Automating Repetitive PowerPoint Tasks

Have you ever created a report in the same format every week or month or filled a PowerPoint template like a certificate with different data each time?

Manually editing slides or repeating tasks can waste time and lead to errors.

python-pptx is a Python library designed to automate repetitive PPT tasks.

In this lesson, we will learn how to create simple PowerPoint slides using python-pptx.

Note: To run the practice code on your computer, install the python-pptx library using the command pip install python-pptx.

Let’s start with a simple presentation to understand the basic usage of the python-pptx library.

When importing the python-pptx library, use the format from pptx import {class or function} to bring in the required components.

The following example creates a PowerPoint file object and adds simple text to a slide.

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# Import the python-pptx library
from pptx import Presentation

# Create a new presentation object
prs = Presentation()

# Add the first slide
slide_content = prs.slides.add_slide(prs.slide_layouts[1])

# Select the title of the first slide
title_content = slide_content.shapes.title

# Select the body content (2nd placeholder)
content = slide_content.placeholders[1]

# Add text to the selected title
title_content.text = "Hello"

# Add text to the selected body content
content.text = "This is CodeFriends"

# Save the presentation file
prs.save("output_file.pptx")

placeholders is an attribute that refers to predefined spaces in a slide layout, known as placeholders.

Placeholders are content boxes that exist at specific positions in a slide, such as for titles, subtitles, body content, images, and tables.

placeholders[1] refers to the second placeholder, which may contain different types of content depending on the PowerPoint slide layout.

When you run the code, a PowerPoint file named output_file.pptx will be created.

Opening the file will show the first slide with a "title" and "body content" added.

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prs = Presentation()

Presentation() is a method in python-pptx used to create a new PowerPoint file object.

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slide_content = prs.slides.add_slide(prs.slide_layouts[1])

slides.add_slide() is used to add a slide to the PowerPoint file object.

The argument prs.slide_layouts[1] represents the slide layout.

PowerPoint provides several standard layouts, and slide_layouts[1] is a layout that includes a title box and a body content box.

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# Select the title of the first slide
title_content = slide_content.shapes.title

# Select the body content of the first slide
content = slide_content.placeholders[1]

# Add text to the selected title
title_content.text = "Hello"

# Add text to the selected body content
content.text = "This is CodeFriends"

The slide_content variable contains the added first slide, and slide_content.shapes.title selects the title box.

shapes represents all objects in the slide, and among them, title refers to the title box.

slide_content.placeholders[1] selects the content box for the body text.

placeholders is an attribute that refers to predefined spaces in the slide layout, such as placeholders for titles, subtitles, body content, images, and tables.

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prs.save("output_file.pptx")

Finally, the save method saves the PowerPoint file created with the presentation object.

Run the code and check the PowerPoint slide with the added title and body content.