bonus tricks, or even just want to say “Yep, this worked!” — share your thoughts too. Community wisdom beats lone-wolf coding any day!

Many thanks to Marcin Mikuszewski who suggested some changes to the code. Thanks for helping this community, Marcin.

You May Also Like: Use VBA in PowerPoint, Even if You Can’t Program for Nuts | Resources on PowerPoint Programming and VBA

The post VBA Code: Paste in Place appeared first on PowerPoint Programming.

In this conversation, John talks about his new Icon Gallery add-in for PowerPoint.

Geetesh: Can you tell us more about your new Icon Gallery add-in for PowerPoint, and what motivated you to create this one?

John: I do many Ribbon modifications for clients, and I found that there was no good visual reference for the commands and icons that are built into Office. Icons are shared by all the Office programs, so I used Ken Puls’ original Excel add-in. However, that add-in hasn’t been updated since 2007, and many icons have been added since then. So, with Ken’s permission, I wrote an updated version.

I work a lot with both macOS and Windows, so I made sure that this add-in would be useable in both the Windows and Mac versions of PowerPoint.

Geetesh: John, whom is this add-in primarily intended for, and how would they use it? Also, can these icons also be copied as pictures and pasted on PowerPoint slides?

John: This add-in will be useful to VBA programmers who work with Office for Mac and for Windows. When a built-in ribbon group needs to be modified, it’s not possible to change just one icon. Instead, it is necessary to reconstruct the whole group. The icon gallery makes it much easier to spot the icon that matches the existing ribbon commands when doing this.

Even when the icon will trigger custom macro programming, it can be very helpful to re-use the icon that has a similar function, to ensure the user interface is familiar. You can see this in the sample video, where I have used the Microsoft ChartInsert icon to run a macro that creates custom charts that replace the Microsoft defaults. The interface is identical to the stock Office ribbon, and the icon gallery makes that easy to do.

Modern Ribbon editor for Windows

The add-in copies the command/icon names, but not their images. However, the icon gallery interface makes it convenient to take a screenshot of groups of icons that can then be separated into reusable icons in an image editor.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.

The post Icon Gallery Add-in for PowerPoint: Conversation with John Korchok appeared first on PowerPoint Programming.

That brings up a question, how easy is it to change the linked videos to become embedded?

All you need to do is run this LinkedMoviesToEmbeddedMovies VBA snippet, graciously coded by Steve Rindsberg of PowerPoint FAQ. Thanks to Steve for allowing us to reproduce this code here. Steve adds that it’s best that you do this only with a copy of your original file.

First, you need to know how you can run VBA scripts in PowerPoint. Then use this code. Explore the code a bit though since Steve has put in some helpful comments so that you can edit some values as required.

You can actually create a blank, new presentation and insert this code into the VBA editor. To learn how you bring up the VBA editor and add code, look at our VBA scripts in PowerPoint tutorial. Yes, it’s not necessary that this code is placed in the same presentation as your linked videos; all you need to do is make sure that both presentations (the presentation with this code, and the presentation with the video clips) are open at the same time.

Option Explicit
 
Sub LinkedMoviesToEmbeddedMovies()
' Embeds linked movies/sounds
' Links must be intact or this won't work!
' NOTE: This also converts linked sounds
 
Dim oSl As Slide
Dim oSh As Shape
Dim x As Long
Dim sPath As String
 
For Each oSl In ActivePresentation.Slides
    For x = oSl.Shapes.Count To 1 Step -1
        Set oSh = oSl.Shapes(x)
        If oSh.Type = msoMedia Then
            If oSh.MediaFormat.IsLinked Then
                Debug.Print oSh.Name
                sPath = oSh.LinkFormat.SourceFullName
                Call ConvertToEmbedded(oSh, sPath)
            End If
        End If
    Next    ' Shape
Next    ' Slide
 
End Sub
 
Sub ConvertToEmbedded(oSh As Shape, sPath As String)
 
Dim oSl As Slide
Dim oNewVid As Shape
Dim x As Long
Dim lZOrder As Long
 
Set oSl = oSh.Parent
lZOrder = oSh.ZOrderPosition
 
Set oNewVid = oSl.Shapes.AddMediaObject2(sPath, msoFalse, msoTrue, _
    oSh.Left, oSh.Top, oSh.Width, oSh.Height)
 
