Excel VBA Can't SaveAs Embedded PowerPoint Presentation in Office 2016 - vba

Question

We embed pptx files in Excel, then use Excel VBA code (like below) to open, then SaveAs the pptx file to the user's drive, then programmatically modify the pptx content based on Excel calculations.
The Excel VBA code below works fine to control PowerPoint 2010 and 2013, but no longer works for PowerPoint 2016.
Note: I have similar code for Word and it works fine for Word 2016 (and prior versions).
Sub OpenCopyOfEmbeddedPPTFile() 'works with Office 2010 and 2013, but not on Office 2016
Dim oOleObj As OLEObject
Dim PPTApp As Object
Dim PPTPres As Object
Dim sFileName As String
Set oOleObj = ActiveSheet.Shapes("PPTObj").OLEFormat.Object 'name of the embedded pptx object
Set PPTApp = CreateObject("Powerpoint.Application")
PPTApp.Visible = True
sFileName = "C:\Users\Me\Documents\testPPT.pptx"
OleObj.Verb Verb:=xlVerbOpen 'it opens successfully
Set PPTPres = oOleObj.Object
PPTPres.SaveAs Filename:=sFileName 'fails here (in Office 2016)
PPTPres.Close
GetObject(, "PowerPoint.Application").Presentations.Open sFileName
'code to modify the Presentation (copy of the embedded pptx) based on Excel calculations
End Sub
Error:
Run-time error '-2147467259 (80004005)':
Presentation.SaveAs : An error occurred while PowerPoint was saving the file.
Also, the following PowerPoint VBA (not Excel VBA) works fine for normal documents (not embedded in Excel), but fails when I run it in an opened embedded pptm. Works fine in 2013 and 2010 embedded pptm's.
ActivePresentation.SaveAs FileName:="C:\Users\Me\Documents\testPPT.pptm"
Error:
Run-time error '-2147467259 (80004005)': Presentation (unknown member) : An error occurred while PowerPoint was saving the file.
Windows OS version does not seem to matter. Does not work on Office for Mac.
Any way to resolve or workaround this error? Or is there another way to do the same thing (modify a copy of the embedded pptx so the embedded pptx is not modified)? Or does this error only occur on our Office 2016 PCs?

Answer 1

PowerPoint 2016 appears to fail when using SaveAs or SaveCopyAs against an embedded presentation.
The workaround is to open the presentation, create a new presentation, and then copy the content from the embedded presentation to the new presentation. You can then close the embedded presentation, and save the new presentation as you wish.
I've demonstrated copying the slides, but you may need to programmatically copy BuiltInDocumentProperties and other non-slide content.
Option Explicit
Sub OpenCopyOfEmbeddedPPTFile() 'works with Office 2010 and 2013, but not on Office 2016
Dim oOleObj As OLEObject
Dim PPTApp As Object
Dim PPTPres As Object
Dim PPTNewPres As Object
Dim sFileName As String
Set oOleObj = ActiveSheet.Shapes("PPTObj").OLEFormat.Object 'name of the embedded pptx object
oOleObj.Verb 3
Set PPTPres = oOleObj.Object
Set PPTApp = PPTPres.Application
PPTApp.Visible = True
'We can't save the embedded presentation in 2016, so let's copy the clides to a new presentation
Set PPTNewPres = PPTApp.Presentations.Add
PPTPres.Slides.Range.Copy
PPTNewPres.Slides.Paste
'We may need to copy other things, like BuiltInDocumentProperties
'TODO
'Close the original
PPTPres.Close
sFileName = "C:\Users\Me\Documents\testPPT121.pptx"
sFileName = "C:\users\andrew\desktop\testPPT12111-FOOJANE.pptx"
PPTNewPres.SaveAs sFileName
'code to modify the Presentation (copy of the embedded pptx) based on Excel calculations
'Quit PPT
'PPTNewPres.Close
'PPTApp.Quit
End Sub

Answer 2

I found this possible answer in another forum and it worked for me saving a PPTM file as a PPTX file as a copy
Change
PPTPres.SaveAs Filename:=sFileName
to
PPTPres.SaveAs sFileName
Mine was :
PPTPres.SaveCopyAs sFileName
I then open the new file and close the PPTM file