Shell to PowerPoint

[chris wood]

I am using the code below in an Excel module to try to shell out to the PowerPoint Viewer 2003. However when executing I get the error message: PowerPoint Viewer cannot find the file "Presentation.pps". Does anyone know what I might be missing to enable the viewer to find the file?

Call Shell("C:\PPTVIEW.exe /S Presentation.pps", 1)

I have also tried:

Call Shell("C:\PPTVIEW.exe /S /L playlist.lst", 1)

and get a similar message.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

Maybe you need the full path to the presentation.

 

[chris wood]

Thanks for the suggestion Andrew. However, I have tried that too.

What I end up with then is an error message where it thinks the first directory in the path is the file name. So, if the path were C:\My Documents\Presentation.pps I get the error message: PowerPoint Viewer cannot find the file "My".

Any other insights I hope?

 

[Seti]

Try replacing My Documents with MYDOCU~1. This is the old style naming convention. There is a way to do this with quotes or something, I just don't remember the correct syntax. I think the quotes qould go around the whole directory name and the file. But snce it is enclosed in quotes already, you might have to double up on them like:

Call Shell("C:\PPTVIEW.exe /S ""C:\My Documents\presentation.pps""", 1)

This is untested and probably has bad syntax. Try the short name first to see if at least that works.

 

[TommyGun]

This is untested and probably has bad syntax. Try the short name first to see if at least that works.

Your syntax is fine, and should correct the users problem without the need for using the short name. Good job.

 

[tusharm]

As Seti pointed out, you need quotes around any 'long name.' The same applies to the program itself. For example, if it were in the Program Files folder in the PPT Viewer subfolder, and not directly in the C drive's root directory, one would use

Call Shell("""C:\Program Files\PPT Viewer\PPTVIEW.exe"" /S ""C:\My Documents\presentation.pps""", 1)

The above also assumes that the rest of the parameters are correct (i.e., the /s for the PPT Viewer and the 1 for the Shell).

Thanks for the suggestion Andrew. However, I have tried that too.

What I end up with then is an error message where it thinks the first directory in the path is the file name. So, if the path were C:\My Documents\Presentation.pps I get the error message: PowerPoint Viewer cannot find the file "My".

Any other insights I hope?

 

[Ekim]

I recently had the same problem as the OP. Research on the Net led me to the double quotes. As I understand it, if there is a space in the pathname, e.g. C:\My Documents……..\demo.doc, then “C:\My” is read as one parameter and “Documents\demo.doc” as another.

You don’t need double quotes around the program. This works:

Sub power()
Dim RetVal

RetVal = Shell("C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\Powerpnt ""C:\Documents and Settings\Contract Business\My Documents\General\AAA\Demo_Presentation.ppt""", 1)

End Sub

Regards,

Mike

 

[chris wood]

It works fine now. Thank you to all who helped me with this. I've been researching a way to run this for days and had just about given up the idea before posting for help here.

This board is fantastic and those who took time to help me are the best!

Chris