Do Until oNewVid.ZOrderPosition = lZOrder
    oNewVid.ZOrder (msoSendBackward)
Loop
 
oSh.Delete
 
End Sub
 
Sub TestForLinkedMedia()
 
Dim oSl As Slide
Dim oSh As Shape
Dim sTemp As String
 
For Each oSl In ActivePresentation.Slides
For Each oSh In oSl.Shapes
    With oSh
    If .Type = msoMedia Then
        If .MediaFormat.IsLinked Then
            sTemp = sTemp _
            & "Slide: " & oSl.SlideIndex _
            & vbCrLf _
            & .LinkFormat.SourceFullName _
            & vbCrLf
        End If
    End If
    End With
Next
Next
 
If Len(sTemp) > 0 Then
    MsgBox sTemp
Else
    MsgBox "No linked movies/sounds"
End If
End Sub

Once you have placed this code in the VBA editor, close the window to get back to your PowerPoint window. Before you proceed further, it’s a great idea to save your file. Ensure that you save it as a PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Presentation with the PPTM file extension. If you save as any of the other file formats, PowerPoint will offer to remove the macros, and then, of course, the code to change embedded videos to linked will not work! See our PowerPoint File Formats page to learn about these file formats.

Then open or switch to the presentation with the embedded videos and run the macro. To do that, press the Alt + F8 shortcut key. In the Macro dialog box that appears, next to Macro in: choose All open presentations, as shown in Figure 1, below. Click the LinkedMoviesToEmbeddedMovies Macro name, and then click the Run button, highlighted in red within Figure 1.

Figure 1: Run the LinkedMoviesToEmbeddedMovies Macro

Thank you so much, Steve.

We tested this code using PowerPoint 365 for Windows. Also, we have not checked this on PowerPoint 365 for Mac. If you do, and it does work or not, then we request you leave a comment below this post and share your thoughts. Of course, you should share your thoughts even if you are a Windows user.

Steve Rindsberg has been associated with PowerPoint since the product originated more than two decades ago. His PowerPoint FAQ site is a treasure trove of PowerPoint information.

When he’s not updating his site, he’s working on his popular PPTools add-ins for PowerPoint. Steve’s also into a lot of print technology related stuff.

You May Also Like: Use VBA in PowerPoint, Even if You Can’t Program for Nuts | Create Spirographs in PowerPoint Programmatically | Resources on PowerPoint Programming and VBA | VBA Code: Change Embedded Videos to Linked?

The post VBA Code: Change Linked Videos to Embedded? appeared first on PowerPoint Programming.

We looked at the basics of XML programming in our Introducing XML Hacking in Microsoft Office post. Now, let us take this concept further. Let’s start hacking some XML with a simple project: setting the default table text size.

This article assumes you have a suitable text editor installed. Mac users should also read the XML Hacking: Editing in OS X post.

When you insert a new table in PowerPoint, the default table text size is 18 points. Using XML hacking, we can set this to whatever point size the designer prefers. You can also set the text to appear in all caps. Following the previous post’s instructions, add .ZIP to the file ending and unzip the file. Look for the ppt folder and open it:

Look for the PPT folder

In the ppt folder, you will find another folder called Slide Masters. If your sample presentation is typical, it has only one Slide Master, so you won’t be surprised to find that typically Slide Masters contains only one file, called slideMaster1.xml. Open this file in your text editor and reformat the XML to make it readable:

• XML Tools | Pretty Print in NotePad++
• Markup | Tidy | Reflow in BBEdit

Scroll down to near the end, looking for a tag called <p:otherStyle>. This is the section that formats default text in miscellaneous objects, like tables.

The otherStyle tag

Default Table Text Levels

Within the other Style section, the 4th line starts with <a:lvl1pPr. Then the 14th line begins with <a:Lvl2pPr. Each of these 10-line sections formats a different text level, with the 4th line starting the first and the 14th beginning the second level.

A handy, if terse, reference to all parameters is shown here. Not all of these are actually used in the context of a table. As one example, there are a:spcBef and a:spcAft for setting space before and after, but this is ignored by PowerPoint in a table. PowerPoint pays attention to the font size, the left margin, line spacing, alignment, and whether it’s all-caps, small caps, bold and/or italic.

The font size is set by this line: <a:defRPr sz=”1800″ kern=”1200″>.

sz=1800 is the font size in hundredths of a point, so 1800 gives us the default 18-point size. Since this is the first level that might well be used for table headings, you could set it to something like 1450 to get a 14.5 point result.

