Ok...this is a bit involved. First some background for context.



I work in an office where we several different pitchbooks. Some of the books we create are combinations of more than one original book. Because of this we have individual slides that are then linked into each "Destination Book". When data is updated we make changes to the "Root" or "Source Slide", then when going into the Destination Book, we simply update the links.

Here's the issue. We work in 2003 and the source slide template is set to have a transparent background so that when linked to the Destination book, the standard graphics and page numbering shows through. We do not know how this was created and the person who DID create this is impossible to find. It has been simple enough to copy the formatting in order to create a new 2003 template, but we are trying to find a way to recreate that for use in Office 2007 and ultimately 2010 because the migration is inevitable. The problem is that 2007 does not keep the formatting. Once you hit "Update" the slide loses it's transparency completely.

Does ANYONE out there know how this is done. We have researched through Google and tried to figure it out on our own and have had no success at all.

Please feel free to ask for any further clarification. I realize that very few places actually do this.

Not sure I understand. If you are able to send me a sample without sensitve data I'll happily have a look.

john ATSIGN pptalchemy.co.uk

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Actually I have to hold off. There is too much company information within the document properties, even when sanitized for content. I need to talk with one of the lawyers here first.

In the meantime if there's any question I can answer for you, please feel free.

Thanks again, John.

No problem. If it helps you can mention that we are a company well used to dealing with sensitve information and happy to sign an NDA if you want to make it official. In that cas e you might get a bill though!

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Hm...definitely trying to avoid the bill thing. LOL. But she should be in tomorrow so I'll go over the issue with her and see what she says.
Thanks again, John.

So yeah there's an issue and counsel is looking into it, but we've made some progress.

We're pretty sure that the coding to create the transparency in the source slide for 2003 was done in VBA somewhere in the PPT coding.

This means that in order to get that to work in 2007 it needs to be done in XML. However there doesn't seem to be a code for transparent in XML as there is in VBA (which funny enough is simply "transparent")

That's not so John. vba works fine with 2007. I don't think vba (or XML) can do anything with transparancy that can't be done manually either.

In XML transparancy is usually alpha value

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Yes, for the most part I think VBA works fine, but they did shift something in how things are configured since 2007 (and 2010) don't really communicate well with 2003. My understanding is that this is due to the emphasis on XML in the later versions. Hence our theory that it's an XML issue.

Again, it's all theory at this point.

John, can you explain what you mean by alpha value? I'm afraid that is over my head.

P.S. lawyers are still working on things, but this wouldn't be a bad time to ask what fees would be involved if we ended up having to bump things to that.

Really appreciating your feedback. Thanks much.

In vba youwould use .Transparancy=.98 for example

In XML you would see something like this: (not the faces this site added those!)

<a:prstGeom prst="rect">
<a:avLst/>
</a:prstGeom>
<a:solidFill>
<a:srgbClr val="4F81BD">
<a:alpha val="98824"/>
</a:srgbClr>
</a:solidFill>

The alpha val represents the transparancy. There isn't that much that was possible in 2003 that cannot be done in 2007/10 using vba. There are things that can only be done in XML but largely they were impossible in 2003.

If it comes to it get in touch direct and once I've seen the problem I'll tell you if we can do it. We are pretty reasonable!

You can find my email on the contact page of www.pptalchemy.co.uk

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I'm going to assume that the smileys were : then P , am I right.

Thanks for the info. You may be hearing from me.

I hate automatic smileys. LOL

Yes : followed by p
I hate ALL smilies

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