This feature is a tool that empowers users to work with on-brand styles in PowerPoint. This bears a resemblance to the native styles feature in Word, where the user is able to see an overview of the styles that are present in the document and to apply these. Using StylesForPowerPoint, we save the styles in the Custom XML in the particular presentation. The Custom XML part name will (and should) always be PpStyles.

Configuration of Styles for PowerPoint

Plugin

Ensure that you use the latest plugin by first pulling in SD.Installers, and thereafter right-click at the client's SDUP to update the plugin.

Modules 

The modules are located here:

...\ModuleLibrary\StylesForPowerPoint\01_nocontext_Styles

We have three commands for this tool:

1) CMD for task pane containing styles

The first command opens a task pane with a preview of the present styles. The task pane can either be set to an admin view or a limited user view, where the abilities differ. As an admin, the user can add and delete styles, and change the order of the styles in the task pane. These actions updates the custom XML, which means that when the admin make any changes, these are saved automatically in the custom XML. Without the admin view, the user is limited to select a style and thus apply it in the presentation, and to toggle whether the styles should be shown with a preview.

<Cmd case="SkabelonDesign.StylesForPowerPoint:ShowStyles"/>

Parameter

admin

If the command should be set to admin view, add this parameter and set the value to be true.

An example of usage can be seen in If's solution. 

2) CMD for applying a specific style

The second command applies a style that are saved within the custom XML with a single click on a button in ribbon, where the name of the style is defined in advance. For instance, instead of using levels, we can save the different levels as styles in custom XML and then apply them directly on selected text. In this way, the client does not see the styles in the task pane, but applies them from a drop down in ribbon.  

<Cmd case="SkabelonDesign.StylesForPowerPoint:ApplyStyle" Name="Name of style"/>

Parameter

Name

This parameter is required. Define the name of the style that should be applied. 

3) CMD to apply style batch

This feature is used to fix the selection in PowerPoint. 

Here, it is used to ensure that apply the correct style batch for bullets, as the styles configured with StylesForPowerPoint are independent of the native PowerPoint list bullet levels, which then can result in some confusion for the end-user as well as slides with wrong formatting as it does not work when using the native PowerPoint tab function. 

The following command is the used to detect which level a certain range of text has been written in and then fix all text within the selected range by setting the correct formatting depending on which tab level the text is at. 

<Cmd case="SkabelonDesign.StylesForPowerPoint:ApplyStyleBatch"/>

Parameter

Name

This parameter is required. Define the name of the style. If the style name in the selected range contains what is defined in this parameter, it will be added to the list of selected styles to be applied. For instance, in one solution, this parameter is defined to "Bullet" and thus it will apply configured styles that have "Bullet" in their name to the selected range. 

ApplyType

This parameter is required and only supports the value "Bullets" for now. 

How do I add a new style to the style pane?

Write the name of the new style in an empty placeholder somewhere in the presentation and format the text. We support various kinds of formatting, such as font, font size, font color, text alignment, indentation, font type (bold, italic or underlined), spacing, bullets (both numbered, unnumbered and special symbols), indent levels for bullets and start values for numbered bullets. Further, the feature can save styles that are formatted with Small Caps and All Caps.

When you are done formatting the text, click at the bottom of the pane to add the style at this button:

How do I edit existing style in styles pane?

If you need to edit an existing style, right-click at the style in the pane. Here, you are able to rename, update or delete a style. 

When you rename a style, it will automatically be updated in the preview. 

If you have a style where the formatting needs to be adjusted, e.g. change the size or color of the font or add some spacing, you must place your cursor in a placeholder within the presentation where the formatting is corrected, and thus right-click and select update style. This will automatically update the preview as well. 

If one of your styles is to be deleted, right-click and select "Delete style". This will instantly remove the style from the pane. 

Lastly, if you need to change the order of the styles, you can move then with a drag and drop logic. Click this button in the bottom of the pane and move the styles as desired:

How do I apply a style from the styles pane?

There are two ways to apply a style from the pane. Either way, the style clicked on will be applied to whatever is selected. You can select by either marking some of the text in a placeholder, placing the cursor in the placeholder, or selecting one or more placeholder(s) to apply to all text in the placeholder(s) concerned.

If the style should only be applied to some of the text in a placeholder, check off "Apply only to selection" in the bottom of the styles pane before applying the style. Notice that it will still apply alignment to the entire line.

Tool tip

When hovering a style on the list, a tool tip appears with information of the style formatting, e.g. font name, font size, alignment and indent level.

Supporting East Asian font parameter

Some solutions require different font settings for Latin characters and East Asian characters. In such case, we must include several parameters, NameFarEast and NameComplexScript. These must manually be configured in the custom XML that contains the styles. 

It is possible to set the following theme fonts:

• +Body
• +Body Asian
• +Body CS
• +Headings 
• +Headings Asian
• +Headings CS

Here is an example:

"Font": {
  "Name": "+Headings",
  "NameFarEast": "+Headings Asian", 
  "NameComplexScript": "+Headings CS",
  ...
}