Powerpoint and Excel Search

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave Mathias
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Dave Mathias

To anyone who can help:

I would like to create a page in PowerPoint which would enable a specific
search in an Excel document (not embedded).

What I want is:
I have an Excel spreadsheet with ALOT of Fault messages for a PLC program
which shows how to fix the fault condition. (example:
"AC1\alarm\fault_064")
In a Powerpoint presentation, I would like to create a field which asks the
operator to input the fault number to search.
After the operator inputs the fault number (example: "064") and presses
Search button, it will search within the external Excel document and
highlight the cell which contains "AC1\alarm\fault_064".
This will allow the operator to read the instructions on correcting the
fault.

Is this even possible?
If not, is there a program that can do this operation?

Thanks alot,
Dave
 
To anyone who can help:

I would like to create a page in PowerPoint which would enable a specific
search in an Excel document (not embedded).

What I want is:
I have an Excel spreadsheet with ALOT of Fault messages for a PLC program
which shows how to fix the fault condition. (example:
"AC1\alarm\fault_064")
In a Powerpoint presentation, I would like to create a field which asks the
operator to input the fault number to search.
After the operator inputs the fault number (example: "064") and presses
Search button, it will search within the external Excel document and
highlight the cell which contains "AC1\alarm\fault_064".
This will allow the operator to read the instructions on correcting the
fault.
Click to expand...

What about including everything in one PPT file?

Fault numbers become the title of slides, the instructions become the text
beneath the title.

A relatively small amount of VBA could take the user's input and check each
title against it; when it finds the matching title, it goes to the correct
slide.

Users might even be trained to use the built-in Search feature in PPT; no
coding needed at all.

Depending on how the XLS is set up, an add-in of ours (
http://www.pptools.com/merge/ ) would make it fairly trivial to create the PPT
from the XLS in the first place.
 
I thought of this.
The only problem is there is around 2000 faults, so would require this many
pages or slides.
Otherwise, this would be a great idea and easy to use for the operator. I
wish I was better at VBA coding....
Even if they use the find feature in PPT, I think I would need so many
slides it would take forever.

If you have any ideas, I would appreciate it.

Thanks alot!!
Dave
 
I thought of this.
The only problem is there is around 2000 faults, so would require this many
pages or slides.
Click to expand...

Give Merge a try in that case. It'll create all of the pages for you
automatically (the demo version will just add some extra text or a "DEMO"
stamp, which wouldn't get in your way for test purposes).

I can't swear that PPT wouldn't bog down under that many slides, but since
they're just text, I suspect not. IAC, it's easy enough to test out.
Otherwise, this would be a great idea and easy to use for the operator. I
wish I was better at VBA coding....
Even if they use the find feature in PPT, I think I would need so many
slides it would take forever.
Click to expand...

Just as a giggle, I wrote a little VBA to create a presentation with 3000
slides, with the title of each = the slide number.

With PPT sitting on Slide 1, I did Edit, Find and had it look for 3000.

The result was almost instantaneous.
 
What is Merge? I am not familiar with this.

Where do I start if I wanted to write the VBA to create a presentation with
a slide for each fault?
I presume this would be alot faster to do in coding than manually creating
over 2000 slides... is that correct?

I would be very interested in seeing how you wrote that VBA code and the
results.

Thank you sir for all your continued support.

Dave
 
What is Merge? I am not familiar with this.
Click to expand...

It's the add-in I mentioned earlier. http://www.pptools.com/merge/
Where do I start if I wanted to write the VBA to create a presentation with
a slide for each fault?
Click to expand...

Seriously, I'd try the addin first. The free demo will give you what you need
to create the presentation at least on a test basis. If you need help setting
it up, you can email me at support at-sign pptools dot com

But if you want to write your own, there are some code examples on the PPT FAQ.

Brian Reilly and Naresh Nichani have a nice example that shows how to pull data
from spreadsheets or Access.

Where it starts: the DisplayData project by Naresh Nichani and Brian Reilly
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00784.htm

Using Excel and Access data in PowerPoint Tables (by Brian Reilly and Naresh
Nichani)
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00892.htm
I presume this would be alot faster to do in coding than manually creating
over 2000 slides... is that correct?
Click to expand...

No question about it.
I would be very interested in seeing how you wrote that VBA code and the
results.
Click to expand...

I just wrote a little routine that counted from 1 to 3000 and at each iteration
of the loop, added a new slide, then changed the text of the first shape on the
slide to the value of the loop counter. 3000 slides with just titles like "1"
and "432" and "3000" wouldn't do you a whole lot of good, I don't imagine. <g>
 
Dave,
There's another option to Steve's great ideas. He and I very close
friends for many years and still disagree on just about everything. I
can't believe he didn't mention adding tags through one our
co-authored addins "Starter Set Plus" I think he renamed it. it adds
tags to slides or shapes and let's you assign a Name of the tag and a
Value. There is sample code on my web site reillyand.com to Iterate a
search through all tags in a presentation that could be easily
modified to do what you want.

Many ways to get to the same place, just watch out for "One way
streets".

Brian Reilly, MVP
 
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