Powerpoint Inheriting Sequences from a Master Slide

[Loren.Dorez]

Is there any way to tell if the master timeline is being used?

Case 1: I have animations on a Master Layout that animates the title and Body. If i add a slide using this master the Slide shows Master: Title and Master: Body for animations.
Case 2: If i duplicate that slide from #1 and add a new shape and animation and say copy animations to Slide from Master
Case 3: If i duplicate slide #2 and delete the animation for the Title

How do i know that #1 is using the master slide timeline or a mix of Master and slide timelines or like in #3 that an animation for the title has been deleted?

[Loren.Dorez]

Let me try to rephrase this. I am trying to get the Total Duration time for a slide based on the Timeline. However sometimes i need to know if i need to add the Master timeline as well. Is there any way to do this? Essentially what im doing now is trying to see if the slide has any Master Placeholders/shapes and if they are in the master timeline.

[John Wilson]

Fairly easy to work out the duration of animations on the master or layout associated with a slide BUT AFAIK there's nothing in the object model that will tell you it has been copied to the slide or deleted.

In any case it is very difficult to work out the length of a presentation this way. Even without this problem you need to allow for with and after previous, delays etc and any sound or video. Much easier to use the slideshowstart event and terminate events to start and stop a timer and just let the show run once. Obvoiusly this takes longer but should be reliable.

[Loren.Dorez]

Hi John,

I already have this figured out and the timing is accurate expect for where a Master Shape/Placeholder for Title was deleted. Essentially i calculate the slide timeline duration and then the master & slidelayout if they are used. I just need to know when not to for certain shapes.

I believe i can get this info from the OpenXML 2.5 SDK for PresentationML

[Loren.Dorez]

Hi Everyone,

So in the OpenXML spec i found that my slide that doesnt use the master slide animation has an attribute on the slide XML element of showMasterPhAnim="0" and all others dont have this attribute. Does anyone know where this translates to in VBA or the interops? I looked at MSDN for the slide but no such property exists there or similar and hoping it is buried somewhere.

As always thanks