1. David Eastwood Maddox Ford Ltd. www.maddoxford.co.uk
Creating PowerPoint Presentations from within Brio Intelligence™ Exploiting the Automation Interface
David Eastwood
Maddox Ford Ltd.

2. Overview
Work arose out of a need to create and update complex PowerPoint® presentations from Brio Intelligence™
This presentation makes use of Brio Intelligence’s JavaScript capabilities and the Automation interface
Key samples of code are shown and described
Although centred on controlling PowerPoint presentations, the ideas are applicable to other Office products

3. Software Versions
The code featured has been developed under Brio (and earlier)
It works with both Designer and Insight
The software has been tested on Office 97, Office 2000

4. Origins of the work
Prompted by the needs of a Category Management application
End users worked with complex PowerPoint presentations which used Brio queries as the source of data
There was a need to:
update existing slides for different time periods and/or customers
provide a simple control panel to create and format the slides as well as compose the data queries
some graph types needed were not available in Brio – Radar, Bubble

5. What do the applications look like?

6. The PowerPoint object model
Application
oPPT †
Presentation(s)
oPPTPres †
Slide(s)
oPPTSlide †
Shape(s)
OLEFormat *
Object
oPPTChart or oPPTTable †
* The full object model is available from MSDN – see refs. at the end
† Object names used by us within Brio

7. Getting started
Create the link to PowerPoint oPPT = new JOOLEObject("PowerPoint.Application");
Create a new presentation oPPT.Visible = true;
oPPTPres = oPPT.Presentations.Add();
Alert("New presentation created: \r\n"+ oPPTPres.Name)
Open an existing presentation
sFile = tbFileLocation.Text; // name from text box
oPPTPres = oPPT.Presentations.Open(sFile);
Alert("Presentation Loaded: \r\n"+ oPPTPres.Name)

8. Slide manipulation (1) Add a slide to the end of the slide show
nSlideNums = oPPTPres.Slides.Count;
oPPTSlide = oPPTPres.Slides.Add(ppLayoutTitleOnly,(nSlideNums+1)) //***
// const ppLayoutTitleOnly == 11
Add a title (if the slide has one defined)
oPPTSlide.Shapes.Title.TextFrame.TextRange.Text = "Sample title";
*** Note this syntax – reverse order to Office documentation

9. Slide manipulation (2) Add a footer Format some text
oPPTFooter = oPPTSlide.Shapes.AddTextbox(20,700,500,10,1); //***
oPPTFooter.TextFrame.TextRange = "Slide created on " + (new Date()).toUTCString();
Format some text
oPPTFooter.TextFrame.TextRange.Font.Size = 8;
oPPTFooter.TextFrame.TextRange.Font.Italic = true;
*** Note this syntax – reverse order to Office documentation

10. Objects in slides Charts and tables are embedded objects on a slide
They form part of the Shapes collection
The OLEFormat object contains the methods and properties of embedded OLE objects

11. Graph creation (1)
We chose to use Microsoft Graph – you could use embedded Excel graphs instead
Equivalent to the Insert/Chart menu in PowerPoint

12. Graph creation (2)
Graph has an attached datasheet whose layout determines the look of the graph

13. Create the graph object
oNew = oPPTSlide.Shapes.AddOLEObject(false,"",0,"",false,"", "MSGraph.Chart",350,600,150,50); // ****
//AddOLEObject arguments are:
//link,iconlabel,inconindex,iconfilename,displayasicon,filename,classname,
//height,width,top,left
oPPTChart =oNew.OLEFormat.Object;
// now set the chart type
oPPTChart.ChartType = xlColumnClustered ; // const xlColumnClustered == 54
oPPTChart.Application.PlotBy = xlColumns; // const xlColumns == 2
*** Note this syntax – reverse order to Office documentation

14. Moving data Data can be exported via the clipboard
Exports from table sections can use the GetCell() method but it’s slower
We copied the data via the clipboard (and re-arranged it within the DataSheet if necessary):
oPPTChart.Application.DataSheet.Columns.Clear;
ActiveDocument.Sections["Pivot"].Copy();
oPPTChart.Application.DataSheet.Range("00:00").Paste;

15. Formatting
All PowerPoint format properties are available to be read and altered
As are the properties of embedded objects such as graphs:
function AddDataLabels(chart){
chart.Application.Chart.ApplyDataLabels;
for (var i=1; i<=chart.SeriesCollection.Count; i++){
chart.SeriesCollection.Item(i).HasDataLabels = true;
chart.SeriesCollection.Item(i).DataLabels.Font.Size = 10; }

16. Table creation We chose to create embedded spreadsheets.
You can also use embedded Word Tables and (in PowerPoint 2000) native PowerPoint tables (members of the Shapes collection)
oNew = oPPTSlide.Shapes.AddOLEObject(false,"",0,"",false, "","Excel.Sheet",350,600,150,50); //***
//AddOLEObject arguments are:
// link,iconlabel,iconindex,iconfilename,displayasicon,
// filename,classname,height,width,top,left
oPPTTable = oNew.OLEFormat.Object;
*** Note this syntax – reverse order to Office documentation

17. Table data Copy the data to the table
ActiveDocument.Sections["Pivot"].Copy();
oPPTTable.Sheets.Item(1).Paste;

18. Updating slides
We need to identify the source of the data already on the slide:
did Brio create this slide?
which Query created this slide?
which Section was the source of the data?
what Limits were used when the query ran?
We can then reset the Brio query to match the slide and allow the user to vary these settings (e.g. time period)

19. Identifying slides and their source
Slides have a SlideID property – a unique ID independent of slide order (and not visible to the PowerPoint user)
Slides have Tags – this lets you create your own properties for a slide
Slide.Tags.Add("Value", "TAG LABEL"); //***
// the name of the Tag Label should be in caps
// PowerPoint will return caps anyway!
*** Note this syntax – reverse order to Office documentation

20. Using Tags We use tags to Label the slide as being created by Brio
Show the code version used to create the slide
Name the query which created the slide
Name limits and limit values
etc.

21. Finding objects in a slide
When updating a slide, you will need to find the object from the Shapes collection
function FindOLE(oPPTSlide){
var nShapeCount = oPPTSlide.Shapes.Count
for (var n=1; n<=nShapeCount; n++){
var nShapeType= oPPTSlide.Shapes.Item(n).Type;
if (nShapeType == msoEmbeddedOLEObject){
// Const msoEmbeddedOLEObject == 7
break; }
return oPPTSlide.Shapes.Item(n).OLEFormat.Object;

22. Live demo
I will illustrate the code we have been discussing via the demo application
This demo code available from Maddox Ford web site

23. Coding considerations
(Brio 6.2.3) When calling PowerPoint methods with multiple arguments you need to supply the arguments in the reverse order to that shown in Microsoft documentation
Brio: Slide.Tags.Add("Value", "TAG LABEL");
Microsoft: Slide.Tags.Add("TAG LABEL", "Value")
When selecting Items in a collection, use the .Item(n) method not [n]

24. Development aids (1)
Use VB Script editor in PowerPoint to confirm syntax of commands
You may need to load additional Help files in PowerPoint
MSDN also has reference information and articles

25. ‘On-Line Help’
Find the object or method
Press F1

26. Development aids (2)
External JavaScript editor can be helpful with large scripts

27. Development aids (3)
Create a set of constants to match those used by Office
Try to follow good JavaScript coding conventions

28. Reference Material and Acknowledgements
MSDN
On-line Help in Office (VB Editors)
Platypus JavaScript editor
‘JavaScript – The Definitive Guide’
David Flanagan, O’Reilly
Maddox Ford Brio Development Standards