So, you could change:
<a:defRPr sz=”1800″ kern=”1200″>
To:
<a:defRPr sz=”1450″ kern=”1200″>

Since this first level can be used for headings, let’s make it all-caps while we’re at it. Edit the line to change
<a:defRPr sz=”1450″ kern=”1200″ >
To:
<a:defRPr sz=”1450″ kern=”1200″ cap=”all”>

Done!

Now proceed to the second level and set its point size.

You can change something, such as
<a:defRPr sz=”1800″ kern=”1200″>
To:
<a:defRPr sz=”1200″ kern=”1200″>

Other useful attributes for <a:defRPr> include:

• cap=”small” for small caps,
• b=”1″ for bold, and
• i=”1″ for italics.

In addition, spc=”400″ adds enough tracking to make 10pt text have about 1 character width between each pair. This latter parameter can be positive for wider spacing or negative to crunch text together.

Scroll down a little further: you’ll notice that there are 9 levels, though in a table you’ll probably only use the first 2 or 3. In typical Microsoft style, each level is indented further than the preceding one.

Compare level 1 with level 2:

<a:lvl1pPr marL=”0″
<a:lvl2pPr marL=”457200″

marL is the left margin. The units of measurement here are EMUs: English Metric Units. This is an invented measurement system that allows easy conversion between English and Metric units. Suffice it to say that 457200 EMUs are ½ inch. When I modify this section, I set all 9 levels to marL=”0″. I also set all lower levels to the same point size as the lowest designed level, level 2 in our example. That way, if a user keeps changing to a lower text level, the formatting remains the same.

Text alignment can also be set using the algn parameter. The useful settings are:

• l for (left),
• r for (right),
• ctr for (centered),
• just for (justified), and
• dist for (text is widespaced to evenly fill cell width).

Of course, if you’re setting these algn values, marL should be set to 0. The simplest way to experiment with these parameters is to:

1. Set the styles in the main text placeholder of the Slide Master, the larger slide at the top of the Slide Master list.
2. Then, unzip the presentation, open ppt/slideMasters/slideMaster1.xml, and examine the section.

The section uses exactly the same syntax, so if you need bullets or unusual spacing in a table, you can set up to do it.

Here’s what the final file should look like, with the changes highlighted:

Final XML code

Preview the Effects

When you’re finished editing, save and close the file. In a folder window where you can see all the unzipped files, select the folders _rels, docProps and ppt, plus [Content_Types].xml:

Files to Zip

Zip them into a file that ends with the same file ending as the original presentation, usually .PPTX. Open in PowerPoint, insert a table, and test your new default font sizes. Please note, assigning these styles makes them available to the whole table, but to access them, you still need to use Increase List Level, same as in an ordinary text placeholder. Unfortunately, there’s no way to automatically assign <a:lvl1pPr> to table headings and <a:lvl2pPr> to the body of the table, which would be cool and helpful.

Original vs. Custom table text

You May Also Like: XML Editing in Visual Studio Express with 7-Zip

John Korchok has been creating reliable branded Office templates and web sites for more than 20 years. He is certified as a Microsoft Office Specialist Master, is an award-winning technical writer and is skilled in programming VBA, JavaScript for PDF and web, HTML, CSS, and PHP. John is a moderator for Microsoft Answers and a volunteer at Stack Overflow, providing answers for Word and PowerPoint for Windows and macOS. He currently works for Brandwares in metropolitan New York.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.

The post XML Programming: Setting Default Table Text Size in PowerPoint appeared first on PowerPoint Programming.

With the introduction of Office 2007, Microsoft changed the basic file format that underlies Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Instead of the proprietary and mostly undocumented format that ruled from Office 97 to Office 2003, Microsoft made a smart decision and switched to XML. This is tagged text, similar in structure and concept to HTML code with which you may already be familiar.

XML opens up a world of possibilities for automated document construction, but that’s a topic for another day. The everyday relevance is that if a Word or PowerPoint file isn’t doing what you need it to do and there are no tools in the program for the job, we can now dive in and edit the file ourselves. If you’re a point-and-click user, this is probably not thrilling. But if you’re a hacker at heart, a midnight coder, or just a curious tinkerer, you can do some cool stuff.

