HTH, --traveler

Update: Fixed node id

I suspsect Win32::OLE would be able to help you, although I doubt it would be a simple task. Of course this is assuming that PowerPoint and OLE play well together.

In fact, automating Office applications is simple through the Macro Recorder functionality in them. You simply record a macro, do what you want to do, and then translate the generated Visual Basic code to Perl (which means mostly replacing . by ->).

Another solution would have been ooolib, but it dosen't support PowerPoint presentations yet. Automating OpenOffice.org (the program suite) is an ugly task as they expose an ugly underdocumented Java API as OLE objects instead of copying Microsoft and their Office object model. And the Macro Recorder for OpenOffice.org dosen't produce usable stuff, as it records to StarBasic instead.

perl -MHTTP::Daemon -MHTTP::Response -MLWP::Simple -e ' ;    # The  
$d = new HTTP::Daemon and fork and getprint $d->url and exit;#spider
($c = $d->accept())->get_request(); $c->send_response( new   #in the
HTTP::Response(200,$_,$_,qq(Just another Perl hacker\n))); ' #  web
[download]

As for the Macro Reader - sounds great. But can I try more detail on you to see if it really applies?

Here's what I need to do - this is all done over the web :

1. receive the user's query for data
2. retrieve some data from a database
3. insert that data into a PowerPoint file
4. download the file to the user so that PowerPoint opens automatically and displays a series of slides with barcharts representing the inserted data

This appears to be really poorly documented in the Perl community.

How do you figure? You mean the Perl community hasn't documented a commerical microsoft product? That's crazy.

MJD says "you can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo!"

I run a Win32 PPM repository for perl 5.6.x and 5.8.x -- I take requests (README).

** The third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.

I am curious why this needs to be done in powerpoint? Seems like a rather... overly complicated solution for displaying graphs of data stored in a database.

It's targetted at VB (obviously) but this link describes the PP DOM. Most of it should be fairly easy to translate into perl/Win32::OLE code.

If you don't mind an intermediate step you could generate OpenOffice-readable XML, and then use the OO automation to have it save that as PPT. I've done something similar with the OO spreadsheet app allowing populating TT-ish placeholders from a CSV file.

See xml.openoffice.org for the specifications.

Update: Fwee, writeup #500.

I'm especially encourged by what I've not read. Noone's said "Trivial! Everyone knows you do it like this....here's a hundred online working examples..."

Why PowerPoint? 'Cause the client wants to be able to, on the fly, capture a snapshot of the data over the web at this exact second, and immediately, with no manual intervention of their own, show a slick PowerPoint presentation of the data with all those bells and whistles like slide-fade-in. They don't want just a series of images. They don't want to have to fiddle with Excel as an intermediate step. They want: click a button, get a PowerPoint presentation ready to go.

So anyway - it sounds like:

1. It's at least possible, but not obvious
2. I can quote this as a real development project, not "Just Another Powerpoint Generator".

Thanks again.

Perhaps the simplest way would be to have PP on the server, create and save to a local .ppt and then redirect the page that instigated the creation to download that.

I wouldn't expect it to be quick though.

---

Examine what is said, not who speaks.

"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"Think for yourself!" - Abigail
Timing (and a little luck) are everything!

Making a graph in Excel would be as easy as downloading the data to a worksheet and running the graph-wizard. If the data is fairly standard, one could "pre-load" the spreadsheet with the graphs one need and drop in the data later, to have the graphs made automatically.