To delete text boxes based on name/contained text

[0andy0]

I am a newcomer to VBA and am much better at tweaking existing code than writing it myself. That said, I am trying to create a powerpoint VBA code in a template that will essentially 'strip' a presentation of multiple types of textboxes that are all serving the same function (page numbering) but have come from various templates and so all function differently and can't all be deleted using a single code. One VBA code I am using is one to delete these placeholder text boxes via their name (ie 'Text Placeholder 1') and even after three days of research I can't figure out how to use a wildcard function so that any text box named 'Text Placeholder' and then any number is deleted, and instead have this very unwieldy code here which only deletes up to 10:


Sub DeletePageNumbers()
On Error Resume Next
Dim PPSlide As Slide
For Each PPSlide In ActivePresentation.Slides
PPSlide.Shapes("Text Placeholder 1").Delete
PPSlide.Shapes("Text Placeholder 2").Delete
PPSlide.Shapes("Text Placeholder 3").Delete
PPSlide.Shapes("Text Placeholder 4").Delete
PPSlide.Shapes("Text Placeholder 5").Delete
PPSlide.Shapes("Text Placeholder 6").Delete
PPSlide.Shapes("Text Placeholder 7").Delete
PPSlide.Shapes("Text Placeholder 8").Delete
PPSlide.Shapes("Text Placeholder 9").Delete
PPSlide.Shapes("Text Placeholder 10").Delete
Next
End Sub

This works, but is not efficient. I have tried every variation of wildcards and ranges and have included the MatchWildcards=True coding which doesn't seem to work at all (apparently I don't know exactly where to implement it in the code). I also cannot find or tweak a working code that will locate a text box containing a particular phrase or single word and delete the entire text box, as we have templates that don't have these text placeholders at all and instead are CONTENT placeholder text boxes containing the word 'page' or 'outline page' and still need to be deleted (and I can't run a similar VBA code to the above or it will delete the other content text boxes as well). We are trying to streamline our templates from about 10 existing ones with various formatting to just a single one, so we need this 'strip' VBA code to apply to any slides being imported from older presentations with the other templates and need to make it as user friendly as possible because otherwise it confuses the people working with the slides (who are not the most computer savvy). I've attached a .pptx with examples of the kind of text boxes that need to be deleted (any regular text box on the slide master is okay and does not need to be deleted, only the placeholder text boxes regarding the page numbers or the content placeholder page number textboxes) and I hope someone will be able to help me with at least one aspect of this. I've spent hours with this, even trying to learn VBA from the ground up, and am really at a loss.

[John Wilson]

Something like this would remove all text placeholders and number placeholders


Sub killthem()Dim ocl As CustomLayout
Dim oshp As Shape
Dim osld As Slide
Dim L As Long
'remove from master layouts
For Each ocl In ActivePresentation.Designs(1).SlideMaster.CustomLayouts
For L = ocl.Shapes.Count To 1 Step -1
If ocl.Shapes(L).Type = msoPlaceholder Then
Select Case ocl.Shapes(L).PlaceholderFormat.Type
Case Is = ppPlaceholderBody, ppPlaceholderSlideNumber
ocl.Shapes(L).Delete
End Select
End If
Next L
Next ocl
'remove from slides
For Each osld In ActivePresentation.Slides
For L = osld.Shapes.Count To 1 Step -1
If osld.Shapes(L).Type = msoPlaceholder Then
Select Case osld.Shapes(L).PlaceholderFormat.Type
Case Is = ppPlaceholderBody, ppPlaceholderSlideNumber
osld.Shapes(L).Delete
End Select
End If
Next L
Next osld
End Sub

Test on a copy!

[0andy0]

This does work for deleting text placeholders, but doesn't delete any content placeholders, or regular text boxes that have been placed there manually outside of the slide master. People do all kinds of things to get their page numbers into slides and that's why we have all these bizarre 'templates' that are all set up different ways, and they all need to be stripped. Is there a way to delete everything in the lower right-hand corner? I also tried to code for that method but I was unable to figure out how to determine the 'coordinates' or position of an object on a slide, and not all text boxes would be in the exact same coordinates anyway. Thanks for this code though, it probably works a lot better than my original!

[John Wilson]

If you know the probable names you can use wildcards like this



For L = osld.Shapes.Count To 1 Step -1
f osld.Shapes(L).Name Like = "Text*" Then If osld.Shapes(L).Delete
Next L

[John Wilson]

You can do WILDCARD SEARCH like this


For Each osld In ActivePresentation.Slides
For L = osld.Shapes.Count To 1 Step -1
If osld.Shapes(L).Name Like "Text*" Then osld.Shapes(L).Delete
Next L
Next osld

[0andy0]

Unfortunately there will be multiple content placeholders in a single slide besides the page number text box (and named with varying numbers) so that would delete the main content of the slide as well (and without actually deleting the text boxes themselves, just the content. Maybe this is an unsolveable problem based on how many ways people have stuck page numbers into multiple documents.

[John Wilson]

You have to be able to write a "rule" as to which to delete. If you can vba is likely to be able to use it but it isn't magic!

If the slides have working slide number one way to find them is to create a duplicate slide. This will be identical except the number will change. Find the changes and delete. Would that work?