Inside a simple Word file. The document text is stored in XML

The main tool you’re going to need is a text editor. While you can get away for a while with Notepad or TextEdit, those simple text editors don’t quite have the tools that get the job done efficiently. On Mac, I use BBEdit and on Windows, I reach for Notepad++. BBEdit is reasonably-priced shareware and Notepad++ is freeware. They have a similar style of operation, so if you’re a cross-platform hacker it’s easy to switch between them. Notepad++ uses a plugin system, so you can add tools. For this job, you’re definitely going to want the free XML plugin.

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files in the new format are actually simple ZIP files with a different file extension. Getting into them couldn’t be easier: if you’re using Windows, suffix .ZIP to the end of the file (a copy of the file, if it’s anything important). You’ll get a warning from your OS, but you know what you’re doing! Now unzip it. Out pop several folders of XML, plus a top-level file or two.

Select one of the files and open it in your text editor. All the files have been linearized to minimize file size. This is where your XML tools come into play.

• In Notepad++, choose Plugins | XML Tools | Pretty Print (XML Only – with line breaks).
• If you’re using BBEdit, choose Markup | Tidy | Reflow Document.

Now you have a nicely indented, easy-to-read page to edit. When you’re done, it’s not necessary to re-linearize. Word, PowerPoint, or Excel will do that for you later.

A plain vanilla PowerPoint file: more complex than Word.

For people using Window’s built-in ZIP utility, there is an easy mistake to watch out for. By default, unzipping a file in Windows creates a new folder named for the file being expanded. If, when you’re re-assembling the file, you include this top-level folder.

PowerPoint may raise an error about unreadable content in the presentation. To avoid this error, first, open the folder that Windows created. Select the _rels, docProps and ppt folders, plus the [Content_Types].xml file, then create a ZIP file from them.

XML hacking is useful for Excel or Word when you want to add additional color themes or when you need to rescue a corrupt document. But it really shines with PowerPoint, allowing you to create custom table formats, extra custom colors that don’t fit into a theme, setting the default text size for tables and charts, and much more. This technique separates the PowerPoint pros from the wannabes.

Check out text editors and XML tools so you’re ready to hack! If you want to learn more about how to put some of this to practice, read my next article on XML Hacking: Default Table Text.

John Korchok has been creating reliable branded Office templates and web sites for more than 20 years. He is certified as a Microsoft Office Specialist Master, is an award-winning technical writer and is skilled in programming VBA, JavaScript for PDF and web, HTML, CSS, and PHP. John is a moderator for Microsoft Answers and a volunteer at Stack Overflow, providing answers for Word and PowerPoint for Windows and macOS. He currently works for Brandwares in metropolitan New York.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.

The post Introducing XML Hacking in Microsoft Office appeared first on PowerPoint Programming.

Even if you go are courageous enough to do this task manually, one Notes Page at a time, you will only see the Reapply master option when you first right-click an empty area within Notes Page view to bring up the contextual menu, as shown in Figure 1, below. You then need to choose the Notes Layout option in this menu, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, to bring up a dialog box of the same name, as shown in Figure 2, below. You then check the Reapply master option, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2. Do the same for forty or a hundred slides, and you may not be too delighted, to say it lightly!

Figure 1: Right-click an empty area within Notes Page view

Figure 2: Reapply Notes Master

Would VBA provide an easier and more elegant solution? Steve Rindsberg of PowerPoint FAQ and PPTools believes you can get this task done is so much less time.

First, you need to know how you can run VBA scripts in PowerPoint, and then use this code. Explore the code a bit though.

Sub ApplyMasterToNotes()
 
' Modified version of code originally posted to 
' msnews.microsoft.com public newsgroups by 
' David Foster in May of 1999
 
    Dim ctl As CommandBarControl
    Dim oSl As Slide
 
    ' 700 is the control ID for Layout
    Set ctl = CommandBars.FindControl(Id:=700)
    ActiveWindow.ViewType = ppViewNotesPage
 
    If (ctl Is Nothing) Then
        MsgBox "command not available"
        Exit Sub
    End If
 
    For Each oSl In ActivePresentation.Slides
 
        ' go to the current slide
        ActiveWindow.View.GotoSlide (oSl.SlideIndex)
        DoEvents
 
        ' Bring up the dialog
        ctl.Execute
        DoEvents
 
        ' send it the needed keystrokes
        SendKeys "%r{enter}"
        DoEvents
 
    Next
 
End Sub

Once you have placed this code in the VBA editor, close the window to get back to your PowerPoint window. Before you proceed further, it’s a great idea to save your file. Make sure that you save as a PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Presentation with the PPTM file extension. If you save as any of the other file formats, PowerPoint will offer to remove the macros, and then, of course, the code to reapply the Notes Master will not work! See our PowerPoint File Formats page to learn about these file formats.

