How to simulate ThisPresentation in PowerPoint VBA

Question

I would like to be able to access the document properties of a PowerPoint add-in file (a presentation saved as "PowerPoint Add-in (*.ppa)", from some VBA code in the add-in itself.

If it helps to understand the problem, what I'm actually trying to do is read a custom document property that stores the version number of the add-in, so that I can display that in a dialog box.

With Word & Excel I can do this using ThisDocument & ThisWorkbook, both of which return a reference to the document containing the running code. However, there is no ThisPresentation equivalent in PowerPoint.

For a standard PowerPoint presentation or template, I could use ActivePresentation. However, this method won't work for an add-in.

Any ideas? Please, no suggestions about where else I should stick the version number :-)

Answer 1

Like everyone else I expected a ThisPresentation object in PowerPoint. I thought of another way to accomplish it, without a hardcoded filename. Obviously any piece of code would need to know how to distinguish between the projects. I chose to use the projectname for this (default name "VBAProject" in the Project Explorer): it is not used for anything else, no user will change it and if it is protected they can't.

Here is my code (change MyProject into your own projectname):

Function ThisPresentation() As Presentation
Dim p As Presentation

For Each p In Presentations
    If p.VBProject.Name = "MyProject" Then
        Set ThisPresentation = p
        Exit Function
    End If
Next
End Function

Answer 2

REVISED FEB 2, 2010: Cleaned up answer to only show the final solution

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Here's the way to do what was asked, no DLLs. Really simple:

Sub ReturnPPAasPresentation()
    Dim p As Presentation
    Set p = Presentations("presentation1.ppa")
    Dim title As String, version As String
    version = p.CustomDocumentProperties("Version").Value
    title = p.BuiltInDocumentProperties("Title").Value
    MsgBox "Version: " & version & " of " & title, vbOKOnly, title
End Sub

Answer 3

Credit goes to macnerd nerd for the general idea, but added the AddIn functionality that was requested by the OP. Unfortunately, AddIns don't have VBProject names, so not quite as robust:

Function ThisPresentation(project_name As String) As Object
Dim p As Object

all_presentations = Array(Application.AddIns, Application.Presentations)
For Each pArray In all_presentations
    For Each p In pArray
        Debug.Print p.FullName
        If InStr(p.FullName, project_name) > 0 Then
            Set ThisPresentation = p
            Exit Function
        End If
    Next
Next
End Function