Search for new slides

[SV]

We have many standard slides that appear in various sales presentations
but are very interested to find what has been created as NEW material.

Ideally I would like to create an XML type marker and be able to search
for <title>A specific slide title</title> using the windows search tool
or find withing PPT.

I could add <title></title> to the template and then use a macro to
copy the file and delete pages that had content in the 'XML' tag
i.e.<title>Content</title>.

Is there anyway to automatically copy the slide title and copy it
elswhere on the slide as the "jam" in the <title></title> sandwich???
This could avoid manual operations!

If I can do this then I can track how usage of a slide propagates to
another presentation and 'recall' slides that are out-of-date. I would
also be able to look for new slides without opening every presentation
(2000 p.a.)!

Steve

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

We have many standard slides that appear in various sales presentations
but are very interested to find what has been created as NEW material.

Ideally I would like to create an XML type marker and be able to search
for <title>A specific slide title</title> using the windows search tool
or find withing PPT.

I could add <title></title> to the template and then use a macro to
copy the file and delete pages that had content in the 'XML' tag
i.e.<title>Content</title>.

Is there anyway to automatically copy the slide title and copy it
elswhere on the slide as the "jam" in the <title></title> sandwich???
This could avoid manual operations!

If I can do this then I can track how usage of a slide propagates to
another presentation and 'recall' slides that are out-of-date. I would
also be able to look for new slides without opening every presentation
(2000 p.a.)!

I don't follow what you plan to do here, but if locating, copying, moving the
slide title will help, hey, I can do that. <g>

Here's a code sample that locates the title on each slide in a presentation and
moves/changes it. It should be fairly easily adaptable to your needs.

 

[SV]

Sorry but I can't see the code! Is there a trick to this?

 

[Glen Millar]

Steve is posting in invisible ink. Great for secret messages but doesn't
help the public much <vbg>.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Sorry but I can't see the code! Is there a trick to this?

Yes. Remind the idiot behind your computer screen to post the link to the
code:

Convert slide titles to shapes to solve hyperlink limit problems
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00683.htm

 

[SV]

I have been think about this problem a little more ... The problem is
to get authors to identify the new slides they have added to otherwise
standard presentations. It has to be a really simple technique!
Perhaps I could get them to use the reviewing toolbar to add a
'post-it' to new slides. The post-it could be empty but at least I
could spot new material quickly.

Is there a way to detect the presence of a reviewing note in a
presentation? I could simply look through the presentation but is
there a way of detecting (& counting) reviewing notes from "outside"
the file?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I have been think about this problem a little more ... The problem is
to get authors to identify the new slides they have added to otherwise
standard presentations. It has to be a really simple technique!
Perhaps I could get them to use the reviewing toolbar to add a
'post-it' to new slides. The post-it could be empty but at least I
could spot new material quickly.

How about going at it from the other direction:

If you have a way to recognize the slides that came from the original standard
presentations, then it'd be simpler to ID the slides that are added by users.
And this wouldn't require them to cooperate. ;-)

A fairly simple bit of VBA code could "tag" each slide in a presentation with a
kind of invisible marker that identifies it as an original.

Another fairly simple bit could give you a list of any slides that don't have
this tag (ie, that weren't part of the original set)

And for bonus points, the first round could also tag each slide with e.g. the
number of shapes on the slide, the length of each text string and so on. It
wouldn't be conclusive but would make it possible for the second macro to test
even the original slides to see if they've been edited.

 

[SV]

I have some problems in trying to understand in what form this
invisible tag would take?

Is it some very specific text using say a pseudo XML format?
"<marker:file:date>" I know that I can put text on the notes pages and
it will be found by our full text search tool "Open Text". I worry
that "tag text" on the slide itself would be removed.

Alternatively could it be something in the files properties which would
allow me to say that the source was file "XYYZF". I assume this would
be overwritten if two files are combined?

I like the idea of counting shapes & the length of the total text
string on the page. If somone takes the same shapes and text and
simply reorganises them on the page it doesn't really concern me (their
time not mine!) but I would like to know if they have changed the text.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I have some problems in trying to understand in what form this
invisible tag would take?

Any presentation, slide within a presentation or shape on a slide can have
pretty much any number of .Tags you like

Each tag is a "named string" so to speak.

For example, this adds a MyName tag with the value Steve Rindsberg (how ever
DOES he make this stuff up???) to the first slide in the current presentation:

Call ActivePresentation.Slides(1).Tags.Add("MyName","Steve Rindsberg")

There's no UI for tags, they can only be added and changed via code, so the
user has no way to meddle with them. Unless the user writes code, of course.
<g>

Unlike document properties, tags won't be overwritten when presentations are
combined (tags at the slide and shape level, that is ... haven't checked to see
what happens with presentation level tags. Logic suggests that since you're
inserting SLIDES from Presentation B into Presentation A, A retains its
presentation level tags, only the Slide/Shape tags from B transfer.

Is it some very specific text using say a pseudo XML format?
"<marker:file:date>" I know that I can put text on the notes pages and
it will be found by our full text search tool "Open Text". I worry
that "tag text" on the slide itself would be removed.

see above

Alternatively could it be something in the files properties which would
allow me to say that the source was file "XYYZF". I assume this would
be overwritten if two files are combined?

See above

I like the idea of counting shapes & the length of the total text
string on the page. If somone takes the same shapes and text and
simply reorganises them on the page it doesn't really concern me (their
time not mine!) but I would like to know if they have changed the text.

Depending on how much text is in each slide, you could theoretically tag each
shape with any text that's in it and compare the tag with the shape's text at
any later date.