Can I access Organisation Chart with VBA?

[Guest]

Microsoft Organisation Chart is a tool which seems to be wholly embedded in
Powerpoint. I would like to be able to use VBA to extract names, titles and
comments from an org chart into an Excel spreadsheet. I can find nothing in
the object browser about organisation charts or their Objects, methods,
properties etc. Any attempt to generate explanatory macros by setting "record
new macro" and then editing the org chart leaves no trace of how it was done.
Is it actually possible to extract this information, and if so, how please?
I am on W2k/O2K.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Microsoft Organisation Chart is a tool which seems to be wholly embedded in
Powerpoint.

Not exactly; it's an external application that's an OLE server only. In other
words, you can use Insert, Object to add an org chart to pretty much any
application (WordPad, for example). It doesn't seem to expose any internal
methods/properties to VBA; in short, I don't think you can automate it.

However, consider creating a copy of the org chart object (possibly on a new
slide), ungrouping the copy and working with the resulting PPT shapes.


I would like to be able to use VBA to extract names, titles and

 

[Guest]

However, consider creating a copy of the org chart object (possibly on a new
slide), ungrouping the copy and working with the resulting PPT shapes.

Many thanks for overcoming my inability to think laterally.
As you suggested, I copied a relevant chart to a blank slide, selected the
object and clicked on Ungroup. I got a message saying it couldn't ungroup an
embedded object, but it would convert it into a drawing object for me if I
didn't mind losing embedded data and linked information. I said, "Go ahead"
and hey presto, an "ungrouped organisation chart". None of the information I
was after seems to have been lost.
Once again thanks.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Many thanks for overcoming my inability to think laterally.
As you suggested, I copied a relevant chart to a blank slide, selected the
object and clicked on Ungroup. I got a message saying it couldn't ungroup an
embedded object, but it would convert it into a drawing object for me if I
didn't mind losing embedded data and linked information. I said, "Go ahead"
and hey presto, an "ungrouped organisation chart". None of the information I
was after seems to have been lost.
Once again thanks.

My pleasure. And btw, as you've probably worked out by now, ungrouping from
within a VBA procedure won't produce any messages like this. It just does it.