TPowerpoint5 is an object designed to let you use Microsoft Powerpoint in your APL+Win applications.

 

You can use TPowerpoint5 to:

 

l    programmatically create Powerpoint presentations

l    enhance or change Poserpoint presentations

l    publish Powerpoint presentations on the Web

l    create effects in Powerpoint presentations which would be very difficult to achieve otherwise

l    play Powerpoint presentations

 

Instanciating TPowerpoint5

 

As for other APL+Win Objects, TPowerpoint5 does not show itself by default when you instanciate it:

 

      'ee'Œwi'*Create' 'TPowerpoint5'

 

However you may show TPowerpoint5 as you instanciate it:

 

      'ee'Œwi'*Create' 'TPowerpoint5'('visible'1)

 

TPowerpoint5_1.gif

 

When TPowerpoint5 is instanciated, it contains no presentation. To create a presentation at the time you instanciate TPowerpoint5, use its AddPresentation method with an argument of 1 to display it.

 

     'pp'Œwi'*Create' 'TPowerpoint'('AddPresentation'1)('visible'1)

 

TPowerpoint5_2.gif

 

Finally, you may want to set TPowerpoint5 to stay on top of all other windows by setting its ontop property:

 

      'ee'Œwi'*Create' 'TPowerpoint'('AddPresentation'1)('visible'1)('ontop'1)

 

Please note that the AddPresentation argument has a different meaning than the TExcel AddBook method argument: it means show or hide the Presentation which the AddBook argument represent the number of workbooks to create.

 

Since, most of the time, you want to create TPowerpoint5 as done just above, I have created a Show method for TPowerpoint5 which does the same. Use it this way:

 

      'ee'Œwi'*Create' 'TPowerpoint' 'Show'

 

If you want to use Show but don’t want to let TPowerpoint5 stay on top of your other windows:

 

      'ee'Œwi'*Create' 'TPowerpoint' 'Show'('ontop'0)

 

Understanding TPowerpoint5

 

A Powerpoint object contains a Presentations object which itself is made of Presentation objects.

 

Each Presentation may contain a Slides object which is a collection of Slide object.

 

Each Slide object may contain a Shapes object which is a collection of Shape objects.

Shapes are what you ultimately see in slides.

 

There also is a master slide object (internally called SlideMaster) which serves as a template for each slide you are creating.

 

Therefore, if you want to have a consistent way of presenting and formatting your slides throughout your presentation, you should set properties on the SlideMaster object.

 

You indicate that you want to set properties on the SlideMaster object by selecting slide 0:

 

      'pp'Œwi'slide'0

 

TPowerpoint5 Properties and Methods

 

Here is the set of TPowerpoint5 properties:

 

      70 TELPRINTœ'pp'Œwi'Properties'

class help ontop visible where

 

and methods:

 

      70 TELPRINTœ'pp'Œwi'Methods'

AddPresentation  First            Next             ShapeDelete

AddSlide         Hide             Open             ShapeSelect

AddTable         Last             OrigScale        Show

CellBackColor    Load             Previous         Slide

Close            MoveBottom       Quit             SlideTitle

ColumnWidths     MoveLeft         Run              Title

ComputeColors    MoveRight        RunInAplWindow   Titles

FillTable        MoveTop          Scale

FillTableColors  NbSlides         ScaleHeight

FindTables       New              ScaleWidth

 

Closing TPowerpoint5

 

There are several ways a TPowerpoint5 object can be deleted.

 

First you may programmatically call its Quit method:

      'ee'Œwi'Quit'

 

Second, you may close the instance of TPowerpoint5 with your mouse by simply closing Powerpoint. However this does not remove Powerpoint from memory.

      'ee'Œwi'*self'
ee

If you want to remove Powerpoint from memory, you must still call its Quit method.

 

You must be careful to NOT create a new instance of TPowerpoint5 without having first completely remove the first instance from memory using the Quit method. If you fail to do so, methods like the Quit method may no longer work.

 

So, the good rule is: whenever you want to create an instance of TPowerpoint5, first delete any instance of the same name which may already be running.

 

For this purpose I have create the small handy utility function Powerpoint, which reads as follows:

 

    ’ Powerpoint

[1] :if 0¬½'pp'Œwi'*self' ª 'pp'Œwi'Quit' ª :end

[2] 0 0½'pp'Œwi'*Create' 'TPowerpoint' 'Show' 'SessionFocus'

    ’
 

Whenever you create an instance of TPowerpoint5 use instructions similar as the ones in function Powerpoint.

 

Note that the SessionFocus method is not a TPowerpoint5 method: it is inherited from TCommon and returns the focus to the APL session as soon as TPowerpoint5 is instanciated.

