Walkthrough: Creating Your First Application-Level Add-in for PowerPoint

This walkthrough shows you how to create an application-level add-in for Microsoft Office PowerPoint. The features that you create in this kind of solution are available to the application itself, regardless of which presentations are open. For more information, see Office Solutions Development Overview.

This walkthrough illustrates the following tasks:

• Creating a PowerPoint add-in project for PowerPoint 2003 or PowerPoint 2007.

• Writing code that uses the object model of PowerPoint to add a text box to each new slide.

• Building and running the project to test it.

• Cleaning up the project so that the add-in no longer runs automatically on your development computer.

For a related video demonstration, see How Do I: Create an Add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint?.

Prerequisites

You need the following components to complete this walkthrough:

• Visual Studio Tools for Office (an optional component of Visual Studio 2008 Professional and Visual Studio Team System).

• PowerPoint 2003 or PowerPoint 2007.

By default, Visual Studio Tools for Office is installed with the listed versions of Visual Studio. To check whether it is installed on your computer, see Installing Visual Studio Tools for Office.

Creating the Project

To create a new project

1. Start Visual Studio.

2. On the File menu, point to New, and then click Project.

3. In the Project Types pane, expand Visual C# or Visual Basic, and then expand Office.

4. Select the 2007 folder if you are developing an add-in for PowerPoint 2007, or select the 2003 folder if you are developing an add-in for PowerPoint 2003.

5. In the Templates pane, select PowerPoint 2007 Add-in or PowerPoint 2003 Add-in.

6. In the Name box, type FirstPowerPointAddIn.

7. Click OK.

   Visual Studio creates the FirstPowerPointAddIn project and opens the ThisAddIn code file in the editor.

Writing Code that Adds Text to Each New Slide

Next, add code to the ThisAddIn code file. The new code uses the object model of PowerPoint to add a text box to each new slide. By default, the ThisAddIn code file contains the following generated code:

• A partial definition of the ThisAddIn class. This class provides an entry point for your code and provides access to the object model of PowerPoint. For more information, see AddIn Host Item. The remainder of the ThisAddIn class is defined in a hidden code file that you should not modify.

• The ThisAddIn_Startup and ThisAddIn_Shutdown event handlers. These event handlers are called when PowerPoint loads and unloads your add-in. Use these event handlers to initialize your add-in when it is loaded, and to clean up resources used by your add-in when it is unloaded. For more information, see Visual Studio Tools for Office Project Events.

To add a text box to each new slide

1. In the ThisAddIn code file, add the following code to the ThisAddIn class. This code defines an event handler for the PresentationNewSlide event of the Microsoft.Office.Interop.PowerPoint.Application class.

   When the user adds a new slide to the active presentation, this event handler adds a text box to the top of the new slide, and it adds some text to the text box.

   Private Sub Application_PresentationNewSlide(ByVal Sld As PowerPoint.Slide) _
       Handles Application.PresentationNewSlide
       Dim textBox As PowerPoint.Shape = Sld.Shapes.AddTextbox( _
           Office.MsoTextOrientation.msoTextOrientationHorizontal, 0, 0, 500, 50)
       textBox.TextFrame.TextRange.InsertAfter("This text was added by using code.")
   End Sub
   

   void Application_PresentationNewSlide(PowerPoint.Slide Sld)
   {
       PowerPoint.Shape textBox = Sld.Shapes.AddTextbox(
           Office.MsoTextOrientation.msoTextOrientationHorizontal, 0, 0, 500, 50);
       textBox.TextFrame.TextRange.InsertAfter("This text was added by using code.");
   }
   

2. If you are using C#, add the following code to the ThisAddIn_Startup event handler. This code is required to connect the Application_PresentationNewSlide event handler with the PresentationNewSlide event.

   this.Application.PresentationNewSlide += 
       new PowerPoint.EApplication_PresentationNewSlideEventHandler(
       Application_PresentationNewSlide);
   

To modify each new slide, the previous code examples use the following objects:

• The Application field of the ThisAddIn class. The Application field returns an Microsoft.Office.Interop.PowerPoint.Application object, which represents the current instance of PowerPoint.

• The Sld parameter of the event handler for the PresentationNewSlide event. The Sld parameter is a Microsoft.Office.Interop.PowerPoint.Slide object, which represents the new slide. For more information, see PowerPoint Solutions.

Testing the Project

When you build and run the project, verify that the text box appears in new slides that you add to a presentation.

To test the project

1. Press F5 to build and run your project.

   When you build the project, the code is compiled into an assembly that is put in the build output folder for the project. Visual Studio also creates a set of registry entries that enable PowerPoint to discover and load the add-in, and it configures the security settings on the development computer to enable the add-in to run. For more information, see Office Solution Build Process Overview.

2. In PowerPoint, add a new slide to the active presentation.

3. Verify that the following text is added to a new text box at the top of the slide.

   This text was added by using code.

4. Close PowerPoint.

Cleaning up the Project

When you finish developing a project, remove the add-in assembly, registry entries, and security settings from your development computer. Otherwise, the add-in will run every time you open PowerPoint on the development computer.

To clean up your project

• In Visual Studio, on the Build menu, click Clean Solution.

Next Steps

Now that you have created a basic application-level add-in for PowerPoint, you can learn more about how to develop add-ins from these topics:

• General programming tasks that you can perform in add-ins for PowerPoint. For more information, see Programming Application-Level Add-Ins.

• Using the object model of PowerPoint. For more information, see PowerPoint Solutions.

• Customizing the UI of PowerPoint, for example, by adding a custom tab to the Ribbon or creating your own custom task pane. For more information, see Office UI Customization.

• Building and debugging application-level add-ins for PowerPoint. For more information, see Building and Debugging Office Solutions.

• Deploying application-level add-ins for PowerPoint. For more information, see Deploying Office Solutions.

See Also

Concepts

Programming Application-Level Add-Ins

PowerPoint Solutions

Office UI Customization

Visual Studio Tools for Office Project Templates Overview

Reference

2003 Microsoft Office Add-in Project Templates

2007 Microsoft Office Add-in Project Templates

Other Resources

Building and Debugging Office Solutions

Deploying Office Solutions

Change History