I have been learning a lot about VBA lately but am stumped on this one. I would like a loop that goes through the current slide of my presentation and grabs all the shape names. I know how to get all the names in a variable but cant get the loop started to extract each shapes name.



Any help is appreciated.

Where do you want the shape names to end up?

Message Box?
Array?
Immediate pane?
Print on slide?
In a text file?
Somewhere else?

Example

Sub getShapeNames()
Dim oshp As Shape
Dim osld As Slide
Dim strReport As String
strReport = "Shapes On Slide" & vbCrLf & "===========" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf
On Error Resume Next
Set osld = ActiveWindow.View.Slide
If Not osld Is Nothing Then ' check slide in view
For Each oshp In osld.Shapes
strReport = strReport & oshp.Name & vbCrLf
Next oshp
If strReport = "" Then strReport = "No shapes!"
MsgBox strReport
End If
End Sub

__________________
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP 2007-2023
Free Advanced PowerPoint Tips and Tutorials

Sweet Thanks John,

Sorry for not being really specific this time but I am working on learning VBA so I just needed the start on this code. I'm going to play around with it and see what I can do.

Thank you again.

That's a good way to learn.

Since it's not at all obvious here's how to put the report in a file on the Desktop

Sub getShapeNames_toFile()
Dim oshp As Shape
Dim osld As Slide
Dim strReport As String
Dim filenum As Integer
Dim strSavePath As String
filenum = FreeFile ' next available # usually but not always 1
strSavePath = Environ("USERPROFILE") & "\Desktop\report.txt"
strReport = "Shapes On Slide" & vbCrLf & "===========" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf
On Error Resume Next
Set osld = ActiveWindow.View.Slide
If Not osld Is Nothing Then ' check slide in view
For Each oshp In osld.Shapes
strReport = strReport & oshp.Name & vbCrLf
Next oshp
If strReport = "" Then strReport = "No shapes!"
Open strSavePath For Output As filenum
Print #filenum, strReport
Close filenum
End If
End Sub

__________________
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP 2007-2023
Free Advanced PowerPoint Tips and Tutorials

Sorry to ask again but is there a way to the msgbox code above without having the presentation open I am trying the following.

Sub getShapeNames()
Dim oshp As Shape
Dim Mylibrary As Presentation
Dim osld As Slide
Dim strReport As String
strReport = "Shapes On Slide" & vbCrLf & "===========" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf
On Error Resume Next
Set Mylibrary = Presentations.Open(Environ("USERPROFILE") & "\My Documents\CustomShapes.ppt", WithWindow:=False)
For Each oshp In Mylibrary.Shapes
strReport = strReport & oshp.Name & vbCrLf
Next oshp
msgbox strReport

The only way to do this without opening would be to query the XML. This is not a simple thing to do! You would need to Google Microsoft XML DOM or OpenXML SDK.

Be warned though this is an order of magnitude harder than what you are doing.

Is there a problem opening a windowless copy (and closing it when you are done) It should be quite transparent.

__________________
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP 2007-2023
Free Advanced PowerPoint Tips and Tutorials

Oh wow. Yeah I dont want anything that difficult right now. Opening a windowless copy should be fine, actually I thought that was what I was trying to do.

I tired my above code again and I still cant get it to work as a windowless copy. Is there different code I should use?

I got it.
Just had to do a little bit of research here is the solution.

Thanks everybody

Well done!

__________________
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP 2007-2023
Free Advanced PowerPoint Tips and Tutorials