Relational database to keep track of ppt slides?

[John Altman]

Has anyone ever built a relational database to keep track of PowerPoint
slides? Imagine if each slide on every deck on my computer had a bunch of
meta-data associated with it: author, date, project, data type, etc.

That way, assuming that the files are correctly annotated, I could easily
locate that data from three years ago that someone in my research group
produced but that I can't seem to find now. Of course, that person has long
since left.

And, Spotlight isn't doing it for me.

Thanks in advance.

John

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Has anyone ever built a relational database to keep track of PowerPoint
slides? Imagine if each slide on every deck on my computer had a bunch of
meta-data associated with it: author, date, project, data type, etc.

That way, assuming that the files are correctly annotated, I could easily
locate that data from three years ago that someone in my research group
produced but that I can't seem to find now. Of course, that person has long
since left.

There are a number of products like this, but I suspect they're mostly
Windows-only.

On the other hand, existing utilities should be able to search a simple text
file that contains information like:

Filename
Slide number
Slide title
Slide text
and possibly any document properties (author, date, etc) you like

Do you do any VBA coding? If so, it shouldn't be too difficult to cobble up a
macro that extracts this information to a text file using various bits from the
programming section of the PPT FAQ (www.pptfaq.com)




================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi John,

It strikes me that a possible approach to this would be to use the Slide
Notes in PowerPoint as the place to put the meta data for each slide.

Then, when PowerPoint 2008 becomes available you'll most likely be able to
take advantage of the new XML format and an XML indexing tool to create an
index of the meta data based on the Slide Notes tags.

Too test this out (I used PowerPoint 2007 in Vista to test this) I saved a
presentation in the new XML (default) file format and was able to find my
tagged slide note in the notesSlide1.xml file of my test presentation.

I'm not positive this approach would work for sure but it seems promising to
me right now.

-Jim Gordon

Has anyone ever built a relational database to keep track of PowerPoint
slides? Imagine if each slide on every deck on my computer had a bunch of
meta-data associated with it: author, date, project, data type, etc.

That way, assuming that the files are correctly annotated, I could easily
locate that data from three years ago that someone in my research group
produced but that I can't seem to find now. Of course, that person has long
since left.

And, Spotlight isn't doing it for me.

Thanks in advance.

John

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Neat idea, Jim.

And wouldn't each PPT file's Document properties (natural home for metadata) be
accessible to an XML indexing tool as well?

It strikes me that a possible approach to this would be to use the Slide
Notes in PowerPoint as the place to put the meta data for each slide.

Then, when PowerPoint 2008 becomes available you'll most likely be able to
take advantage of the new XML format and an XML indexing tool to create an
index of the meta data based on the Slide Notes tags.

Too test this out (I used PowerPoint 2007 in Vista to test this) I saved a
presentation in the new XML (default) file format and was able to find my
tagged slide note in the notesSlide1.xml file of my test presentation.

I'm not positive this approach would work for sure but it seems promising to
me right now.

-Jim Gordon

================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Steve,

I would think so. A potential PITA is that you might have to unzip each file
into its components, although a folder action could do that automatically.

-Jim

Neat idea, Jim.

And wouldn't each PPT file's Document properties (natural home for metadata)
be
accessible to an XML indexing tool as well?


================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Hi Steve,

I would think so. A potential PITA is that you might have to unzip each file
into its components, although a folder action could do that automatically.

Yep ... and you'd have to do that in any case, whether you use doc info or notes
text or whatever.

-Jim

Neat idea, Jim.

And wouldn't each PPT file's Document properties (natural home for metadata)
be
accessible to an XML indexing tool as well?

It strikes me that a possible approach to this would be to use the Slide
Notes in PowerPoint as the place to put the meta data for each slide.

Then, when PowerPoint 2008 becomes available you'll most likely be able to
take advantage of the new XML format and an XML indexing tool to create an
index of the meta data based on the Slide Notes tags.

Too test this out (I used PowerPoint 2007 in Vista to test this) I saved a
presentation in the new XML (default) file format and was able to find my
tagged slide note in the notesSlide1.xml file of my test presentation.

I'm not positive this approach would work for sure but it seems promising to
me right now.

-Jim Gordon

Quoting from "John Altman" <[email protected]>, in article
(e-mail address removed), on [DATE:

Has anyone ever built a relational database to keep track of PowerPoint
slides? Imagine if each slide on every deck on my computer had a bunch of
meta-data associated with it: author, date, project, data type, etc.

That way, assuming that the files are correctly annotated, I could easily
locate that data from three years ago that someone in my research group
produced but that I can't seem to find now. Of course, that person has long
since left.

And, Spotlight isn't doing it for me.

Thanks in advance.

John

================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================