XML Tagging in Powerpoint?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dan Armstrong
  • Start date Start date
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Dan Armstrong

I've been charged with the task of bringing order to a
large number of redundant documents, mostly in Word and
Powerpoint. I need to tag elements in the documents -
things like "definition" or "calculation" - and then
create a single master list of definitions and
calculations.

Ideally I could create a consolidated master glossary and
calculation reference, and authors could pull from these
when they need to create new documents, rather than
reinvent the wheel every time.

Anyway, tagging appears to be easy enough to do in Word
using styles. But search as I may, I cannot find a way to
do it in Powerpoint.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

Dan
 
This is not a strong point with PowerPoint - would it serve your purpose to
send the outline of a presentation to Word and tag it there?
 
I've thought of that. It sounds messy. It would mean
having two documents where there is one now. When a
Powerpoint document was updated the associated Word
document would have to be updated too. Do you think it's
the only way?

Dan
 
Can you explain in more detail what the end result should be?

For example: tag a specific text box with, let's say, a value like
"Definition:LendingTerms" Then somehow persuade PPT to bring in the text that
defines your Lending Terms and plunk it into the tagged text box.

Something along those lines? If so, it's not something that PPT could do
natively, but an add-in could automate this, I think.
 
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Well, ideally I would be able tag within a text box, not
just the entire text box, and drill all the way down to
the term itself - as in "Definition:CarLoan".

Then, yes, I would want to pull up that definition and
plop it into a document. The initial goal would be to tag,
pull out and list all of the definitions of car loans
(following the example above). Unfortunately, it's likely
that everyone who ever wrote a document came up with their
own definition.

Then I would have the content folks agree on one "correct"
definition and call up that definition when content is
created going forward.

Thanks for replying.

Dan
 
Well, ideally I would be able tag within a text box, not
just the entire text box, and drill all the way down to
the term itself - as in "Definition:CarLoan".
Click to expand...

You might want to have a look at the free demo of our Merge addin, not so much
because it's the solution you're after but because it might give you a few
ideas. http://merge.pptools.com

Among other things, it lets you type something like CarLoan into the text of a
presentation and when you run the merge, it replaces "CarLoan" with either the
text supplied in an Excel or ascii data file *or* with the text in a text file
referenced in that data file.
 
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