Is there a way to embed a .xlsx object in a ppt from matlab script?

I am using mlreportgen.ppt to create a simulation results report in Powerpoint. I wrote tabular results to an Excel .xlsx file and later added them into the .ppt using the Table commands. This works fine, except the tabular results are quite large, and I would like to embed the .xlsx as an object. From the Matlab Help, I found a way to import .xlsx object into a Word Document (using mlreportgen.dom, and EmbeddedObject), but I cannot find a way to import it into a PowerPoint Presentation. There is no EmbeddedObject in the mlreportgen.ppt. Can this be done?

Answer 1

[Ishaan Mehta]

Hi Aimee,

Since you are unable to add the Excel sheet in your presentation using "mlreportgen.ppt", doing the same using ActiveX controls can help as a workaround.

You can open an existing PowerPoint presentation through MATLAB using the "actxserver" function as illustrated below:

% Define the path to your PowerPoint file and Excel file
pptFilePath = 'presentation.pptx';
excelFilePath = 'excelSheet.xlsx';

% Open PowerPoint application
pptApp = actxserver('PowerPoint.Application');
pptApp.Visible = true;

% Open the PowerPoint presentation
presentation = pptApp.Presentations.Open(fullfile(pwd, pptFilePath));

Then, you can use PowerPoint's ActiveX commands to access the target slide and the "slide.Shapes.AddOLEObject" method to embed the Excel sheet as an OLE object in the slide.

Refer to the below documentation for more information:

Shapes.AddOLEObject: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/office/office-12/ff762425(v=office.12)#:~:text=This%20example%20adds%20a%20new%20Microsoft%20Office%20Excel%20worksheet%20to%20myDocument.%20The%20worksheet%20will%20be%20displayed%20as%20an%20icon.

Hope this helps!