Then open or switch to the presentation where you need this code, and run the macro. To do so, press the Alt + F8 shortcut key. In the Macro dialog box that appears, next to Macro in: choose All open presentations, as shown in Figure 3, below. Click the ApplyMasterToNotes Macro name, and then click the Run button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3.

Figure 3: Run the ApplyMasterToNotes Macro

We tested this code using PowerPoint 365 for Windows.

You May Also Like: Use VBA in PowerPoint, Even if You Can’t Program for Nuts | Create Spirographs in PowerPoint Programmatically | Resources on PowerPoint Programming and VBA

  Steve Rindsberg has been associated with PowerPoint since the product originated more than two decades ago. His PowerPoint FAQ site is a treasure trove of PowerPoint information.

When he’s not updating his site, he’s working on his popular PPTools add-ins for PowerPoint. Steve’s also into a lot of print technology related stuff.

See Also: VBA: Change One Shape to Another in PowerPoint

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.

The post PowerPoint VBA Code: Reapply the Notes Master appeared first on PowerPoint Programming.

The Beginnings of BrightSlide

When I joined BrightCarbon as their Senior technical consultant at the end of 2018, one of the first projects I took on was working out how the company could integrate PowerPoint add-ins into its offering. BrightCarbon provides lots of free resources to the presentation community, such as webinar masterclasses and downloadable tools like the Quick Access Toolbar. It made sense to develop our first add-in along the same lines and provide it for free to the community. But what to create?

We decided to build something that targeted two groups of users, those who dip into PowerPoint every now and then but don’t consider themselves to be experts and those who work in design studios and know PowerPoint inside out. These are very different users and coming up with a feature list meant talking to a sample of people from both groups to understand their needs.

We put a small team together making use of the skills of two of our senior designers, Taavi Drell and Ingrid Mengdehl. Together we brainstormed the challenges faced by the designers in our own internal design studio and came up with a list of features including things like:

• Making the alignment of objects easier
• Improving the animation design process
• Live typography features
• More efficient ways of selecting, hiding, showing and locking objects
• Bridging the gap between Adobe CC and PowerPoint in respect to keyboard shortcuts

I added to this list some of the many feature requests I received during my years developing add-ins prior to joining BrightCarbon. Just a few of these include:

• Extend the format painter to tables
• Provide tools to swap the position of objects and distribute them on a grid
• Add objects to other animated objects without losing the animation effects
• Design a color picker with support for RBG/HSL/HEX modes
• Create a better UI for adding guides to projects
• Copy and paste the position of objects from one to another
• Add new export tools e.g. slides to new deck and/or images

Ideas from the wider presentation community boosted the feature list. There is a great community of presentation creation experts out there who are always looking for new ways to solve problems.

The excellent Presentation Podcast often raises “I wish I could…” conversations.

I also talked to PowerPoint MVPs (Microsoft Most Valued Professional) and other users at events such as the Presentation Summit.

Our final resource was the PowerPoint UserVoice website. This a place where end users can post public feature requests to Microsoft. It’s an excellent opportunity to see what real users want and what Microsoft is unlikely to develop. For example, there were over 5,000 requests to add the ability to embed fonts on PowerPoint:Mac. This is something an add-in can’t do but that Microsoft themselves implemented. However, requests to change the way the alignment tools work are unlikely to be addressed by Microsoft as it would break backwards compatibility.

See a complete list of features here. With our feature list complete, we moved on to choosing the development platform.

Development Choice

There are three types of add-ins that Office applications support:

1. Application (automation) add-ins, written in VBA (Visual Basic for Applications)
2. COM add-ins
3. Cloud-based add-ins

The first and second provide tight integration with the hosting application and can support all kinds of control types in the ribbon from simple buttons to complex galleries of content. One key difference between these two is that VBA is supported on both PC and Mac, but COM add-ins are Windows-only. The third type offers a much lower level of UI integration and is most suited for add-ins providing users with access to large libraries of content such as icons, pictures and other media types.

Although the first release of BrightSlide is made for PC users, we want to keep the Mac option open, so chose VBA as our development platform. Next, we moved on to the UI.

