/Visual Studio 2008/CppAutomatePowerPoint/ReadMe.txt

========================================================================

    CONSOLE APPLICATION : CppAutomatePowerPoint Project Overview

========================================================================



/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Summary:



The CppAutomatePowerPoint example demonstrates how to write VC++ code to 

create a Microsoft PowerPoint instance, create a new presentation, insert a 

new slide, add some texts to the slide, save the presentation, quit 

PowerPoint and then clean up unmanaged COM resources.



There are three basic ways you can write VC++ automation codes:



1. Automating PowerPoint using the #import directive and smart pointers 



The code in Solution1.h/cpp demonstrates the use of #import to automate 

PowerPoint. #import (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8etzzkb6.aspx), 

a new directive that became available with Visual C++ 5.0, creates VC++ "smart 

pointers" from a specified type library. It is very powerful, but often not 

recommended because of reference-counting problems that typically occur when 

used with the Microsoft Office applications. Unlike the direct API approach 

in Solution2.h/cpp, smart pointers enable us to benefit from the type info to 

early/late bind the object. #import takes care of adding the messy guids to 

the project and the COM APIs are encapsulated in custom classes that the 

#import directive generates.



2. Automating PowerPoint using C++ and the COM APIs



The code in Solution2.h/cpp demontrates the use of C/C++ and the COM APIs to 

automate PowerPoint. The raw automation is much more difficult, but it is 

sometimes necessary to avoid the overhead with MFC, or problems with #import. 

Basically, you work with such APIs as CoCreateInstance(), and COM interfaces 

such as IDispatch and IUnknown.



3. Automating PowerPoint with MFC



With MFC, Visual C++ Class Wizard can generate "wrapper classes" from the 

type libraries. These classes simplify the use of the COM servers. Automating 

PowerPoint with MFC is not covered in this sample.





/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Prerequisite:



You must run this code sample on a computer that has Microsoft PowerPoint 

2007 installed.





/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Demo:



The following steps walk through a demonstration of the PowerPoint automation 

sample that starts a Microsoft PowerPoint instance, adds a new presentation, 

inserts a slide, adds some texts to the slide, saves the presentation, quits 

PowerPoint and then cleans up unmanaged COM resources.



Step1. After you successfully build the sample project in Visual Studio 2008, 

you will get the application: CppAutomatePowerPoint.exe.



Step2. Open Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) to confirm that no 

powerpnt.exe is running. 



Step3. Run the application. It should print the following content in the 

console window if no error is thrown.



  PowerPoint.Application is started

  A new presentation is created

  Insert a slide

  Add some texts

  Save and close the presentation

  Quit the PowerPoint application



  PowerPoint.Application is started

  A new presentation is created

  The presentation currently has 0 slides

  Insert a slide

  Add some texts

  Save and close the presentation

  Quit the PowerPoint application



Then, you will see two new presentation files in the directory of the 

application: Sample1.pptx and Sample2.pptx. Both presentations contain only 

one slide with the following title.



  All-In-One Code Framework



Step4. In Windows Task Manager, confirm that the powerpnt.exe process does 

not exist, i.e. the Microsoft PowerPoint intance was closed and cleaned up 

properly.





/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Project Relation:



CppAutomatePowerPoint - CSAutomatePowerPoint - VBAutomatePowerPoint



These examples automate Microsoft PowerPoint to do the same thing in  

different programming languages.





/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Creation:



A. Automating Word using the #import directive and smart pointers 

(Solution1.h/cpp)



Step1. Import the type library of the target COM server using the #import 

directive. 



	#import "libid:2DF8D04C-5BFA-101B-BDE5-00AA0044DE52" \

		rename("RGB", "MSORGB")

		rename("DocumentProperties", "MSODocumentProperties")

	// [-or-]

	//#import "C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\Microsoft Shared\\OFFICE12\\MSO.DLL" \

	//	rename("RGB", "MSORGB")

	//	rename("DocumentProperties", "MSODocumentProperties")



	using namespace Office;



	#import "libid:0002E157-0000-0000-C000-000000000046"

	// [-or-]

	//#import "C:\\Program Files\\Common Files\\Microsoft Shared\\VBA\\VBA6\\VBE6EXT.OLB"



	using namespace VBIDE;



	#import "libid:91493440-5A91-11CF-8700-00AA0060263B"

	// [-or-]

	//#import "C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office12\\MSPPT.OLB"



Step2. Build the project. If the build is successful, the compiler generates 

the .tlh and .tli files that encapsulate the COM server based on the type 

library specified in the #import directive. It serves as a class wrapper we

can now use to create the COM class and access its properties, methods, etc.



Step3. Initializes the COM library on the current thread and identifies the 

concurrency model as single-thread apartment (STA) by calling CoInitializeEx, 

or CoInitialize.



Step4. Create the PowerPoint.Application COM object using the smart pointer.

The class name is the original interface name (i.e. PowerPoint::_Application) 

with a "Ptr" suffix. We can use either the constructor of the smart pointer 

class or its CreateInstance method to create the COM object.



Step5. Automate the PowerPoint COM object through the smart pointers. In this 

example, you can find the basic operations in PowerPoint automation like 



	Create a new Presentation. (i.e. Application.Presentations.Add)

	Insert a slide.

	Add some texts,

	Save the presentation as a pptx file and close it.



Step6. Quit the PowerPoint application. (i.e. Application.Quit())



Step7. It is said that the smart pointers are released automatically, so we 

do not need to manually release the COM object.



Step8. It is necessary to catch the COM errors if the type library was  

imported without raw_interfaces_only and when the raw interfaces 

(e.g. raw_Quit) are not used. For example:



	#import "XXXX.tlb"

	try

	{

		spPpApp->Quit();

	}

	catch (_com_error &err)

	{

	}



Step9. Uninitialize COM for this thread by calling CoUninitialize.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------



B. Automating PowerPoint using C++ and the COM APIs (Solution2.h/cpp)



Step1. Add the automation helper function, AutoWrap.



Step2. Initialize COM by calling CoInitializeEx, or CoInitialize.



Step3. Get CLSID of the PowerPoint COM server using the API CLSIDFromProgID.



Step4. Start the PowerPoint COM server and get the IDispatch interface using 

the API CoCreateInstance.



Step5. Automate the PowerPoint COM object with the help of AutoWrap. In this 

example, you can find the basic operations in PowerPoint automation like 



	Create a new Presentation. (i.e. Application.Presentations.Add)

	Insert a slide.

	Add some texts,

	Save the presentation as a pptx file and close it.



Step6. Quit the PowerPoint application. (i.e. Application.Quit())



Step7. Release the COM objects.



Step8. Uninitialize COM for this thread by calling CoUninitialize.





/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

References:



MSDN: PowerPoint 2007 Developer Reference

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb265982.aspx





/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////