Every week I need to produce a Powerpoint deck with list of project deliverables on a timeline. The Deliverables are in a list in Excel (20-50 at a time).
I'd like to select the Excel list, copy to clipboard, switch to Excel, select a "template shape" that has the colours and gradients for that work stream, then invoke KM to create a new duplicate for each list item, text box reflecting the deliverable name. The layout will be manual.
Any suggestions on where to start? Many thanks.
David
I think my advice would be to get someone who can work in VBA to do this for you.
Microsoft's own scripting interface has much more direct access to Powerpoint slides and shapes.
In PowerPoint, when there's a Shape selected and you type a character the Shape's text box is activated and the character inserted. That behaviour is (ab)used in the following macro -- load your Clipboard, Insert the Shape you want and make sure it's selected, then hit the hotkey (currently ⌃⌥⌘D):
Shapes in PowerPoint.kmmacros (5.7 KB)
You may need to adjust the pauses...
@ComplexPoint is right in that this would be better done by script, but I'm no good at VBA and (I think) PowerPoint's AppleScript support is as broken as that in their other app's current versions...
Nige, that is terrific and does exactly what I need, and more than that, your method of looping through clipboard entries is one I've tried to do in the past and struggled with. I've just used it again in another macro and you've solved 4 other problems for me!
Thanks again.
David
