Powerpoint 2003 Custom Toolbar

[Steve Vincent]

Someone please help me before i go chuffing mad!

The requirement is simple. I need a custom toolbar in a presentation to allow quick and easy access to certain custom functions i have written. These are to aid non-tech savvy people to update the presentation without screwing up my cunning code that automatically updates the embedded TM1 graphs, of which there are going to be over 100 eventually.

I've been trying for 3 days now to get VBA to create a menu, and none of the examples i've found on the wacky wide wibble work. I've tried recording my steps if i build the menu manually but in true M$ style it doesn't record everything, some of what it misses being key.

All i need is a dropdown menu similar to the "File" menu. It will need to be called "RPS" and have under it about 5 links that run various macros. Please someone help with some code that will do it, because i'm frankly pi$$ed off with the lack of help with M$ products and powerpoint is the worst of the lot.

TIA (with slightly less hair than at the beginning of the week...)

[Alan Kirk]

Someone please help me before i go chuffing mad!

The requirement is simple. I need a custom toolbar in a presentation to allow quick and easy access to certain custom functions i have written. These are to aid non-tech savvy people to update the presentation without screwing up my cunning code that automatically updates the embedded TM1 graphs, of which there are going to be over 100 eventually.

I've been trying for 3 days now to get VBA to create a menu, and none of the examples i've found on the wacky wide wibble work. I've tried recording my steps if i build the menu manually but in true M$ style it doesn't record everything, some of what it misses being key.

All i need is a dropdown menu similar to the "File" menu. It will need to be called "RPS" and have under it about 5 links that run various macros. Please someone help with some code that will do it, because i'm frankly pi$$ed off with the lack of help with M$ products and powerpoint is the worst of the lot.

TIA (with slightly less hair than at the beginning of the week...)

I don't blame you for going chuffing mad. PowerlessPoint is my second-least favourite Microsoft product (after that brain-dead abomination Outlook), and looking at this question for you reminded me why. It's the only piece of sh... err, sorry, Freudian slip {closes PowerlessPoint}, Office that I've never written VBA code for. And now I know why.

The answer to your question will be found here:
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00031.htm

BUT!!!!

You know that old Stones song "You can't always get what you want, but sometimes, you might get what you need"? I'm afraid that the answer above falls into that category.

Before concentrating on New! User! Interfaces! MS may do well to pay attention to fixing the gorram object models of some of their products, starting with Outlook, moving on to PowerlessPoint ("an event??? Wazzat?") and then cleaning up Word's.

Admittedly my first projects in Adobe Captivate taught me new ways of swearing and Captivate is, by Adobe's standards, a bugfest... but that's by Adobe's standards, not Microsoft's. I'd still rather write 10 presentations in Captivate than one in PowerlessPoint.

[Steve Vincent]

Thanks Alan, it's not really what i wanted but in the circumstances i'll live with it. I wanted a menu that embedded at the same level as the main drop downs, but that creates a floating menu. I have enough trouble finding what i want with all the floating menus to start with, but i'll just have to make do.

As this menu is for one presentation only, i don't want to add the menu via an addin as otherwise it'll be there all the time. That means unlike the really easy Excel methods of running code upon opening a file, i'm stuck with having to ask a user to manually run the macro that builds the menu for them. Rubbish doesn't even cover it, but i guess i should be used to shonky implimentation of the same functionality but in different ways after using TM1 for 3.5 years

Cheers for finding that anyway

[Eric]

Maybe I am missing something


I created a macro

Sub test()
MsgBox ("Eric Rocks")
End Sub


Then I went to

Veiw.....Toolbars....Customize

Tab - Toolbars
Click New
Named My Macros Toolbar

A little box appeared.
Then I went to commands tab
scrolled to third from bottom
Clicked Macros

Test Marco was there, draged it into the little box that appeared earlier.

Next moved the floating box to the top and clicked the button and PPT said I rock!

Is this what you where looking for?

[Eric]

You can also

Drag new menu into your tool bar

Drop your macros in the new menu

then go to rearrange commands choose File in menu bar click add then chose your new menu and magic you have your new menu list with your macros under the File command!

[Steve Vincent]

yes, but that only works for me!

This pack is key to everything we do and more than one person needs to be able to update it. Its complicated enough trying to get TM1 to update within PP anyway, so i was trying to make the cumbersome process as painless as possible.

In the end i've found another way entirely of doing it. Involves some VBA to con excel in to copying data tables and graphs from a template in to a big pack without screwing all the links up, but avoids the PP nightmare of VBA inplimentation. The graphs are now linked to PP rather than embedded excel files, so i'm hoping this will be less grief than the last one...