How to add image text automatically to images?

[evildrome]

Hi All,

I'm making an A1 poster with 346 images of people and I want to make a grid of images with the name of the person plus location (like "Robert James - London") in a text box under the image.

I got as far as creating the image grid with blank text boxes.

I have all the images in a folder (like 1.jpg, 2.jpg) and I have all the associated text in another folder (like 1.txt, 2.txt).

I could add this manually but... phew... and it may change so being able to just re-run a program would be super helpful.

If there was a way do this programmatically I would be grateful to know how

I'm a bit of an old fart. I don't know VBA but can program in Python, Cobol and err.. 6502 assembler.

I did say I was old!

Cheers,

Wilson Logan.

[jdelano]

I don't have your exact use case; I helped a person before to add images to a table. I switched it around to also add the file name, which it seems you're doing? (or is the name contained inside the text file?)

This code loops a folder for all the jpg files, put the image in a table and writes the name of the image file in the associated row

Private Sub btnAddPictures_Click()


    Dim tbl As Table
    Set tbl = FindTable("imagesTable", Slide2)
    
    Dim currentTableRow As Integer
    currentTableRow = 1
        
    Dim shp As Shape
    
    Dim imageFileName As String ' add Microsoft Scripting Runtime (in tools > references)
    imageFileName = Dir("F:\PPT_SlideImages\*.jpg")
    
    Do While Len(imageFileName) > 0
        tbl.Cell(currentTableRow, 1).Shape.Fill.UserPicture "F:\PPT_SlideImages\" & imageFileName
        tbl.Cell(currentTableRow, 2).Shape.TextFrame.TextRange.Text = imageFileName
        imageFileName = Dir
        currentTableRow = currentTableRow + 1
    Loop


End Sub


Private Function FindTable(tblName As String, whichSlide As Slide) As Table


    Dim shp As Shape
    For Each shp In whichSlide.Shapes
        If shp.HasTable And shp.Name = tblName Then
            ' this is an image and it has logo in the name
            Set FindTable = shp.Table
            Exit Function
        End If
    Next


End Function

[evildrome]

Thanks!

My images aren't in a table but I guess I could do that and the description is in the filename but I can probably make the description the filename so.. yeah... I think this could work.

Thanks again!

Wilson.

[jdelano]

You're welcome, happy to help a fellow grey beard COBOLian (also RPG II here)
You definitely add code to open the associated text file to grab the name contained therein, if you need that.

EDIT: create a function like this
Add Microsoft Scripting Runtime is Tools > References, add code to read the text file.

Private Function ReadNameFromFile(imageFileName as String) as String 
    ' open the text file that shares the name of the image file passed
    ' read the name in it and pass it back.

    Dim textFileName as String
    Dim txtFile as TextStream
    Dim txtName as String 
    
    ' remove the image extension add the txt
    textFileName = Left(imageFileName, Len(imageFileName - 4)) & ".txt"
    Set txtFile = fso.OpenTextFile(textFileName, ForReading)
    
    txtName = txtFile.ReadLine  ' there is just one line containing the name?
    
    txtFile.Close
    Set txtFile = Nothing
    
    ReadNameFromFile = txtName

End Function

You'll want to add some error trapping for no file and empty file.

edit2: fix typo and added removed blank lines when I edited it just before now

[evildrome]

Yes, the text file is '<name> "Location -" <location>'





e.g. "Robert Shaw Location - London"

so swapping the line of txt for the filename should work.