UI/UX Design

One of the challenges of choosing VBA as our dev platform was that the built in controls (buttons, check boxes, drop downs etc.) have a style reminiscent of the 1980’s, making add-ins look very dated as you can see here:

Our resident UI/UX design specialist threw away the rule book and came up with a modern flat-style pattern library built on our own brand. This is one section of the library:

Translating this pattern library into code required the development of multiple custom control classes instead of using the built-in controls provided by VBA. The result is beautiful and unrecognizable as being VBA. This is the UserForm for the guides feature in BrightSlide:

Once we’d got our UI design for windows, Taavi conducted UX research following standard industry practices. One of the big challenges was to work out the most optimal layout for the ribbon. He interviewed several designers posing them with all kinds of exercises, labelling/layout choices and UI design approaches. The result of this iterative process yielded the ribbon layout you can see below:

The layout places the most-used features in the centre of the ribbon for faster access. In the screenshot above you can see the BrightCarbon QAT below the ribbon which can be customised by adding groups and/or individual features from BrightSlide.

The final part of our development process was to have all our designers install BrightSlide and use it on real client projects for several months. This exposed all kinds of things we needed to tweak and bugs that needed fixing. We also provided an early beta version to power users in the presentation industry, including several PowerPoint MVPs.

We’re finally ready to release BrightSlide to the public and can’t wait to see how it transforms presentation creation for the presentation community.

You can download BrightSlide here.

    Jamie Garroch is a Technical Consultant at BrightCarbon, the specialist presentation and eLearning agency.

He develops PowerPoint automation solutions and add-ins that enable presentation authors to work smarter.

He also trains people to present more effectively using visuals and animated scenes that explain and reinforce key messages, which is supported by free resources and tips at their site.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer or company.

The post BrightSlide: Creating a Revolutionary PowerPoint Add-in appeared first on PowerPoint Programming.

Understandably, many PowerPoint users are unhappy because it’s a real pain to export hundred of slides as individual slide files. Thankfully, our good friend, Jamie Garroch from BrightCarbon has written some VBA code that will help you revive this option!

First you need to know how you can run VBA scripts in PowerPoint — then use this code. Explore the code a bit though. Also, do you see the “Option Explicit” line at the beginning of the code below? If your PowerPoint file has an existing module that already includes this line atop the code, you don’t need the first line again, and you can leave out this line from the top.

Option Explicit
' =======================================================================
' PowerPoint VBA Macro
' =======================================================================
' Purpose: Takes each non-hidden slide in a presentation and creates a
'          single-slide presentation in the same folder as the source
'          deck with the file name suffixed with the slide number.
' Example: If a three-slide active presentation is called myDeck.pptx the
'          following presentation files are created:
'             myDeck [slide 1].pptx
'             myDeck [slide 2].pptx
'             myDeck [slide 3].pptx
' Author:  Jamie Garroch of BrightCarbon
' Date:    05MAR2019
' =======================================================================
Sub ExportSlidesAsPresentations()
  Dim oSld As Slide           ' Reference to a slide object
  Dim tPath As String         ' Path of the active presentation
  Dim tFileName As String     ' Filename for the output presentation
  Dim arrSR() As Variant      ' Array of slides to be deleted
  Dim lIdx As Long            ' Slide index counter
  Dim lCount As Long          ' Slides array dimension
  Dim lSldIdx As Long         ' Current slide index
  Dim lVisibleSlides As Long  ' Total number of visible slides to export
 
  On Error GoTo errorhandler
 
  For Each oSld In ActivePresentation.Slides
    If Not oSld.SlideShowTransition.Hidden Then lVisibleSlides = lVisibleSlides + 1
  Next
 
  If MsgBox("Depending on the number of visible slides to export and the size " & _
    "of your presentation, this might take some time." & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "Continue?", _
    vbYesNo + vbQuestion, _
    "Export " & lVisibleSlides & " Visible Slides to Presentations") = vbNo Then Exit Sub
 
  With ActivePresentation
    tPath = ActivePresentation.Path
 
    ' Export each slide as a presentation by deleting all other slides
    ' and the restore the slides using ctrl+z
    For Each oSld In .Slides
      If Not oSld.SlideShowTransition.Hidden Then
        lSldIdx = oSld.SlideIndex
        Erase arrSR
        lCount = 0
 
