SlideFab version 10.0 brings two new features. First of all, SlideFab supports internal hyperlinks within the presentation. Secondly, the Table Export Mode has now more control over preserving existing rows in the PowerPoint template table. And finally, it is possible to stretch tables to the original height after removing empty rows.
New features
Internal Hyperlink support
This new version of SlideFab supports PowerPoint hyperlinks in the presentation. When running the slide automation, SlideFab will make sure to update hyperlinks which are pointing to other slides within the presentation. This ensures that on-click actions which navigated to other slides within the template presentation will also work in the created output presentation. Even better: When using the Iteration Loop, then the links will have a silo-like behaviour within the slide collection of each iteration. Consequently, this is also functioning when decomposing the output presentations into multiple files.
This feature is a new behaviour which needs no manual activation.
Flexibly preserve PowerPoint table header rows
When using the export mode table, there is an updated setting available. A number can be set which defines the first row into which SlideFab starts writing the table content. This way a flexible number of header rows in the PowerPoint target table can be preserved. This is particularly useful when the header row is formatted in a custom way.
This replaces the functionality “Do not copy first row from Excel” which is now superfluous.
Stretching PowerPoint tables to original height after removing empty rows
SlideFab has contained the feature to remove empty rows in a PowerPoint table for a long time. So far, SlideFab just removed the empty rows. This new feature allows it to stretch the table after removing empty rows back to its original height in the template. It is also possible to decide whether this stretching is affecting all rows or only the table body rows (i.e. the PPT start row and below).
This new table stretching feature has (at least) one very cool use case: It can help to perfectly align a table with a flexible number of rows to a chart next to it, which also scales with the number of rows. Hard to explain, but a tutorial will be published soon.
Bug fixes
- There are cases where the PowerPoint slide master contains multiple themes. This can happen after copying and pasting slides from other presentations with other slide master. For such cases SlideFab confused the design sometimes. This is now fixed and SlideFab ensures that the chosen design for each template slide is also picked once it is becoming an output slide.
- The “Do not copy first row from Excel” function for export mode Table did not work properly. It was removed and replaced with more powerful functionality, cf. above.
- There was a really nasty bug for Excel / PowerPoint 2016 and earlier: The ribbon buttons did not work. Consequently, SlideFab could not be used. This is fixed with this new version.
This new SlideFab version is available at the download page. Already installed SlideFab updates automatically.
If you face any technical issues with SlideFab, please refer to this list for guidance on how to get SlideFab working.