Merging/Creating powerpoint slides in PHP using COM and PHPPowerpoint

Question

My requirement is to split ppt/pptx files and then merge particular slides.

I have successfully split ppt/pptx files into seperate slides using PHP COM. Now I want to join/merge the slides using some PHP Library.

However, there doesn't seem to be one except PHPPowerpoint.

I can use PHPPowerpoint to create slides and add text nodes/images using it but it cannot read existing .ppt/pptx files and create a merged output.

Is there another way? I will appreciate any help at all.

EDIT: I was able to merge slides but not Properly.. the background color/sort order is still missing. Please help as there are no references on the web on this except for this link -

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff746640%28v=office.15%29.aspx

Here is the code -

        //SET Max exec time
        ini_set("max_execution_time",-1);


        $directory = 'c:/ppt/slides/';
        $files_list = array_diff(scandir($directory,SCANDIR_SORT_DESCENDING), array('..', '.')); //Get list of all files from the sub slides folder
        //var_dump($files_list); die;
        $ppt_new = new COM("powerpoint.application") or die("Unable to instantiate Powerpoint 2");
        $ppt_new->Presentations->Add(true); //Create the new(merged) ppt
        $dirpath = "C:/ppt/slides/";        
        $ppt_new->Presentations[1]->Slides->Add( 1, 1 );
        foreach($files_list as $file) { //Loop through all slides to merge those

        $powerpnt = new COM("powerpoint.application") or die("Unable to instantiate Powerpoint");
                echo "Adding slide...";
                echo $file_path1 = realpath($dirpath.$file);

                $pres = $powerpnt->Presentations->Open($file_path1, false, false, false) or die("Unable to open the slide");
                echo $count = (int)$pres->Slides->Count."<--SLIDES COUNT<br>";
                $i=1;
                foreach($pres->Slides as $slide)

                {   
                try {
                    $pptLayout = $slide->CustomLayout;
//                  var_dump($pptLayout); die;
//                  $ppt_new->Presentations[1]->Slides[$i]->FollowMasterBackground  = false;
//                  $ppt_new->Presentations[1]->Slides[$i]->Background = $slide->Background;
                    //$ppt_new->Presentations[1]->Slides->Layout = $pptLayout;

                    $ppt_new->Presentations[1]->Slides->InsertFromFile($file_path1, $i, $i, $i);
                    //          $ppt_new->Presentations[1]->SaveAs("merged11.ppt");
                    //          $ppt_new->Export("created.ppt", "ppt");
                    $i++;
                    }
                        catch(Exception $e)
                        {
                            echo 'Caught exception: ',  $e->getMessage(), "\n";
                        } 
                }

        }

        //Save the merged presentation
        $powerpnt->quit();
        $ppt_new->Presentations[1]->SaveAs("c:\ppt\merged121.ppt");
        $ppt_new->Presentations[1]->Close(); 
        $ppt_new->quit();

        echo "Done!";

Can anyone please run the code and find why the background is not coming in the merged slide? Thanks already.

Answer 1

SOLVED:

I followed this link http://skp.mvps.org/pptxp001.htm and manually converted the example code in VBA into PHP. Basically the InsertFromFile() method was not working properly so I used Copy() and Paste() methods as per the MSDN (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff746640%28v=office.15%29.aspx)

Answer 2

The library cristal/pptx can do exactly what you want to do. It's a pure PHP library without any dependandy to Powerpoint, which can read existing PPTX and manipulate slides respecting the original format.

<?php

use Cristal\Presentation\PPTX;

$fooPPTX = new PPTX(__DIR__.'/asset/foo.pptx');
$barPPTX = new PPTX(__DIR__.'/asset/bar.pptx');

$fooPPTX->addSlides($barPPTX->getSlides());

$fooPPTX->saveAs(__DIR__.'/dist/result.pptx');

https://github.com/CristalTeam/pptx