Getting data from a PowerPoint document

[PaulG.]

Has anyone ever gotten data from a .pptx document with LabVIEW? If so, how?

[Artem.SPb]

You can try use ActiveX (see example for word), but... what kind of data do you need?

[PaulG.]

That won't work. I get a 3005 error when I try Automation Open a Powerpoint application.

It's just some data that would be really useful to grab directly from the document instead of convincing the powers-that-be that I need this document translated into something else. 🙂

[ben64 · Accepted solution]

ActiveX is the way to go. The Power Point object model is very different from Word as it uses PlaceHolders shapes that contains a Text Frame. Attached is an example that you can use as a starting point, it shows how you can get text from a place holder. You can add additional checks to avoid errors like using the property PlaceHolder.HasTextFrame.

Ben64

[PaulG.]

Thank you. This is helpful. May be more cost effective redoing the whole thing in Excel. Who documents specs in a Powerpoint presentation?