Something like this:




Sub chexSN()
Dim osld As Slide
Dim osldcopy As SlideRange
Dim L As Long
For Each osld In ActivePresentation.Slides
Set osldcopy = osld.Duplicate
For L = osld.Shapes.Count To 1 Step -1
If osld.Shapes(L).HasTextFrame Then ' Added later prevents crash with non text
If osld.Shapes(L).TextFrame.TextRange <> osldcopy(1).Shapes(L).TextFrame.TextRange Then
osld.Shapes(L).TextFrame.DeleteText
osld.Shapes(L).Delete
End If
Next L
osldcopy.Delete
End If
Next osld
End Sub

[0andy0]

Maybe I'm not explaining very clearly. On some particular slides, there will be three text boxes. One is a title, usually called Title # (ex Title 2), and two content placeholders, ex. Content Placeholder 3 which as the actual slide content and Content Placeholder 5 which has a page number. These numbers differ across every single slide, so designating the macro to delete 'Content Placeholder 5' might delete the page number on 4 or 5 slides, but not on 15 other ones, and it might delete the main content of the slide on 10 of those because those ones are called 'Content Placeholder 5' instead of the page number box being called 'Content Placeholder 5'. This is why I was wondering if there was a way to delete a shape/text box based on it's location, as all the page numbers are generally in the lower right hand corner. Deleting them via names (when they aren't specifically TEXT placeholders) is nearly impossible because the names are so varied. This is years of people poorly using PP to shoving page numbers in any way they can, and then those presentations being imported into other presentations with other layouts, and now every presentation has about 3 or 4 layouts and can't be easily unformatted just by programming 'delete Content Placeholder 5', because you have no idea what it will end up deleting.

[John Wilson]

Did you read my last post? It deletes shapes that have a slide number.

[0andy0]

That code was not there before when I read your post; did you edit it in later?

[John Wilson]

Yes and actually you should add a further check like this


Sub chexSN()Dim osld As Slide
Dim osldcopy As SlideRange
Dim L As Long
For Each osld In ActivePresentation.Slides
Set osldcopy = osld.Duplicate
For L = osld.Shapes.Count To 1 Step -1
If osld.Shapes(L).HasTextFrame Then
If osld.Shapes(L).TextFrame.TextRange <> osldcopy(1).Shapes(L).TextFrame.TextRange Then
osld.Shapes(L).TextFrame.DeleteText
osld.Shapes(L).Delete
End If
Next L
osldcopy.Delete
End If
Next osld
End Sub

[0andy0]

As I said before I'm not a VBA expert. I can use it and generally figure out what a code is doing when I look at it, but can you explain exactly what this is doing?

[John Wilson]

OK

The code duplicates each slide.
The duplicate slides should be identical BUT if a shape has a slide number the new slide will show a different number. The code searches each shape and if it finds a difference deletes the text and then deletes the parent shape. These should be shapes with slide numbers. Finally it deletes the duplicate and moves to the next slide to check.

Confusing but maybe the only way.

[0andy0]

Also these numbers on the text box don't correspond to the slide number, if that's how this is being coded. This code gives me a Next without For error as well. Maybe I should give up on this.

[John Wilson]

Yep I made a small error when adding the check

Should be


Sub chexSN()Dim osld As Slide
Dim osldcopy As SlideRange
Dim L As Long
For Each osld In ActivePresentation.Slides
Set osldcopy = osld.Duplicate
For L = osld.Shapes.Count To 1 Step -1
If osld.Shapes(L).HasTextFrame Then
If osld.Shapes(L).TextFrame.TextRange <> osldcopy(1).Shapes(L).TextFrame.TextRange Then
osld.Shapes(L).TextFrame.DeleteText
osld.Shapes(L).Delete
End If
End If
Next L
osldcopy.Delete
Next osld
End Sub

If the numbers do not correspond to the slide number then your only answer is to get a big stick and beat them around the body till they do things properly!

[0andy0]

Are you talking about the numbers in the actual name of the text boxes corresponding (ie Content Placeholder 1 being on slide 1), or the numbers that are typed into the text box? Because neither of them ever correspond to the slide number, usually because 1) the slide was likely imported from another presentation and b) the page numbers are actually corresponding to a different document that is meant to be read while the presentation is being given. So if this hinges on these numbers matching, it really won't work.

[Paul_Hossler]

I'd use something like this

If a (shape is NOT a Placeholder) AND (shape text consists of a number) then
Delete the shape

So a TB with [22] will be deleted, but a TB with [ABCD1234] would not

I excluded placeholders since I'd think the master layout's slide number position would be used

Easy enough to change

You could also delete similar text boxes that only contain a date, i.e. the presentation date





Option Explicit
Sub DeleteNumberTextBoxes()
Dim oPres As Presentation
Dim oSlide As Slide
Dim oShape As Shape

Set oPres = ActivePresentation

For Each oSlide In oPres.Slides
For Each oShape In oSlide.Shapes
If Not oShape.Type = msoPlaceholder Then
If oShape.HasTextFrame Then
If oShape.TextFrame.HasText Then
If IsNumeric(oShape.TextFrame.TextRange.Text) Then
oShape.Delete
End If
End If
End If
End If
Next
Next

End Sub

[John Wilson]

Sometimes simpler is better. That should work as long as there no other numeric text boxes.

[Paul_Hossler]

1. Who knows what users can and will do?

2. I had thought about a 2 step process:

Step1 - Macro 1 - like above to mark (.Tag) shapes and shade somehow for possible eventual deletion
Step2 - review shaded shapes, untagging any that need to by chance remain
Step3 - Macro 2 - delete remaining tagged shapes

3. That seems like overkill, at least for now