What kind of overhead for using tags on PPT shapes?

[Guest]

I have ~50 shapes that I want to apply various fill and line specs to
programatically. (The macro to assign the fill and line specs likely would be
run now and then, not frequently.)

Currently I'm using a pair of tags (myFillSpec and myLineSpec) for each
shape, planning to use macros to assign the fills and lines based on the
tags' values. For example:
If myShape.Tags("myFillSpec") = "NoFill" Then myShape.Fill.Visible =
False

However, I started thinking that I may have read somewhere that each tag you
apply has a significant toll in terms of system overhead...

With ~50 shapes, each with (the same) two tags, am I creating enough of a
burden to worry about this (and go with more cumbersome shape names)?

Does the "overhead" come with each tag (2), or with each application of the
tags (~100, in this example)?

Is there somewhere I can read up on considerations for using tags versus
using other approaches?

Thanks much for any guidance or suggestions y'all can offer.
LM

 

[Bill Dilworth]

Tags are just labels. You can have hundreds on an object/shape and they
will not seriously effect the presentation. They are stored in the
presentation file, so they do increase the size of the presentation (and
therefore the file handling) by only by a minimal amount.

Running a simple line of code like you used in your example, on hundreds of
slides with dozens of shapes each should take less than a second.

I would be interesting in discovering the source of the "significant toll"
information. Tags are a significant tool, not a significant toll.


--
Bill Dilworth
A proud member of the Microsoft PPT MVP Team
Users helping fellow users.
http://billdilworth.mvps.org
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
vestprog2@ Please read the PowerPoint FAQ pages.
yahoo. They answer most of our questions.
com www.pptfaq.com
..

 

[Guest]

Tags are just labels. You can have hundreds on an object/shape and they
will not seriously effect the presentation. They are stored in the
presentation file, so they do increase the size of the presentation (and
therefore the file handling) by only by a minimal amount.

Running a simple line of code like you used in your example, on hundreds of
slides with dozens of shapes each should take less than a second.

I would be interesting in discovering the source of the "significant toll"
information. Tags are a significant tool, not a significant toll.


--
Bill Dilworth
A proud member of the Microsoft PPT MVP Team
Users helping fellow users.
http://billdilworth.mvps.org
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
vestprog2@ Please read the PowerPoint FAQ pages.
yahoo. They answer most of our questions.
com www.pptfaq.com
..

 

[Guest]

Sorry for the empty post above. (Ongoing trouble getting the forum UI to work
properly… sigh.) Here's what I meant to post:

Thank you, Bill, for the reassuring info on using tags.

Re. my thinking that I had heard tags take a toll: it's probably just my
misunderstanding or misremembering (neither my understanding nor my
remembering are what they ought to be these days ;-)

I did a quick search to see if I could find what I might have read. The
closest (which isn't close at all) I could find was in Andrew May's blog
(http://blogs.msdn.com/andrew_may/archive/2004/12/07/277696.aspx).

And the info there implies that tag overhead is NOT a big issue. In fact a
comment (by Steve Rindsberg) says, "I pumped around a megabyte of tag data
into a few slides… (and PowerPoint…) didn't squawk at all."

So, thank you again for clarifying this for me. I'm definitely learning to
love tags (which I "discovered" via this forum).

LM

 

[Guest]

I trust this isn't in reference to the individual who originally posted the
question...

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I would be interesting in discovering the source of the "significant toll"
information. Tags are a significant tool, not a significant toll.

Probably some insignificant troll.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Sorry for the empty post above. (Ongoing trouble getting the forum UI to work
properly… sigh.) Here's what I meant to post:

Thank you, Bill, for the reassuring info on using tags.

Re. my thinking that I had heard tags take a toll: it's probably just my
misunderstanding or misremembering (neither my understanding nor my
remembering are what they ought to be these days ;-)

I did a quick search to see if I could find what I might have read. The
closest (which isn't close at all) I could find was in Andrew May's blog
(http://blogs.msdn.com/andrew_may/archive/2004/12/07/277696.aspx).

And the info there implies that tag overhead is NOT a big issue. In fact a
comment (by Steve Rindsberg) says, "I pumped around a megabyte of tag data
into a few slides… (and PowerPoint…) didn't squawk at all."

Ah. Saves me the trouble of writing all that again. <g>

I did the testing in PPT97 on a much slower/resource-limited computer than
anything you're likely to run across today (NT3.51 or 4, 32 or 64mb of RAM).

The amount of data in tags seems to have little or no effect on anything other
than the obvious: a bigger presentation will take longer to read from disk than a
smaller one.

The number of tags can have something of an impact; apparently at the time PPT
opens the file it allocates storage for each tag and that can take a little time.
Very little, mind you. I tested mb of data in a few tags vs very little data
per tag times mb individual tags and saw a noticeable slowdown in file open.

But again, that's over a slow network, older slower computers, and half a million
or a million tags on one slide.

In practice, ignore it. Tag like mad.

If it becomes an issue, favor lots of data in one tag over lots of tags with
little data in each. My money says it'll never become an issue.

 

[Guest]

Dear "Troll" -

You made me LOL. Thanks for the day brightner!

Sandy

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

<g>

Nah. I can't tell from here which way you're facing. I'd hate to find out I
was talking about you behind your back.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Is this where we launch into "Ask not for whom The Bill trolls ..."

 

[Bill Dilworth]

Dear "Troll" -

Is this where we launch into "Ask not for whom The Bill trolls ..."

.... that reminds me of a former girlfriend of mind ... I dropped her like a
bad hobbit.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

.... that reminds me of a former girlfriend of mind ... I dropped her like a
bad hobbit.

Breaking up with real girlfriends is hard; breaking up with imaginary ones is
really tough.

Out of sight, out of mind vs Out of mind, out of sight?