        ' Get an array of all slides in the presentation except this one
        For lIdx = 1 To .Slides.Count
          If Not oSld Is .Slides(lIdx) Then
            ReDim Preserve arrSR(lCount)
            arrSR(lCount) = lIdx
            lCount = lCount + 1
          End If
        Next
 
        ' Select and delete all slides except this one
        If ActiveWindow.ViewType = ppViewNormal Then ActiveWindow.Panes(1).Activate
        .Slides.Range(arrSR).Select
        ActiveWindow.Selection.Delete
        DoEvents
 
        ' Build a unique filename and save a coy of the now single-slide presentation
        tFileName = Left(.Name, InStrRev(.Name, ".") - 1) & " [slide " & lSldIdx & "].pptx"
        .SaveCopyAs tPath & "\" & tFileName, ppSaveAsOpenXMLPresentation
 
        ' Undo the slide deletion to recover all slides
        CommandBars.ExecuteMso "Undo"
        DoEvents
      End If
    Next
 
  End With
 
  ' Give feedback to the user
  MsgBox lVisibleSlides & " slide(s) exported to " & tPath, _
         vbQuestion + vbOKOnly, "BrightCarbon - Export Complete"
 
  On Error GoTo 0
 
  Exit Sub
 
errorhandler:
  Debug.Print Err, Err.Description
  Resume Next
End Sub

Now follow these steps:

1. Once you have placed this code in the VBA editor, close the window to get back to your PowerPoint window.
2. Before you proceed further, it’s a great idea to save your file. Be sure to save as a PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Presentation with the PPTM file extension. If you save as any of the other file formats, PowerPoint will offer to remove the macros, and then, of course, the code to export single-slide PowerPoint presentations will not work!
3. See our PowerPoint File Formats page to learn about these file formats.
3. Then open or switch to the presentation which has multiple slides and run the macro.
4. To do so, press the Alt + F8 shortcut key. In the Macro dialog box that appears, for Macro in: choose All open presentations, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 1, below.
5. 
   Figure 1: Macro dialog box
4. Now click the ExportSlidesAsPresentations Macro name (highlighted in blue), and then click the Run button, highlighted in green.

We tested this code using PowerPoint 365 for Windows.

We used a sample presentation, shown in the folder in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Single PowerPoint file

This presentation file has 11 slides, as can be seen in Figure 3, below.

Figure 3: Eleven PowerPoint slides

We ran the macro, as explained previously in this post, and saw the message box that you can see in Figure 4, below. We clicked the Yes button.

Figure 4: Export slides

Soon, we found another message that indicates the slides were successfully exported, as can be seen in Figure 5, below.

Figure 5: Export complete

Sure enough, the folder containing the presentation now had 11 more PowerPoint files in addition to the original file (see Figure 6). These 11 presentations were all single slide presentations.

Figure 6: Exported slides

Do note though that this code works best in Normal view. Don’t try in Slide Sorter view.

Related Content: Export All Slides to Single Slide PowerPoint Presentations

You May Also Like: Jamie’s Pattern Fill Transparency Add-in for PowerPoint | PowerPoint 2013 for Developers: Conversation with Jamie Garroch

Do note that Jamie recommends the BrightSlide add-in for PowerPoint that provides a couple of variations of this feature, as can be seen in the screenshot below.

    Jamie Garroch is a Technical Consultant at BrightCarbon, the specialist presentation and eLearning agency.

He develops PowerPoint automation solutions and add-ins that enable presentation authors to work smarter.

He also trains people to present more effectively using visuals and animated scenes that explain and reinforce key messages, which is supported by free resources and tips at their site.

The post PowerPoint VBA Code: Export Slides to Single Slide Presentations appeared first on PowerPoint Programming.

Around Christmas, Jamie Garroch of YOUpresent decided to play Santa Claus and provided more than just a VBA solution. He created a free add-in that sits comfortably within your PowerPoint right-click menu. This menu option provides you with quick access to adding transparency in pattern fills for shapes!

Since this was such an amazing gift, we decided to hold on to this story until everyone got back from their holidays, and then it looks like we waited too long! Well, you no longer need to wait. Before we tell you more, let us ask Jamie to tell us more about this add-in.

The idea actually came from Geetesh as a follow up to the Transparent Pattern Fills in PowerPoint article published on Indezine in which he eluded that maybe there was a VBA solution to make the setting of transparent pattern fills easier for users of PowerPoint 2007 and later. I love a good challenge and I also enjoy evangelizing about the extensibility capabilities provided by Office applications, particularly PowerPoint. The challenge is now solved and the knowledge is shared, thanks to the publication of the source code. I hope it inspires people to have a go at writing their own VBA projects.