 

Loading An Existing Presentation

 

To open an existing Powerpoint presentation, call the Open method with the full name of the .ppt presentation file:

 

      'pp'Œwi'Open' 'c:\aplwin\objects\aplwin95.ppt'

 

TPowerpoint5_3.gif

 

Working With Slides

 

Creating a New Slide

 

Let’s first start with a new instance of TPowerpoint5.

 

      Powerpoint

 

You may add a new slide to your presentation with the AddSlide method:

 

      'pp'Œwi'AddSlide'1 12

 

TPowerpoint5_4.gif

 

The first AddSlide argument is the slide number. The slide is added just before the slide you specify. If there is no slide in the presentation yet, use 1 to create the first slide as we did above. If you try to use a slide out of range, you get an error:

 

      'pp'Œwi'AddSlide'5 12

ŒWI ERROR: Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 exception 80048240 Slides.Add : Integer out of range. 5 is not in Index's valid range of 1 to 3.

TPowerpoint[159] Œwi( '*xActivePresentation.Slides.XAdd>:slide'),Œwarg[2 3]

                         ^

 

Slide 5 cannot be added because there is no slide 4 yet.

 

The second argument is the type of slide you want to create. Use a number from the following table:

Type	Powerpoint constant
12	(ppLayoutBlank)
8	(ppLayoutChart)
6	(ppLayoutChartAndText)
10	(ppLayoutClipartAndText)
26	(ppLayoutClipArtAndVerticalText)
24	(ppLayoutFourObjects)
15	(ppLayoutLargeObject)
18	(ppLayoutMediaClipAndText)
16	(ppLayoutObject)
14	(ppLayoutObjectAndText)
19	(ppLayoutObjectOverText)
7	(ppLayoutOrgchart)
4	(ppLayoutTable)
2	(ppLayoutText)
5	(ppLayoutTextAndChart)
9	(ppLayoutTextAndClipart)
17	(ppLayoutTextAndMediaClip)
13	(ppLayoutTextAndObject)
21	(ppLayoutTextAndTwoObjects)
20	(ppLayoutTextOverObject)
1	(ppLayoutTitle)
11	(ppLayoutTitleOnly)
3	(ppLayoutTwoColumnText)
22	(ppLayoutTwoObjectsAndText)
23	(ppLayoutTwoObjectsOverText)
25	(ppLayoutVerticalText)
27	(ppLayoutVerticalTitleAndText)
28	(ppLayoutVerticalTitleAndTextOverChart)

 

Using 12 as the second argument as we did above, adds a blank slide.

 

Now let’s add a slide with a title:

 

      'pp'Œwi'AddSlide'2 1

 

TPowerpoint5_5.gif

 

If you try to add a slide again before slide 2, you will insert a slide between slide 1 and slide 2. Let’s add a slide with a table (type 4) in it:

 

      'pp'Œwi'AddSlide'2 4

 

TPowerpoint5_6.gif

 

Still one more example : let’s create a slide with vertical text and a clipart:

 

      'pp'Œwi'AddSlide'4 26

 

TPowerpoint5_7.gif

 

Thus, with the simple AddSlide method you can quickly create all the slides of your presentation.

 

You will then need to populate them with the correct data, images, titles, tables, objects and format them using foreground and background colors, etc.

 

Remember: use an index of 1 to insert a slide before slide 1 and an index of 1+number of slides to insert a slide at the end of the currently existing slides.

 

Querying the Number of Existing Slides

 

Run the NbSlides method to know how many slides there are in your presentation:

 

      'pp'Œwi'NbSlides'

4

 

Deleting a Slide

 

To delete a slide use the DeleteSlide method passing to it the slide number.

 

      'pp'Œwi'DeleteSlide'3

 

When you delete slide N, the slide which becomes active is the new slide which gets number N. If no such slide, it is the last slide in the presentation which becomes active.

 

You may also delete all slides in the presentation using the DeleteAllSlides method:

 

      'pp'Œwi'DeleteAllSlides'

 

Selecting a Slide

 

Before you can work on a slide, you must select it and activate it with the slide property.

 

Example:

 

      'pp'Œwi'slide'3

 

This selects slide 3 and activates it.

 

Changing Slides Properties

 

Slide Background Color

 

You may change the slide background color using the slidebackcolor property:

 

      'pp'Œwi'slidebackcolor'(255 255 153)

 

Slide Background Pattern

 

You may change the slide background pattern by using the slidepattern property.

