PowerPoint Slide Manipulation

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
#1

Just trying to figure out how to manipulate PPT slides with AppleScript. Having a bit of difficulty understanding the dictionary, specifically when it comes to duplicating slides.

This is the closest I’ve gotten:

tell application "Microsoft PowerPoint"
	activate
	tell active presentation
		duplicate slide 1 to slide 3
	end tell
end tell

However, when I run that, I get this error:
error “Microsoft PowerPoint got an error: Can’t set slide 3 of active presentation to slide 1 of active presentation.” number -10006 from slide 3 of active presentation

#2

You probably need to duplicate “to after” (or “to before”).

#3

I fussed with duplicate and couldn’t get it to work either. Here is a substitute routine that will copy any slide you specify and paste it at the end of the presentation. Hope it helps.

my duplicateSlide(3)

on duplicateSlide(whichSlide)
	-- whichSlide is an integer of the slide to duplicate's position
	tell application "Microsoft PowerPoint"
		activate
		tell active presentation
			copy object slide whichSlide
			paste object
		end tell
	end tell
end duplicateSlide

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Operating System: Mac OS X (10.10)

#4

An alternative that is sometimes better is to use the Paste function from the Edit menu with:

tell application "System Events" to tell process "Microsoft PowerPoint" to click menu item "Paste" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Edit" of menu bar 1
#5

Duplicating existing slide 1 to existing slide 3 (that is, replacing the second one) :


replace_Slide given sourceSlide:1, destinationSlide:3
tell application "Microsoft PowerPoint" to activate

on replace_Slide given destinationSlide:destinationSlideIndex, sourceSlide:sourceSlideIndex
	tell application "Microsoft PowerPoint"
		activate
		tell active presentation
			copy object slide sourceSlideIndex
			select slide (destinationSlideIndex - 1)
			tell application "System Events" to keystroke "v" using command down
			delete slide (destinationSlideIndex + 1)
		end tell
	end tell
end replace_Slide

NOTE: paste object command of “Microsoft PowerPoint” pastes the duplicate only to the end of the document.