Alter the text in a SmartArt shape in PowerPoint

Question

Hi,

Can someone please tell me if it's possible to change the text in a SmartArt shape (e.g. Basic Radial) in PowerPoint (using OpenXML + C#)?

I've seen the various tutorials on changing the text in a textbox and extracting all the text from a pptx but neither of these touch the text in a SmartArt shape.

I was able to locate the text object in a smartart shape via:

List<DiagramDataPart> slDp = slidePart.DiagramDataParts.Where(t => t.DataModelRoot.PointList.InnerText.Equals("hello world")).ToList();

foreach (DiagramDataPart dp in slDp)
   System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(dp.DataModelRoot.PointList.InnerText);

But I can't seem to update the PointList so figure there must be some other property/object I shoudl be dealing with.

I freely admit that I'm 99% clueless when it comes to this stuff so any help is appreciated.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi rifinn,

Thanks for posting in the MSDN Forum.

It's based on my exprenice that your need iterate the Point to find the text which your want. Please try this snippet:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Packaging;
using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Presentation;
using DocumentFormat.OpenXml.Drawing.Diagrams;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string path = @"***************.pptx";
            try
            {
                using (PresentationDocument doc = PresentationDocument.Open(path, true))
                {
                    PresentationPart pp = doc.PresentationPart;
                    SlidePart sp1 = pp.SlideParts.ToList<SlidePart>()[0];
                    foreach (DiagramDataPart ddp in sp1.DiagramDataParts.ToList<DiagramDataPart>())
                    {
                        DataModelRoot dmr = ddp.DataModelRoot;
                        List<PointList> pl = dmr.Descendants<PointList>().ToList();
                        foreach (PointList item in pl)
                        {
                            List<Point> ps = item.Descendants<Point>().ToList();
                            foreach(Point p in ps)
                            {
                                if (p.InnerText.Equals("Tom"))
                                    Console.WriteLine(p.InnerText);
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }

            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(String.Format("Stack Trace:\n{0}\nError Message:\n{1}", ex.StackTrace, ex.Message));
            }
            Console.WriteLine("Pause");
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

I hope it can help you.

Have a good day,

Tom

---

Tom Xu [MSFT]
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us

Answer 2

Thanks Tom,

That works but how would I go about changing the text once I find the point it's stored in?

I've set up a PowerPoint template with some SmartArt shapes on it and was hoping to pump some data from a database into the template, replacing place holder text with data from the db.

I can get this to work with regular textbox shapes (thanks to http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brian_jones/archive/2008/11/18/creating-a-presentation-report-based-on-data.aspx) but haven't been able to figure out how to update the shape text.

Thanks,

Rich

Answer 3

Wahoo! I actually got it to work by adding the following to your program Tom:

                                if (p.InnerText.Equals("hello"))
                                {
                                    Console.WriteLine(p.InnerText);
                                    Drawing.Paragraph para = p.TextBody.GetFirstChild<Drawing.Paragraph>();
                                    Drawing.Run run1 = para.GetFirstChild<Drawing.Run>();
                                    Drawing.Text text1 = run1.GetFirstChild<Drawing.Text>();
                                    text1.Text = "World";
                                    Console.WriteLine(p.InnerText);

                                }

I added code to save the PowerPoint at the end and when I opened it up my "hello" placeholder text was changed to "world"!

Thanks for your help.

Rich