Be sure to first select the slide you want to work on:

 

      'pp'Œwi'slide'2

 

There are 48 possible patterns whose names are:

msoPattern10Percent	msoPatternLargeConfetti
msoPattern20Percent	msoPatternLargeGrid
msoPattern25Percent	msoPatternLightDownwardDiagonal
msoPattern30Percent	msoPatternLightHorizontal
msoPattern40Percent	msoPatternLightUpwardDiagonal
msoPattern50Percent	msoPatternLightVertical
msoPattern5Percent	msoPatternMixed
msoPattern60Percent	msoPatternNarrowHorizontal
msoPattern70Percent	msoPatternNarrowVertical
msoPattern75Percent	msoPatternOutlinedDiamond
msoPattern80Percent	msoPatternPlaid
msoPattern90Percent	msoPatternShingle
msoPatternDarkDownwardDiagonal	msoPatternSmallCheckerBoard
msoPatternDarkHorizontal	msoPatternSmallConfetti
msoPatternDarkUpwardDiagonal	msoPatternSmallGrid
msoPatternDashedDownwardDiagonal	msoPatternSolidDiamond
msoPatternDashedHorizontal	msoPatternSphere
msoPatternDashedUpwardDiagonal	msoPatternTrellis
msoPatternDashedVertical	msoPatternWave
msoPatternDiagonalBrick	msoPatternWeave
msoPatternDivot	msoPatternWideDownwardDiagonal
msoPatternDottedDiamond	msoPatternWideUpwardDiagonal
msoPatternDottedGrid	msoPatternZigZag
msoPatternHorizontalBrick	msoPatternDarkVertical
msoPatternLargeCheckerBoard

 

Let’s select pattern 40:

 

      'pp'Œwi'slidepattern'10

 

TPowerpoint5_8.gif

 

Slide Color Gradient

 

To enhance the look of your slide you may apply a color gradient to it:

 

      'pp'Œwi'slidegradient'3 4 7

 

The first parameter is the type of gradient to be chosen among:

msoGradientDiagonalDown	msoGradientFromTitle
msoGradientDiagonalUp	msoGradientHorizontal
msoGradientFromCenter	msoGradientMixed
msoGradientFromCorner	msoGradientVerticaL

 

The second parameter can be 1 to 4 except for msoGradientFromTitle and msoGradientFromCenter where it can only be 1 or 2.

 

The third parameter is the PresetGradientType to be chosen among:

msoGradientBrass	msoGradientMahogany
msoGradientCalmWater	msoGradientMoss
msoGradientChrome	msoGradientNightfall
msoGradientChromeII	msoGradientOcean
msoGradientDaybreak	msoGradientParchment
msoGradientDesert	msoGradientPeacock
msoGradientEarlySunset	msoGradientRainbow
msoGradientFire	msoGradientRainbowII
msoGradientFog	msoGradientSapphire
msoGradientGold	msoGradientSilver
msoGradientGoldII	msoGradientWheat
msoGradientHorizon	msoPresetGradientMixed
msoGradientLateSunset

     

TPowerpoint5_9.gif

 

Slide Texture

 

You may set a texture to the background of your slide by setting its slidetexture property as follows:

 

      'pp'Œwi'slidetexture'5

 

where the slidetexture argument is a preset texture number (from 1 to 24).

 

Possible textures are:

msoPresetTextureMixed	msoTextureOak
msoTextureBlueTissuePaper	msoTexturePaperBag
msoTextureBouquet	msoTexturePapyrus
msoTextureBrownMarble	msoTextureParchment
msoTextureCanvas	msoTexturePinkTissuePaper
msoTextureCork	msoTexturePurpleMesh
msoTextureDenim	msoTextureRecycledPaper
msoTextureFishFossil	msoTextureSand
msoTextureGranite	msoTextureStationery
msoTextureGreenMarble	msoTextureWalnut
msoTextureMediumWood	msoTextureWaterDroplets
msoTextureNewsprint	msoTextureWhiteMarble
	msoTextureWovenMat

 

The previous example would display the following slide texture:

 

TPowerpoint5_10.gif

 

 

Applying a Template

 

Even more spectacular is the possibility to apply a template to your presentation.

 

This is very easily done using the template property.

 

You must simply pass the complete file name of a .POT template file. Example:

 

      'pp'Œwi'template' 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\Presentation Designs\Mountain Top.pot'

 

This result in ALL the slides in your presentation to adopt the specified template.

 

TPowerpoint5_11.gif

 

Note that you can omit the path of your template file if it is:

 

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates\Presentation Designs\

 

This is where you normally find all the.POT template files delivered with Powerpoint.

