Streamlining of formatting pasted text in PowerPoint 2000

[TAB]

Greetings,

I am working on a project in which I am copying and reformatting text from
PDF to PowerPoint 2000 for PC. It involves thousands of slides and pictures.
I am using a full-version of Acrobat 4.0 I don't have a problem porting the
text from PDF to PowerPoint. However, when it gets to PowerPoint, I need to
reformat it from the font in the PDF to plain old Times 24pt, and I need to
strip out extra carriage returns (or line feeds, not sure which) that get
included for some reason.. After that, I can add the extra bold & color
here & there that each will need. But this conversion thing takes so much
time manually, and it's the same every time. These are stupid, repetitive
tasks, the kind of things that computers do best. But it's taking me far too
much time to do by hand.

Here is what I am doing:

1. Marquee select text from PDF. Copy.
2. In the PowerPoint slide, pasting into an already-existing text box.
(which I actually have pre-formatted for Times 24. Unfortunately, the
pre-formatting is destroyed by the incoming text)
3. Select all the text in the PPT text box, change the font to Times.
4. Place the insertion point in amongst the text, and strip the extra
returns out by hand.
5. Manually apply color and bold where dictated by original text. Just a few
words here & there. (can't be automated)

I am also doing the same with the image captions, and that is a simpler
process.

1. Marquee select image caption and copy from PDF.
2. Paste into pre-positioned caption text box. (same position in every image
slide)
3. Select All, change to Arial Bold 14, and apply pre-defined special text
color.
4. Remove 1 space, in the same place in every block of text, and replace it
with a single TAB.

I am against the wall with a deadline, a MASSIVE project that was hurry-up &
wait, and then dropped like an anvil with a get-it-done-now attitude. I am
primarily an imaging person, and while I have a programming background and
am fairly intuitive, to my regret, I don't do Visual Basic, and I do not
have the time to learn now. If I don't find
a way to automate these tasks, I will probably miss the deadline by a huge
margin and the book into which the disk with the PPT presentation is to be
bound will be late.

I have tried to create macros to do these things, with not a lot of success.
I also tried downloading some VB routines, but I can't seem to make them
work right, and I get syntax errors, etc. Not understanding the syntax and
construction, I can't debug them easily, and again, time is a factor.

Does anyone have any macros or routines you would be willing to share, or
can tell me where to find such (hopefully that I can adapt to PPT 2000 for
PC) that will help me do this? Advice, ideas, anything that will help me get
this accomplished? I am doing over 100 chapters, and at the rate of 1
chapter each day & a half or so, I'll be done
about 2 months after the book is supposed to be on the shelf. If I give up
things like sleep and meals, I might be able to cut it down to 2 weeks after
the shelf date.

I would greatly appreciate any advice anyone here is able to offer!

Thanks!

TAB

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I am working on a project in which I am copying and reformatting text from
PDF to PowerPoint 2000 for PC. It involves thousands of slides and pictures.
I am using a full-version of Acrobat 4.0 I don't have a problem porting the
text from PDF to PowerPoint. However, when it gets to PowerPoint, I need to
reformat it from the font in the PDF to plain old Times 24pt,

Paste from PDF into Notepad first (strips out the formatting)

Copy/Paste from Notepad into PPT (text assumes whatever defaults you've set in
PPT)

It might also be worth experimenting with Edit, Paste Special (see if there's
an Unformatted Text option).

and I need to
strip out extra carriage returns (or line feeds, not sure which) that get
included for some reason..

I could bore you to tears with the reason. Come back after you finish your
project, handkerchief and tissues in hand, and ask. I'll be happy to oblige.
;-)

But it might help to know that later versions of Acrobat are a lot cleverer
about figuring out which lines of text belong together as sentences and
paragraphs. If you know someone with a copy of Acrobat 6 or later, ask them to
open your file and export it as text, Word and any other likely-seeming formats
they have available. That might save you a LOT of time.

Some other PDF-fiddling programs can save as text also. Fox-IT Reader with
their commercial Pro Pack can do this, I think. It costs like $40. I don't
have it or I'd offer to convert a file with it for you.


Otherwise, you can probably do the editing more easily in Notepad before
popping the text into PPT.

Another thing that might help with general formatting is our ShapeStyles addin.
http://www.pptools.com/shapestyles/

The free demo will let you create and use up to five styles at once. That
might be all you need to get you through the project. Worth having a look.

 

[TAB]

Steve,

Thanks very kindly for your reply. I will investigate some of the avenues
you have suggested!

Tim

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Steve,

Thanks very kindly for your reply. I will investigate some of the avenues
you have suggested!

My pleasure, Tim. Let us konw what you find out, 'kay?