PowerPoint 2007 Slide Randomizer

[jamesemerson]

Does anyone have, or know of, a script that will allow a user to input the number of slides contained in a presentation, and then the script will randomize the order of the slides? I'm trying to learn Japanese and have a bunch of cool kanji slides, but the same order every time is really a drag...

Any help or hints would be appreciated -- and already prepared scripts would be a godsend!

Cheers,

James

[Bert]

Is the powerpoint slides a PPS file or a ppt?

[jamesemerson]

Is the powerpoint slides a PPS file or a ppt?

It's a regular ppt file. Actually, I don't know what a PPS file is, but I'd be curious to know. But anyway, it's a ppt file. Thanks!

[Bert]

There are API calls you can use to open certain slides.

look here:

http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=50254

[jamesemerson]

There are API calls you can use to open certain slides.

look here:

http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=50254

Thanks, Volly. Before posting my question on the forum, I had run a search of the Forum on Powerpoint and on randomization. I had come across the API tools you just mentioned, but hadn't seen a "slide randomizer" among them. However, after you re-focused my attention on those tools, perhaps I could tackle the problem as follows:

1. I already have an existing PPT presentation with a known, finite number of slides.

2. So I think I could use the _PPT_CreatePresentation() function to create a sparkling new presentation (with no slides in it initially).

3. Then I could create an array with the same number of elements as there are slides in my original presentation.

4. Next, I could employ the Random() function and _PPT_SlideSelect() function to randomly select slides from my original presentation, and copy and then paste them into the new presentation, while removing them from the array in the process (thereby keeping track of which slides had already been selected, copied and pasted).

5. When the array is completely empty, all slides will, in theory, have been pasted into the new presentation in random order. I could then have the new presentation auto-saved, and then the script could come to an end.

I think the above will probably yield to sought-after randomized slide presentation -- only it will give me two files (the original, plus the new randomized one) instead of one, and I'm not certain how long the running process would be. The original presentation goes into the thousands of slides (about 12,000 to be exact), so it's a hefty file, but I could always delete the new presentation after using it, and then run the script to create yet another new, randomized presentation the next time.

Ideally, I was hoping just to automatically and randomly re-order the slides in my original presentation and have the presentation then auto-slide show, without having to create a new one, but the way to do that just doesn't come to mind with the existing functions.

If anyone else has any suggestions, I definitely be open to a better path than the one I've outlined above. Cheers.

[Bert]

What you could do to make things simpler is to break the original file into pieces. Say 100 slides each. Once you mastered one, you move to the next.

Take each 100 slide file, and create an array with the slides. Then use random to select a slide from the array. Once selected and you have answered the question correctly, you delete the slide from the array so it won't get selected again. If you get one wrong, have that array item added to a new array so you can review your wrong answers.

[jamesemerson]

What you could do to make things simpler is to break the original file into pieces. Say 100 slides each. Once you mastered one, you move to the next.

Take each 100 slide file, and create an array with the slides. Then use random to select a slide from the array. Once selected and you have answered the question correctly, you delete the slide from the array so it won't get selected again. If you get one wrong, have that array item added to a new array so you can review your wrong answers.

Thanks, Volly. I definitely like the piece-meal approach you recommended for testing purposes. With 12,000 slides in total, though, the downside would be that it would result in 120 different files at a hundred slides each, but I could probably work with that. Your suggestion to include a right/wrong input method and subsequent recycling of "missed" slides, is an excellent one. I appreciate the tips.