Powerpoint show not updating screen in some versions

[Cosmo]

I have a program which sets data into a PowerPoint presentation via a data entry userform. The program opens up a reduced slideshow window of the presentation to show the slide being edited on each pagepanel in the userform, and shows the slide once the data has been applied to the presentation.

The problem I am having is that the screen doesn't seem to update to show the data has been put into the presentation under certain versions of PowerPoint 2007. I have had problems in the past, and it always seemed that calling a 'gotoslide' with the current slide fixed that:

currentSlide = opptFile.SlideShowWindow.View.CurrentShowPosition
opptFile.SlideShowWindow.View.gotoSlide currentSlide

But this doesn't work for one of my coworkers who needs to test this program. I tested a few computers, and the version on herthat seems to affect this is

2007 (12.0.6535.5002) SP2 MSO (12.0.6535.5002)

Does anyone know of a more reliable way to 'refresh' the screen once the data on a slide has changed?


I have also posted this to http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.c...1608481&page=1

[John Wilson]

Hi Mark

We noticed a similar problem lately and came up with this unlikely solution which works in our situation. Maybe will work for you too. Just call the sub after the update

[vba]Sub magic_Jiggle()
With ActivePresentation.Slides(SlideShowWindows(1).View.CurrentShowPosition)
If .Shapes.Count > 0 Then
.Shapes(1).Left = .Shapes(1).Left + 1
.Shapes(1).Left = .Shapes(1).Left - 1
End If
End With
End Sub[/vba]

This may hose any animations though (like your reset I guess) an alternative if animation is important also works here:

[VBA]Sub magic_Jiggle2()
Dim i As Integer
With ActivePresentation.Slides(SlideShowWindows(1).View.CurrentShowPosition)
If .Shapes.Count > 0 Then
For i = 1 To .Shapes.Count
If .Shapes(i).HasTextFrame Then
.Shapes(1).TextFrame.TextRange.Text = _
.Shapes(1).TextFrame.TextRange.Text & ""
Exit For
End If
Next i
End If
End With
End Sub[/VBA]

[Cosmo]

[quote=John Wilson]Hi Mark

We noticed a similar problem lately and came up with this unlikely solution which works in our situation. Maybe will work for you too. Just call the sub after the update

[vba]Sub magic_Jiggle()
With ActivePresentation.Slides(SlideShowWindows(1).View.CurrentShowPosition)
If .Shapes.Count > 0 Then
.Shapes(1).Left = .Shapes(1).Left + 1
.Shapes(1).Left = .Shapes(1).Left - 1
End If
End With
End Sub[/vba]

Thank you, John! That appears to work!!

I don't care about animations (in fact, if it doesn't show the animations during the programmed slideshow view, that would actually be a good thing); this is a 'setup' program to allow the sales people to set up a presentation for each of their customers. Animations are not necessary during the setup program, and would be a bit distracting. I don't believe any of the slides that have data have any animations anyway.

I never would have thought about moving an element on the slide. How ever did you find out that works?

[John Wilson]

How ever did you find out that works?
I have a devious mind Mark!

Note this fix will REPLAY animations not stop them so beware.

[Cosmo]

How ever did you find out that works?
I have a devious mind Mark!

Note this fix will REPLAY animations not stop them so beware.

Thanks for sharing your deviousness. Warning about animations noted.

Just did another test, and it looks like I might need to tweak the code I am using a little - one of the charts did not update on the first try. I may have to reorder the 'gotoslide' and the 'move element' around, or even double up (since the chart did update after I moved to a different slide then back and hit the apply button again). I might also try changing the code that moves a random element to actually move the element which is accepting the data. Perhaps that will work better. Either way, it looks like the solution is easily within reach.

Thanks again!

[Vivian66]

I cannot believe this can do. Thanks for all your time.

[John Wilson]

@Mark

We discovered our problem was caused by a security update KB 982158

Might be worth a check to see if uninstalling it helps. It did for us!

[Cosmo]

@Mark

We discovered our problem was caused by a security update KB 982158

Might be worth a check to see if uninstalling it helps. It did for us!

Thanks for the extra info, I uninstalled that update on one of our machines, and the screen does update now as intended.

In our case, the program will be used by our client's salespeople, so it's probably not the best solution telling them to 'uninstall a Microsoft Security update'. We will probably pass along this information, but they might not like the sound of that. At the very least, though, we can now at least sound like we know what we are doing.

Luckily, it seems that the screen does update if they hit the 'apply' button on my form a second time, so at least I have a better solution until I can hopefully find a more permenant fix. Running my 'updatescreen' function (both moving an item and gotoslide currentSlide) multiple times doesn't work, so it must be something else in the 'apply' section that was doing it. If I find what that is, I'll check back.

Thanks again.

[John Wilson]

Mark

I'm talking to Microsoft about this tomorrow. Can you email me as much detail as possible about your exact problem and confirm the the KB causes it. It now seems to stop hyperlinks changing to followed colour, vba and your problem - might give them enough to go for a new update

john AT SIGN pptalchemy.co.uk

[Cosmo]

Mark

I'm talking to Microsoft about this tomorrow. Can you email me as much detail as possible about your exact problem and confirm the the KB causes it. It now seems to stop hyperlinks changing to followed colour, vba and your problem - might give them enough to go for a new update

john AT SIGN pptalchemy.co.uk

Thanks. Email sent.

I'm letting my coworkers know about this; one of them just told me that they had noticed the hyperlinks not changing color, but in our case, he actually preferred them not changing color (we often have to set our presentations for our clients to not change colors). I will let you know if any of them mention any other problems they might notice.

[John Wilson]

Thanks Mark E mail received

[mshane]

Shoot! I'm dumb and just now saw you had a new and updated version up. Anyways, I'll bookmark it and try it next time. Thanks again!

[Greenrent]

Nice post...Thank you very much!!......