 

Thus, we could have written the last example as:

 

      'pp'Œwi'template' 'Mountain Top.pot'

 

Working With Shapes

 

Just as you can select a slide to work with the slide and change its properties, you can select a Shape in a slide to work with it and get or set its properties.

 

Selecting A Shape

 

To select a shape in a slide, simply use the shape property, passing to it the shape number:

 

      'pp'Œwi'shape'2

 

This means: select shape number 2 in the currently active slide.

 

When you select a shape this way, you immediately see which shape was selected.

 

Example:

'pp'Œwi'shape'1
'pp'Œwi'shape'2

 

This allows you to visually check that you are have selected the right shape.

 

Selecting a shape is a prerequisite to starting to get or set its properties or running its methods.

 

Querying the Number of Shapes in Your Slide

 

Run the NbShapes method to know how many shapes there are in the currently active slide.

 

      'pp'Œwi'NbShapes'

2

 

Deleting a Shape

 

To remove a shape from a slide, use the DeleteShape method and pass it the number of the shape to delete:

 

      'pp'Œwi'DeleteShape'2

 

Deleting All Shapes in A Slide

 

Use the DeleteAllShapes to remove all shapes from a slide:

 

      'pp'Œwi'DeleteAllShapes'

 

Adding New Shapes

 

All kinds of new shapes can be added to a presentation.

 

Let’s first create a new blank slide:

 

      'pp'Œwi'AddSlide'5 12

 

Use the AddTextBox method to add a text box to the presentation:

 

      'pp'Œwi'AddTextBox'0 50 100 100 200 'This is a TextBox'

1

 

Note that this method returns the shape number of the just created shape and selects it.

 

Similarly an image shape can be added to the slide by using the AddPicture method:

 

      'pp'Œwi'AddPicture' 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\Borland Shared\Images\Splash\16Color\earth.bmp'200 200 150 200

2

 

TPowerpoint5_14.gif

 

Working With Text

 

Changing the Slide Title

 

Use the slidetitle property to change the slide title:

 

      'pp'Œwi'slide'2

      'pp'Œwi'slidetitle' 'APL+Win 5.0'

 

TPowerpoint5_15.gif

 

Working with Text in Shapes

 

First select the shape you want to work with. Then set its shapetext property.

 

Example:

 

      'pp'Œwi'slide'2

      'pp'Œwi'shape'1

      'pp'Œwi'shapetext' 'APL+Win 5.0 Enhancements'

      'pp'Œwi'shape'2

      'pp'Œwi'shapetext'('New Registry Object',Œtcnl,'Elastic Workspaces',Œtcnl,'APL+Draw OCX Drawing Faclity')

 

TPowerpoint5_16.gif

 

It is therefore extremely easy to programmatically create a complete presentation with text slides from APL.

 

Changing Fonts

 

Once you have installed text in your shape, you may want to change font name, size or attribute (bold, italic, etc.) for the whole text or only part of it.

 

Text in a shape is made of Paragraphs and each Paragraph is made of Words.

 

An item in a list is considered to be a paragraph.

 

For example, in the above slide “APL+Win 5.0 Enhancements” is a paragraph, just like “Elastic Workspaces”.

 

You use the following properties to work with fonts:

fontbold

fontcolor

fontemboss

fontitalic

fontname

fontshadow

fontsize

 

All these properties accept 3 arguments:

 

the first one is the paragraph number (or 0 to mean all paragraphs in the shape)

the second one is the word number in the paragraph (or 0 for all words in the paragraph)

the third one is the new value

 

Examples:

'pp'Œwi'slide'2 'pp'Œwi'shape'1 'pp'Œwi'fontbold'0 0 1	TPowerpoint5_17.gif
'pp'Œwi'shape'2 'pp'Œwi'fontbold'1 2 1 'pp'Œwi'fontbold'3 1 1	TPowerpoint5_18.gif
'pp'Œwi'fontname'2 0 'Times New Roman' 'pp'Œwi'fontitalic'2 0 1	TPowerpoint5_19.gif
'pp'Œwi'fontsize'3 2 60	TPowerpoint5_20.gif
'pp'Œwi'fontbold'3 2 1 'pp'Œwi'fontshadow'3 2 1   Note: the word OCX has been magnified to see the fondshadow effect	TPowerpoint5_21.gif
'pp'Œwi'fontcolor'1 2(255 0 0) 'pp'Œwi'fontcolor'2 0(0 192 0) 'pp'Œwi'fontcolor'3 0(0 0 255)	TPowerpoint5_22.gif
'pp'Œwi'fontemboss'1 0 1	TPowerpoint5_23.gif

 

Saving Your Presentation

 

Once you have work a bit defining a new presentation, you want to save it.

