Extending PowerPoint to Build a Presentation Based on Site Content

Abstract

Windows SharePoint Services provides the enterprise with easily creatable workspaces where information can be collected to support the sharing of information among users working toward a common goal. This goal could be many different things, including preparation for an event, execution of a business process, or even materials for a project. Often, organizations build presentations as an output of this collaboration or for routinely reporting on the status of the team. Microsoft PowerPoint provides users with a powerful canvas to construct presentations. However, information workers expend too much effort and time to locate, duplicate, and organize this information into the presentation. Not only are we looking to reduce this effort; we also want to increase its accuracy. The presentation’s authors are likely retyping, cutting, and pasting, or otherwise manually importing content. So in this chapter we will detail how, as a developer, you can extend PowerPoint to provide a tool that is capable of building out slides populated with content stored in a SharePoint site.