proton-69 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi PerlMonks, I have found this site very useful. I am trying to automate the power point using Win32::PowerPoint. I have written the following code, but it is giving problems. Code is: 
use Win32::PowerPoint;

# Global var(s)
my $file = "E:\\rameshwar\\dedupe\\test_presentation.pptx";

# create construtor for ppt App and if script dies #un-expectedly then
+ quit the App
my $ppt_ref =  Win32::PowerPoint->new || die("Opps, failed to open PPT
+ App", Win32::OLE::LastError());

# Make it visible by setting property Visible to 1:: if set 0 it is in
+visible
$ppt_ref->{Visible} = 1;

# set presentation-wide information
$ppt_ref->new_presentation(
      background_forecolor => [255,255,255],
      background_backcolor => 'RGB(0, 0, 0)',
      pattern => 'Shingle',
);

# and master footer if you prefer (optional)
$ppt_ref->set_master_footer(
      visible         => 1,
      text            => 'My Slides',
      slide_number    => 1,
      datetime        => 1,
      datetime_format => 'MMMMyy',
);

# do whatever you want to do for each of your slides
my @slides;
for my $slide (@slides) {
#    my $slide = $ppt_ref->new_slide;
      $ppt_ref->add_text($slide->title, { size => 40, bold => 1 });
      $ppt_ref->add_text($slide->body_text);
      $ppt_ref->add_text($slide->link,  { link => $slide->link });
}
    $ppt_ref->save_presentation($file);

    $ppt_ref->close_presentation;

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In the for loop above what are the values for @slides, how that array is populated? I thought it if obj reference to $ppt_ref->new_slide my $slide = $ppt_ref->new_slide; But looks like it is not the case. Please guide me on this. Thanks. Proton-69

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Win32::PowerPoint to create slides
by Corion (Patriarch) on Jan 12, 2009 at 14:43 UTC

    From looking at the source code of Win32::PowerPoint, the ->new_slide method doesn't return any useful information. The newly allocated slide is stored in $self->{slide}, so you should be able to access it there. It seems that Win32::PowerPoint relies on the idea of having only one "current" slide on which all its methods operate, so that won't buy you much.

    The @slides array in your code is to be populated by yourself. Somewhere, you need to have your own idea of what should go into the slides.

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      To supplement Corion's thought on the @slides array, I think the module author assumes that you might create your own Perl data structure.

      Instead of your "for" loop, just try to create a single slide with some dummy information: 

      $ppt_ref->add_text('Here is my title');
$ppt_ref->add_text('This is the 1st line of my text');
$ppt_ref->add_text('This is the 2nd line of my text');

      [download]
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Re: Win32::PowerPoint to create slides
by mikelieman (Friar) on Jan 12, 2009 at 14:45 UTC
    Any reason you don't have:

    use strict;
    use warnings;

[reply]
      I do use that.
[reply]
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