Thank you, Jamie.

For those who would like to now add transparency to your pattern fills, there’s an easy solution. You can download the PowerPoint add-in from Jamie’s site. And if you need some inspiration to use transparent patterns, then Jamie provides that too! On his site, you can find an old television set that has the scanlines effect, created entirely in PowerPoint!

And for programmers, Jamie also generously provides the entire source code.

You May Also Like: PowerPoint Add-ins

The post Jamie’s Pattern Fill Transparency Add-in for PowerPoint appeared first on PowerPoint Programming.

In some cases, this behavior may happen because the chosen font contains only uppercase letters. Alternatively, and more likely, the presentation’s Theme has placeholders set to produce all uppercase (aka capital) letters. The Circuit and Integral themes that come with some versions of PowerPoint are examples of such Themes.

Related Content: Which Themes are Installed within Office Versions?

You can laboriously select the text on each Master and individual Layout in Slide Master view, and then use the Home tab | Font group, and click the Dialog Launcher. Then, in the resultant dialog, remove the checkmark next to All Caps each time.

Would VBA provide an easier and more elegant solution? Steve Rindsberg of PowerPoint FAQ and PPTools believes you can get the job done in less time it took you to read this paragraph! Do note that Steve’s code will not change your text to Sentence case or Title case–it merely removes the automatic UPPERCASE.

First you need to know how you can run VBA scripts in PowerPoint — then use this code. Explore the code a bit though.

Sub FixAllCaps()
 
    Dim oDes As Design
    Dim oLay As CustomLayout
    Dim oSh As Shape
 
    For Each oDes In ActivePresentation.Designs
        For Each oSh In oDes.SlideMaster.Shapes
            Call NoAllCaps(oSh)
        Next
        For Each oLay In oDes.SlideMaster.CustomLayouts
            For Each oSh In oLay.Shapes
                Call NoAllCaps(oSh)
            Next
        Next
    Next
 
End Sub
 
Sub NoAllCaps(ByRef oSh As Shape)
 
    With oSh
        If .HasTextFrame Then
            If .TextFrame2.HasText Then
                .TextFrame2.TextRange.Font.Allcaps = False
            End If
        End If
    End With
 
End Sub

Once you have placed this code in the VBA editor, close the window to get back to your PowerPoint window. Before you proceed further, it’s a great idea to save your file — be sure to save as a PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Presentation with the PPTM file extension. If you save as any of the other file formats, PowerPoint will offer to remove the macros, and then, of course, the code to change from UPPERCASE to default case will not work! See our PowerPoint File Formats page to learn about these file formats.

Then open or switch to the presentation with the UPPERCASE text and run the macro. To do that, press the Alt F8 shortcut key. In the Macro dialog box that appears, next to Macro in: choose All open presentations, as shown in the figure below. Click the FixAllCaps Macro name, and then click the Run button.

We tested this code using PowerPoint 2013 for Windows.

You can see the end result in the Figure below. Compare with a Figure of the same slides, earlier on this page, and you will notice that the word, AVOID is still in all uppercase. That’s because the original text was in uppercase and this VBA code does not change any text at all. Rather it removes any automatic UPPERCASE forced onto you!

This VBA code works on all placeholders–even body text in Content placeholders! We tested this code on a presentation that used the Main Event theme that uses UPPERCASE for all body text.

Do note though that this code works only on text placeholders, and leaves text boxes alone. It also does not make any changes to text in shapes, charts, and elsewhere.

Related Content: Text Placeholders vs. Text Boxes in PowerPoint

You May Also Like: Use VBA in PowerPoint, Even if You Can’t Program for Nuts | Create Spirographs in PowerPoint Programmatically | Resources on PowerPoint Programming and VBA

Steve Rindsberg has been associated with PowerPoint since the product originated more than two decades ago — his PowerPoint FAQ site is a treasure trove of PowerPoint information.

When he’s not updating his site, he’s working on his popular PPTools add-ins for PowerPoint. Steve’s also into a lot of print technology related stuff.

See Also: VBA: Change One Shape to Another in PowerPoint

The post PowerPoint VBA: Change UPPERCASE To Normal Case appeared first on PowerPoint Programming.