 

If it’s a new presentation, you must use the SaveAs method to first save your presentation.

 

l    The first SaveAs argument is the complete file name

l    The 2^nd SaveAs argument is the file format, one of:
 

13=ppSaveAsHTMLv3	4=ppSaveAsPowerPoint3
8=ppSaveAsAddIn	3=ppSaveAsPowerPoint4
19=ppSaveAsBMP	10=ppSaveAsPowerPoint4FarEast
11=ppSaveAsDefault	2=ppSaveAsPowerPoint7
16=ppSaveAsGIF	1=ppSaveAsPresentation
12=ppSaveAsHTML	6=ppSaveAsRTF
14=ppSaveAsHTMLDual	7=ppSaveAsShow
17=ppSaveAsJPG	5=ppSaveAsTemplate
15=ppSaveAsMetaFile	21=ppSaveAsTIF
18=ppSaveAsPNG	20=ppSaveAsWebArchive

 

Headers And Footers

 

Headers are currently not available for TPowerpoint5.

 

Footers are defined using the footer, the footerdate and footerslide properties.

 

Footers are only defined with TPowerpoint5 at the SlideMaster level, i.e. they apply to all slides in your presentation.

 

Example:

'pp'Œwi'footer' 'APL+Win 5.0 Presentation'

TPowerpoint5_24.gif

'pp'Œwi'footerdate'1

TPowerpoint5_25.gif

'pp'Œwi'footerdate'2

TPowerpoint5_26.gif

'pp'Œwi'footerdate'3

TPowerpoint5_27.gif

'pp'Œwi'footerdate'4

TPowerpoint5_28.gif

'pp'Œwi'footerslide'1

TPowerpoint5_29.gif

 

The possible date formats are:

1	1/3/2003
2	Friday, January 3, 2003
3	3 January 20003
4	January 3, 2003
5	3-Jan-03
6	January 03
7	Jan 03
8	1/3/2003 9:38 AM
9	1/3/2003 9:38:35 AM
10	09:38
11	09:38:35
12	9:38 AM
13	9:38:35 AM

 

Running A Presentation

 

Once your presentation is ready, you can run it using the Run method.

 

This hides the TPowerpoint5 window. At the end of the presentation it is your responsibility to show it back again using the Hide method with an argument of 0.

 

      'pp'Œwi'Run'

 

Click the screen to move from one slide to the next one.

 

At the end of the presentation, do:

 

      'pp'Œwi'Hide'0

 

to show the TPowerpoint5 window.

 

You can optionally use several arguments to the Run method: they are described below:

 

mode	The presentation display mode 1=full screen with mouse box; 2=window; 3=full screen without mouse box
startingslide	The starting slide number (0= defaults to first slide)
endingslide	The ending slide number (0= defaults to last slide)
top	The top position in pixels of the Powerpoint window (0 for full screen display)
left	The left position in pixels of the Powerpoint window
height	The height in pixels of the Powerpoint window
width	The width in pixels of the Powerpoint window
ontop	The topmost state of the Powerpoint window 1=on top 0=normal

 

Example:

 

      'pp'Œwi'Run'1 2 3 150 200 546 728 1

 

TPowerpoint5_30.gif

 

The Powerpoint presentation showing slides 2 and 3 (here slide 2) is displayed on the screen at the specified location, in a window with no border. Just click on the slide to move to next slide or to show the next slide item.

 

Here is how it gets displayed on the screen.:

 

TPowerpoint5_31.gif

 

Running A Presentation

 

Even more spectacular is the possibility to display your Powerpoint presentations embedded into your APL forms.

 

To do so you must use the RunInAplWindow method which accepts 4 or 5 arguments

handle	handle or name of the APL object which is to display the Powerpoint presentation: this can be a Form, Page or Frame
startingslide	the starting slide number (0= defaults to first slide)
endingslide	the ending slide number (0= defaults to last slide)
colseAPLwindow	a boolean indicating if the window has to be automatically closed at the end of the presentation (1) or not (0)
Wavfilename	the .wav file to be automatically played when opening the presentation

 

 

The following simple function demonstrates how you could display a Powerpoint presentation in a TFrame5 object embedded in a TPage5 object in a TForm5:

 

    ’ PowerpointDemo;Z;text1;text2;Œwself

[1] :if 0=½'pp'Œwi'*self' ª PpExample ª :end

[2] Œwself„'pptdemo'Œwi'*Create' 'TForm5'('*size'450 650)('ontop'1)

[3] Z„Œwi'*icon' 'c:\aplwin\objects\aplwin.ico'

[4] Z„Œwi'*caption' 'Powerpoint Presentation in an APL Window'