Tag Archives: PowerPoint

Enterprise Software, ExcelWriter, Featured, News Releases, OfficeWriter, PowerPointWriter

What’s New in OfficeWriter 9

OfficeWriter version 9 is now available! Here is a breakdown of what you can find in the latest version of OfficeWriter.

Calculation Engine

OfficeWriter version 9 kicks off with the initial release of the calculation engine for ExcelWriter. Now you can evaluate the formulas in your XLSX and XLSM files before delivering spreadsheets. Applications that can’t evaluate formulas, such as mobile apps, Outlook preview, or Excel in protected view, will show the updated values when workbooks are opened. You can also use the calculation engine to update formulas before reading them with ExcelApplication.

Currently, the calculation engine supports evaluating all of the formulas in a given workbook through the method Workbook.CalculateFormulas. This will update all the cell values based on the formulas. Check out our list of the formulas that the calculation engine supports.  If there’s a formula you need that we don’t have yet, contact our support team to submit a request!

PowerPointWriter

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The PowerPointWriter beta program has been going strong, and we’re excited for the official release. PowerPointWriter introduces a template-based approach to generating PowerPoint presentations (PPTX) dynamically.  Taking the best principles from ExcelWriter and WordWriter, PowerPointWriter is flexible and easy to learn.

Learn more about what PowerPointWriter can do for you with our Features overview,  use cases, and API Introduction and Tutorials.

New Excel Features

Pivot tables from multiple data sources

In OfficeWriter version 8.2, the PivotTable API for ExcelApplication was added to ExcelWriter. In OfficeWriter version 9 you can build multiple consolidation range pivot tables.  These pivot tables are created from multiple consolidation ranges and automatically generate pivot fields using the data. We have a short video to help explain how these special pivot tables work: [5 minutes with Chris – PivotTables]

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WORKSHEET PROTECTION PROPERTIES

ExcelWriter now offers the same protection options as Excel that change how a worksheet is locked down when it’s protected. Set SheetProtection properties to customize what users can interact with after Worksheet.Protect is called.  Check out our knowledge base article for more on how to use this new feature!

Binding custom objects to Excel

In OfficeWriter version 9 ExcelTemplate supports the ability to bind lists of custom objects to templates.  For example, you have some custom Order objects that contain information about OrderID, DeliveryDate, PurchaseAmount, and CustomerID. These Order objects are in a list called ListOfOrders.

In your template, you can reference the object properties in the data marker: %%=ListOfOrders.OrderID. ExcelWriter will treat each object in the list as though it were a row of data in a table.

For more information about how ExcelWriter imports data, please visit our documentation: ExcelWriter Basic Tutorials.

And more!

For more information about additional information about all of the changes in OfficeWriter, see our Change Log.

OfficeWriter, PowerPointWriter

VP of Development Talks PowerPointWriter

[Updated February 26, 2014]

We just launched PowerPointWriter, a new tool to save companies time on generating PowerPoint presentations with their own data, through their own applications. What is it exactly? How does it work? Why would you use it? We asked our VP of Product Development (and PowerPointWriter enthusiast), Sam, to give us a look at what makes this tool something to write home about.

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1. What is PowerPointWriter?

PowerPointWriter is a tool that allows developers to combine their data from each of their data sources with PowerPoint files. This means that the PowerPoint files and presentations you generate will always have the most up-to-date data.  Just imagine being able to generate that weekly sales presentation for your boss every Monday morning with the newest data pulled fresh from the database.

2. What has you most excited about launching PowerPointWriter?

This has been a request from our customers for some time now. One of the things our customers always tell us is that they love our template-based approach to generating Office documents, and wanted this same ability with PowerPoint. So we did just that.

With PowerPointWriter’s template approach you can have things like dynamic images, tables, lists, and slides in as little as 10 lines of code.

3. What is your favorite feature being introduced?

This is definitely our RepeatSlide. Many times you are importing a dynamic set of data and the size will change. With RepeatSlide you can easily create a template file with only one slide in it, and have the slide repeat automatically to accommodate your data. For instance, you might have 100 rows of data and PowerPointWriter will automatically create 10 slides for you. Then, if your data grows to 200 rows, PowerPointWriter will create 20 slides for you automatically, and everything on your slide will be preserved!

4. Can you give us a few scenarios in which customers can use this product?

PowerPointWriter is really good at Mail Merge types of scenarios. For instance:

If you are all business:

Any type of pitch deck would be a great use case. Maybe you want to show your up-to-date sales numbers to stakeholders, management, or investors. You could make Score Reports using PowerPointWriter formulas, or certificates of completion for a course all of your employees were required to take.

If you are all fun:

Maybe you just want to show your mother-in-law photos from that vacation you didn’t invite her to (just kidding, I love my mother-in-law).

Why limit yourself? You can check out the samples page for more ideas.

5. What problems does PowerPointWriter solve?

PowerPointWriter allows you to get your data from virtually any data source, and put it into a file format that is familiar to your users. Continue reading VP of Development Talks PowerPointWriter →

Featured, PowerPointWriter

Announcing PowerPointWriter Beta

Join the beta

PowerPointWriter, the template-based way to merge your data with PowerPoint presentations, has arrived. Take your company data and merge it with PowerPoint to create custom presentations. We’re looking for beta testers to try out this new technology.

What is PowerPointWriter?

  • PowerPointWriter is a template-based approach to your presentations.
  • It allows you to build presentations programmatically with 5 lines of code.
  • No more add-ins. PowerPointWriter is a server-side solution to your custom presentations.

Learn more by joining the beta. You’ll receive a special reward just for signing up. Still curious? Take a quick look at our overview video!

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