"lafor" <lafor / arrakis.es> wrote in message
news:20030210150634.GA32619 / gollum.wuonm.com...
> Hi all,
>
> it can sound "bizarre" but, it's possible to modify/create powerpoint
> documents using ruby? I know the win32ole packages exists, but I am
> searching something a bit easier ('cause I dont know too much about
> win32)

I don't much about PowerPoint or it's object model, but I'm positively sure
that Win32OLE is the way to go, and it should not be difficult. A random
search on google gives the following powerpoint script sample.

http://www.mvps.org/skp/vb/vbppt002.htm

If you browse the site, you will find many more PowerPoint examples.

Look at the Excel (? or similar) example in WIN32OLE and it should be easy
to translate VBScript to Ruby - it's almost identical except CreateObject is
done slightly different and you can ignore Dim statements.

At work we have our own scripting language where we plugged our datamodel to
PowerPoint using scripting. Thus we could generate a large collection of
presentations on the fly. Those seeing the demonstration were extremely
impressed. I had nothing to do with the powerpoint stuff though. Something
similar should be possible in Ruby with or without DBI.

Mikkel