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We're looking for a tool that we can use to automate the conversion of PowerPoint presentations to HTML.

The tools can be a stand alone program, a .NET assembly, or a COM control. But it must be something we can be automated.

What we use now

We wrote a program that uses PowerPoint 2007, via office automation and the .NET inter-op assemblies, to open our PowerPoint presentations and save/export them as HTML.

Reasons for switching

The HTML that is generated by PowerPoint 2007 isn't HTML5 or standards compliant. In modern browsers the presentations don't look as good and in some cases aren't viewable at all. Microsoft has dropped the save/export option in favor of an upload to the cloud option. Uploading it to the cloud in addition to being difficult to automate isn't feasible because of security concerns.

Requirements

  • Generate HTML viewable by modern browsers such as IE11, FF, Chrome, and Safari
  • Ability to automate the conversion process
  • Cannot upload the presentation to a public server

Other considerations

  • It would be nice if it were a .NET assembly or had a .NET wrapper.
  • The faster the conversion process the better.
  • Uploads to a web service or server are acceptable if the process is reasonably secure and the results can be downloaded locally.
  • Alternative methods using PowerPoint automation are acceptable if they meet the requirements.
  • Operating System: Windows OS preferred, but willing to consider OSX, AIX, or Linux
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  • I personally don’t have experience with it so i wont make it an answer. Maybe Libreoffice can be solution since LibreOffice 4.2 have function to save presentations to html and htm format.
    – danijelc
    Feb 19, 2014 at 17:54
  • 1
    What device doesn't have a PDF viewer?
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Feb 20, 2014 at 10:21
  • By default most versions of Windows don't come with one pre-installed. But the bigger problem is the usability. Our users prefer the HTML slideshow style over reading a long printed page.
    – jColeson
    Feb 20, 2014 at 17:46
  • @jColeson: What about this stackoverflow.com/a/6274299/562769 ?
    – Martin Thoma
    Apr 9, 2014 at 10:02

1 Answer 1

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In PowerPoint 2010, open the presentation that you want to export to HTML.
Press Alt+F11, this opens VB for Apps.
Press Ctrl+G, this opens the Immediate pane.

In the Immediate pane, type the following, and then press the Enter key:

ActivePresentation.SaveAs "<Drive>:\users\<username>\desktop\<filename>.htm", ppSaveAsHTML, msoFalse

To save by using the Single File Web Page (.mht;.mhtml) file format, replace htm at the end of the file name with mht, and replace ppSaveAsHTML with ppSaveAsWebArchive.

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