Table of Contents

Intro

This is Part 3 of a 3-part tutorial series for the Employee Training scenario. It is recommended that you complete Part 1 - Importing Data and Part 2 - The Continue Modifier before starting this section.

There is a downloadable PowerPointWriter_BasicTutorials.zip with completed templates and code. The completed example of the template is available under EmployeeTraining/templates/part3_template.pptx. The code for this part of the tutorial can be found in Part3.aspx.cs.

This part focuses on passing a presentation between PowerPointTemplate and PowerPointApplication in order to take advantage of the full range of features available with PowerPointWriter.

Adding to the Template

We will continue adding to our template from Part 2. The next part of our presentation will contain information about the Team the new employee will be working on.

Add a new title slide to the presentation. Give it the title 'Your Team'.
Place the data marker %%=Team.Name underneath the title. Our template slide is shown below.
Add a new content slide. Place the company logo in the bottom right corner.
The title of this slide will be the data marker %%=Department.TrainingItem
Create a new list in the body of the slide.
Place the data marker %%=TrainingItems.Details as the first item in the list.

This is the 8th and final slide in our template. This slide will be used as a template slide for 4 different data sets. To achieve this we will use the Slides.Copy method and the Slide data binding property.

Writing the Code

There is a downloadable PowerPointWriter_BasicTutorials.zip with completed templates and code. The completed example of the template is available under ProjectProposal/templates/part3_template.pptx. The code for this part of the tutorial can be found in Part3.aspx.cs.

We will start with an unprocessed template file containing all of the slides from the 3 parts of this tutorial.

Create a PowerPointApplication object.

PowerPointApplication ppta = new PowerPointApplication();

Set a Presentation object to our template file. This allows us to use all of the methods in the PowerPointApplication API including Slides.CopySlide.
Presentation pres = ppta.Open(Page.MapPath("//templates//part3_template.pptx"));
The following steps will create 3 copies of the last slide.
Create a Slide object for the last slide in our template.
Slide slideToCopy = pres.Slides[7];

Call Slides.CopySlide three times, with each call placing the new slide at the end of the presentation.

pres.Slides.CopySlide(slideToCopy, (pres.Slides.Count));
pres.Slides.CopySlide(slideToCopy, (pres.Slides.Count));
pres.Slides.CopySlide(slideToCopy, (pres.Slides.Count));

Now that our presentation contains all of the slides we want, we can pass it to PowerPointTemplate to import the data. See Passing Between Template and Application for more information.

PowerPointTemplate pptt = new PowerPointTemplate();
pptt.Open(ppta, pres);

We will reuse the code from Part 1 and Part 2 of this tutorial. We will take out the Save call and add then our new code for Part 3.

//Code from Part 1
PowerPointTemplate pptt = new PowerPointTemplate();
pptt.Open(Page.MapPath("//templates//part1_template.pptx"));
DataBindingProperties dataProps = pptt.CreateDataBindingProperties();
string[] columnNamesArray = {"Logo"};
Byte[] logoArray = System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes((Page.MapPath("//data//logo.png")));
object[] valuesArray = {logoArray};
pptt.BindData(valuesArray, columnNamesArray, "Company", dataProps);
string[] employeeColNames = {"Name", "Team"};
                object[] employeeValues = {"Amy Alberts", "Development"};
pptt.BindData(employeeValues, employeeColNames, "Employee", dataProps);
DataTable teamData = GetCSVData((Page.MapPath("//data//Team.csv")));
pptt.BindData(teamData, "Team", dataProps);
 //Code from Part 2
DataTable dtCompanyHistory = GetCSVData(Page.MapPath("//data//CompanyHistory.csv"));
dataProps.MaxRowsPerSlide = 5;
pptt.BindData(dtCompanyHistory, "CompanyHistory", dataProps);
DataTable dtProducts = GetCSVData(Page.MapPath("//data//Products.csv"));
DataBindingProperties dataProps2 = pptt.CreateDataBindingProperties();
dataProps2.MaxRowsPerSlide = 2;
pptt.BindData(dtProducts, "Products", dataProps2);

Next, we will bind the data for the slides that were added in part 3.

Create an array containing the string "TrainingItem". Becuase all of our remaining slides use the same data markers, this array can be used as the column names array for multiple BindData calls.
string[] titleCol = { "TrainingItem" };
Get the data for the first slide in the 'Your Team' section of the presentation. The title of this slide is 'Team Members'.
//Data for the TrainingItem data source object[] titleArrayTeam = { "Team Members" }; //Get the Team members data DataTable dtTeamMembers = GetCSVData(Page.MapPath("//data//TeamMembers.csv"));
In order to keep the 'Team Members' data from populating all of our copied slides, we need to set the Slide property to scope to the slide we want. In this case, it is the 8th slide in our presentation.
Set the dataProps Slide property to be 7. Slide uses the 0-indexed position of the slide, so this will scope to slide 8.
dataProps.Slide = 7;

Bind the 'Team Members' data to the presentation. This will take two BindData calls, for the two data sources on the slide.

pptt.BindData(titleArrayTeam, titleCol, "Department", dataProps);
pptt.BindData(dtTeamMembers, "TrainingItems", dataProps);

Follow these same steps for the remaining slides. Make sure to change the Slide property before each BindData call. The same DataBindingProperties object can be used for all the BindData calls.

