Update charts in PowerPoint in VBA - vba

I have a couple charts in a powerpoint presentation that I want to write a macro for to update them automatically. I have a database that will export data as excel spreadsheets and I was wondering if there was a way in either excel vba or powerpoint vba to have the user input the location of the new data file and have that new data copied and pasted so that the chart will update. I am new to VBA so any help would be greatly appreciated.

You can easily do this by editing link to the ppt charts to the new file.
Simply go to the
Excel Option Button>>Prepare>>Edit Links to Files and change source of the charts to the new file.
Let me know if you still want/need to use VBA for this.
Cheers

Related

How do I activate an unsaved workbook using VBA?

The goal of my code is to run an online report, copy the data from an exported excel file and paste it back to the main file, and then manipulate the data.
The trouble I'm running into now is copying the data from the exported excel file. The online report exports the excel file as an unsaved "Book1" with one "Sheet1" with the data in it. I cannot seem to activate the exported file so I can copy the sheet.
I've tried
Workbooks("Book1").Activate
As well as using a for loop to iterate through all open workbooks (there are only 2 open workbooks, but the for loop only loops once - telling me that it isn't looping through the unsaved workbook).
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Happy to clarify any questions as well.
Thanks

Generate PowerPoint presentations with Excel sheets / charts embedded in it programatically

So what my client wants to accomplish seems pretty simple. We will have PPTX file template with a few Excel sheets embedded in it, and a few charts too.
We have created such template file. We are able to extract it, update excel files that sit in ppt/embedded directory with new ones, and pack it back.
The problem is, the display values of the tables or charts do not update automatically when such file is opened. You have to double click on a spreadsheet table or chart to trigger "edit mode". When you leave it the charts are updated.
We figured that internally, PowerPoint is doing screenshots of tables or charts, and uses it to display presentation. This is probably to allow presentation players that do not come with Excel to correctly render the presentation with embedded sheets.
Is there a way I can programatically update the screenshots of tables/charts? Is there some sort of API from Microsoft that would allow me to do that, like "MS Office API".
Maybe there is some way to have MS office configured/scripted, so I send it a file, it runs a VB script on it and returns updated value? I figured I can actually trigger update to screenshots with VB script. But I don't know if I can orchestrate Office program to do what I want.
Help? :)

PowerPoint 2013 "PasteSpecial" won't embed Excel chart as OLE Object

I've written a macro in PowerPoint that, as part of its process, will convert a linked chart in a PowerPoint presentation to an embedded chart by copying the source Excel chart and pasting that copied chart in as an OLE object -- the specific command is, "sldComponent.Shapes.PasteSpecial(ppPasteOLEObject)".
Until today, this has worked fine in all versions from 2003 to 2010. However, when trying to run this function in 2013/365, I keep getting a run-time error stating "The specified data type is not available" (-2147188160 / 80048240). I also notice that in the Microsoft Developers Reference webpage, "ppPasteOLEObject" is no longer listed as an acceptable datatype for the PasteSpecial method (when used with the Shapes collection).
I have found several ways to programmatically paste the chart as a picture, but whenever I click on the pasted chart and try to access the data, I keep getting the message "The linked file is not available." I want the data to be entirely self-contained so the PowerPoint user can edit it without reference to the original Excel file. Interestingly, when I stop the PowerPoint macro at the buggy line and then manually click "Paste" on the ribbon, the copied chart does paste, fully embedded with data accessible, into the active slide -- so the chart is getting copied into the Clipboard; the PowerPoint macro is simply unable to read and paste it for some reason. Even more interestingly (read: frustratingly), the PasteSpecial(ppPasteOLEObject) command will work for tables copied from Excel, i.e. cell ranges, but not for charts.
What happened? How does one use VBA code in PowerPoint 2013 to embed (i.e. insert a previously-created, self-contained Excel chart including all data right in the presentation slide) an Excel chart in the new version?
ADD: I should also note that the command used to get the chart from the source worksheet in Excel is "xlCopySheet.ChartObjects(1).Select", then "appExcel.Selection.Copy". Is the problem that the chosen Copy syntax is not capturing the entire chart including data but only the display? What is the correct Copy syntax to use here?
ADD 2: Further specification: The original macro was saved and was running with both Excel and PowerPoint in Compatibility (97-2003) mode, although the apps themselves are the 2013/Office 365 versions.
If you paste the chart as a "Microsoft Office Graphic Object", the chart is pasted as an Excel chart. You can format it within PowerPoint using the Excel ribbon's Chart Tools tab, which appear in PowerPoint. If you click any of the edit/select data buttons, it opens the data in Excel.
If you paste the chart as a Microsoft Excel Chart Object, it is pasted as an embedded workbook (the entire workbook, not just the chart and its data), with a new chart sheet inserted in the embedded workbook, and this chart sheet is what is visible. You need to double click to format or edit the chart, which opens the embedded workbook in Excel, and may mess up the size of the embedded object (so it's chart-sheet sized, not chart-embedded-in-the-worksheet sized) and things like font size.
If I copy the chart in Excel and use this in the PowerPoint VB Immediate Window
activepresentation.Slides(3).Shapes.PasteSpecial ppPasteOLEObject
I get the second behavior.
You might want to try copying the chart using this:
xlCopySheet.ChartObjects(1).Chart.Copy

Create PPT Chart based on Excel information

I have a table in PPT that I copied over from excel and I want to create a PPT chart based on that information through VBA. What I want to know is, is there a way to create a chart based off of that table and not off of the little excel spreadsheet that PPT automatically opens? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
If the chart is inserted in the slide from PowerPoint itself, the chart uses the PowerPoint DataSheet as its data source. You can open this PowerPoint DataSheet in Excel and link it to the Excel data you want to plot.
Alternatively you can make the chart in Excel based on the Excel data, then copy the chart and paste it (using onw of the link options) into PowerPoint. It will behave as a native PowerPoint chart (which is really a native Excel chart) but it will be based on the Excel data.

Link Dynamic SQL Chart In Powerpoint

I'm working on a project that needs to be displayed via Powerpoint. I have a SQL chart that is refreshed every morning at 9 am and 12 pm with updated results. I need this information to display within a Powerpoint slideshow for our team, but I'm not sure how to do this where I can see the updated results. I tried inserting the excel spreadsheet as an object and linking that way, but that has not worked.
If the chart is in Excel and automatically refreshes, try it like so:
First, make sure that the PPT file and the XL file are in the same folder if possible.
Select the chart in Excel and rightclick/copy.
Switch to PowerPoint.
Use Paste Special and put a check next to Link to paste the chart into PPT.
I would paste it onto a slide that does NOT have a content placeholder; delete it or put some text into it if one's already there, then paste the chart.
PowerPoint should now update the chart each time you open the presentation, assuming the data/chart have changed in XL.