PowerPoint Programming

What is VBA?

2009-04-09T11:55:00.001+05:30

VBA stands for Visual Basic for Applications, and is a programming language subset of Microsoft Visual Basic. It allows to control several options in programs that support VBA.

Most Microsoft Office applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint work with VBA. However VBA support is giving way to new technologies such as VSTO in Office 2007.

You really don't need to learn a lot of VBA to make things happen. Sometimes, you can just paste a snippet of VBA to make miracles happen!

For examples, you can find some sample VBA code here...

Resources on PowerPoint Programming

2009-03-20T16:43:00.000+05:30

Here are some resources to help you with PowerPoint programming:

Steve Rindsberg's PowerPoint FAQ has plenty of info on using VBA in PowerPoint.

Shyam Pillai's site has more VBA information for PowerPoint.

Microsoft's online support knowledge base has several examples of VBA usage.

Create a Spirograph in PowerPoint Programattically

2009-03-20T16:38:00.000+05:30

Note: If you don't know how to use macro snippets or scripts inside PowerPoint, look here...

This started with my Create Spirograph in PowerPoint tutorial -- and thanks to my friend Shyam Pillai who said I could do that so much faster programattically by using this code:


Sub CreateSpirograph()
Dim oShp As Shape
Dim I As Single

Const ROTATION_INCREMENT = 5  'Rotation Increment
Const ROTATION_MAX = 360 'Max rotation

'Select a shape on the slide and then run this
Set oShp = ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange(1)

For I = ROTATION_INCREMENT To ROTATION_MAX Step ROTATION_INCREMENT
    With oShp.Duplicate
        .Rotation = I
        .Left = oShp.Left
        .Top = oShp.Top
    End With
Next
End Sub

Remember you need to have some shape selected before you run this code. Also, Shyam adds that you can change the ROTATION_INCREMENT and ROTATION_MAX values to get different graphs.

Shyam Pillai is a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP, visit his site for many VBA snippets, free and commercial PowerPoint add-ins

Use VBA Scripts in PowerPoint -- Even if You Can't Program For Nuts

2009-03-20T16:31:00.001+05:30

What can be better to start a blog on PowerPoint programming that discussing a tutorial I wrote on using scripts and macros from elsewhere even if you don't know how to do VBA programming!

If you like that though, run now to this page! As that page says: "This article is not about creating your own macros or scripts to automate PowerPoint. However, if you just want to run any macros or scripts that a friend shares, or you just got it from a book or newsgroup, then you are on the right page."