How to import Speaker Notes from a file to an existing presentaiton

[Guest]

Hye,

I have a presentation in ppt, I would like to add speaker notes (from an txt or doc files),
any idea how I can import the speaker notes file into the my ppt presentation

Otherwise, I will have to copy/paste from a slide to another.

Cheers,

Ralph

 

[John Langhans [MSFT]]

[CRITICAL UPDATE - If you are using Office 2003, you should install this
update as soon as possible. From PowerPoint, choose "Help -> Check for
Updates".]

Hello Ralph,

PowerPoint allows you to exports notes text, but text import is only
provided for slide titles and bulleted lists.

If you (or anyone else reading this message) think that PowerPoint should
provide some kind of interoperability between notes pages text and other
text files or text editors (without have to resort to VBA or 3rd party
add-ins), don't forget to send your feedback (in YOUR OWN WORDS, please) to
Microsoft at:

http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp

As with all product suggestions, it's important that you not just state
your wish but also WHY it is important to you that your product suggestion
be implemented by Microsoft. Microsoft receives thousands of product
suggestions every day and we read each one but, in any given product
development cycle, there are only sufficient resources to address the ones
that are most important to our customers so take the extra time to state
your case as clearly and completely as possible.

IMPORTANT: Each submission should be a single suggestion (not a list of
suggestions)

John Langhans
Microsoft Corporation
Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

For FAQ's, highlights and top issues, visit the Microsoft PowerPoint
support center at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=ppt
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbhowto

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm

 

[B]

You could do this with some VBA code, but writing the code for just a small
presentation would take longer than just cutting and pasting from Word to
PowerPoint.

Just how many slides /notes are we talking about here?

B
===============
Please spend a few minutes checking out www.pptfaq.com This link will
answer most of our questions, before you think to ask them.

Change org to com to defuse anti-spam, ant-virus, anti-nuisance
misdirection.

 

[B]

On second thought ...
here is some code that may help you.

There are 3 steps in this solution for adding notes to your slides pages
from a text file---

Step 1 - format your text file
- at the beginning of each section to be placed into a slide, place a new
line of text beginning with the following three symbols, '~!~' (without the
quotes.)
- optionally, place the target slide number after, but on the same line
- save file as a 'text only' or .TXT file.

Step 2 - create the macro
- open you presentation (or better yet, a copy of your presentation)
- open the VBE window by pressing Alt + F11 or by clicking Tools | Macro |
Visual Basic Editor
- underneath the line that reads Option explicit (if it appears), click to
position the cursor
- Paste all the code between the following lines
-----------------------------------
Public Sub InsertNotesFromTextFile()
Dim FileName As String
Dim Dummy As String
Dim SldNum As Integer
FileName = InputBox("Source File?" & _
"(Full path and name)--", _
"Text Source", "")
Open FileName For Input As #1
Do While Not (EOF(1))
Input #1, Dummy
If Left(Dummy, 3) = "~!~" Then
Dummy = Right(Dummy, _
Len(Dummy) - 3) & " "
If IsNumeric(Dummy) Then
SldNum = Val(Dummy)
Else
SldNum = SldNum + 1
End If
Else
If SldNum > ActivePresentation. _
Slides.Count Then
MsgBox "Text file reference " & _
"to unknown slide " & SldNum & _
". Imported text will be " & _
"placed at the end of current " & _
" notes on the last slide, #" & _
ActivePresentation.Slides.Count, _
vbCritical + vbOKOnly, "ERROR"
SldNum = ActivePresentation.Slides.Count
End If
With ActivePresentation.Slides(SldNum). _
NotesPage.Shapes(2).TextFrame.TextRange
..Text = .Text & vbCr & Dummy
End With
End If
Loop
Close #1
End Sub
-----------------------------------
- close the VBE window

Step 3 - Run the macro
- click Tools | Macro | Macros ... | InsertNotesFromTextFile | Run
- enter the full path and name of the file



I know the code is not pretty, but I compressed it to avoid NewsGroup text
wrap. I should work unless something ugly happens. If you have trouble
with this, either post back to the group with your e-mail (anti-spammed, of
course) or e-mail me directly.

B
===============
Change org to com to defuse anti-spam, ant-virus, anti-nuisance
misdirection.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, great work "B", it works
I have some additional remarks
In the script, I made some change, that can help some other user

Change 1 : I erased the first "." from:
.Text = .Text & vbCr & Dummy

Change 2:
I still have one problem to fix : when parsing the file, it replaces commas found in text file with line feeds in speaker notes, not sure why

Change 3: just included this for others who are interested, to use B's script to remove notes, simply change line above to
.Text = "

Thanks again.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Change 2:

I still have one problem to fix : when parsing the file, it replaces

commas found in text file with line feeds in speaker notes, not sure why;

Depending on how you read a text file in VB/VBA, it may treat commas as
record delimiters. Instead of getting a line at a time, you get a line up
to a comma or line ending.