Knowledge base KB0170

Can I also work with think-cell charts in .odp files, the LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org file format?

Problem

After opening the .odp file in PowerPoint, most of think-cell's functionality is lost. Some underlying chart bodies still work, but most functionality is not present (labels, arrows, Gantt chart, …).

This problem can occur, e.g., in the following situations:

  1. You are working together with a person using OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice. Therefore, you save your PowerPoint presentation (.pptx or .ppt file) as OpenDocument Presentation (.odp file) to give the file to the other person. Later you reimport the file into PowerPoint.
  2. You open an .odp file and insert a think-cell chart. You save the file in .odp file format.

Explanation

In the PowerPoint object model, each PowerPoint.Shape has a Tags collection that allows to store extra information about objects. think-cell uses such tags to identify which shapes on the slide belong to think-cell (for details please refer to KB0073).

PowerPoint does not export the tags into the .odp file format. The information that certain shapes are think-cell shapes is lost.

You can check this yourself by using the following VBA macro that lists all shapes and their tags on the current slide:

Sub List_Tags()
  Dim oShape As PowerPoint.Shape
  Dim str As String
  Dim i As Integer
  For Each oShape In ActiveWindow.View.Slide.Shapes
    Debug.Print oShape.Name & "( " & oShape.Tags.Count & " tags)"
    For i = 1 To oShape.Tags.Count
      Debug.Print "    Tag(" & i & "): " & _
        "Name: " & oShape.Tags.Name(i) & ", " & _
        "Item:" & oShape.Tags.Item(i)
    Next i
  Next oShape   
End Sub

To run the macro open the VBA editor with Alt+F11. Select your workbook and click on InsertModule. Paste above macro and run it by pressing F5.

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