//The 9th slide will be 'Agile Development / Scrum'
object[] titleArrayAgile = { "Agile Development / Scrum" };
DataTable dtAgile = GetCSVData(Page.MapPath("//data//Agile.csv"));
dataProps.Slide = 8;
pptt.BindData(titleArrayAgile, titleCol, "Department", dataProps);
pptt.BindData(dtAgile, "TrainingItems", dataProps);

//The 10th slide will be 'Resources and Utilities'
object[] titleArrayResources = { "Resources and Utilities" };
DataTable dtResources = GetCSVData(Page.MapPath("//data//Resources.csv"));
dataProps.Slide = 9;
pptt.BindData(titleArrayResources, titleCol, "Department", dataProps);
pptt.BindData(dtResources, "TrainingItems", dataProps);

//The final slide will be 'Expectations'
object[] titleArrayExpectations = { "Expectations" };
DataTable dtExpectations = GetCSVData(Page.MapPath("//data//Expectations.csv"));
dataProps.Slide = 10;
pptt.BindData(titleArrayExpectations, titleCol, "Department", dataProps);
pptt.BindData(dtExpectations, "TrainingItems", dataProps);

Finally, Process and Save the finished presentation. Congratulations, the tutorial is complete!
pptt.Process(); pptt.Save(Page.Response, "part3_OutPut.pptx", false);

Final Code

For information on writing this code, see Part 1 - Importing Data and Part 2 - The Continue Modifier.

PowerPointApplication ppta = new PowerPointApplication();
Presentation pres = ppta.Open(Page.MapPath("//templates//part3_template.pptx"));
Slide slideToCopy = pres.Slides[7];
pres.Slides.CopySlide(slideToCopy, (pres.Slides.Count));
pres.Slides.CopySlide(slideToCopy, (pres.Slides.Count));
pres.Slides.CopySlide(slideToCopy, (pres.Slides.Count));
PowerPointTemplate pptt = new PowerPointTemplate();
pptt.Open(ppta, pres);
//Code from Part 1
 DataBindingProperties dataProps = pptt.CreateDataBindingProperties();
string[] columnNamesArray = { "Logo" };
Byte[] logoArray = System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes((Page.MapPath("//data//logo.png")));
object[] valuesArray = { logoArray };
pptt.BindData(valuesArray, columnNamesArray, "Company", dataProps);
string[] employeeColNames = { "Name", "Team" };
object[] employeeValues = { "Amy Alberts", "Development" };
pptt.BindData(employeeValues, employeeColNames, "Employee", dataProps);
DataTable teamData = GetCSVData((Page.MapPath("//data//Team.csv")));
pptt.BindData(teamData, "Team", dataProps);
//Code from Part 2
DataTable dtCompanyHistory = GetCSVData(Page.MapPath("//data//CompanyHistory.csv"));
dataProps.MaxRowsPerSlide = 5;
pptt.BindData(dtCompanyHistory, "CompanyHistory", dataProps);
DataTable dtProducts = GetCSVData(Page.MapPath("//data//Products.csv"));
DataBindingProperties dataProps2 = pptt.CreateDataBindingProperties();
dataProps2.MaxRowsPerSlide = 2;
pptt.BindData(dtProducts, "Products", dataProps2);
//add the data from part 3
string[] titleCol = { "TrainingItem" };
object[] titleArrayTeam = { "Team Members" };
DataTable dtTeamMembers = GetCSVData(Page.MapPath("//data//TeamMembers.csv"));
dataProps.Slide = 7;
pptt.BindData(titleArrayTeam, titleCol, "Department", dataProps);
pptt.BindData(dtTeamMembers, "TrainingItems", dataProps);
object[] titleArrayAgile = { "Agile Development / Scrum" };
DataTable dtAgile = GetCSVData(Page.MapPath("//data//Agile.csv"));
dataProps.Slide = 8;
pptt.BindData(titleArrayAgile, titleCol, "Department", dataProps);
pptt.BindData(dtAgile, "TrainingItems", dataProps);
object[] titleArrayResources = { "Resources and Utilities" };
DataTable dtResources = GetCSVData(Page.MapPath("//data//Resources.csv"));
dataProps.Slide = 9;
pptt.BindData(titleArrayResources, titleCol, "Department", dataProps);
pptt.BindData(dtResources, "TrainingItems", dataProps);
object[] titleArrayExpectations = { "Expectations" };
DataTable dtExpectations = GetCSVData(Page.MapPath("//data//Expectations.csv"));
dataProps.Slide = 10;
pptt.BindData(titleArrayExpectations, titleCol, "Department", dataProps);
pptt.BindData(dtExpectations, "TrainingItems", dataProps);
pptt.Process();
pptt.Save(Page.Response, "part3_OutPut.pptx", false);

Downloads

You can download the code for the Basic PowerPointWriter Tutorials as a Visual Studio solution, which includes the Project Proposal.

PowerPointWriter_BasicTutorials.zip

Next Steps

See our Quick Guides and Samples for more advanced topics.