Beefy Boxes and Bandwidth Generously Provided by pair Networks
Problems? Is your data what you think it is?
 
PerlMonks  

Re: Editing Binary PowerPoint files

by iburrell (Chaplain)
on Mar 18, 2004 at 21:50 UTC ( [id://337822]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to Editing Binary PowerPoint files

For a previous job, I wrote a text extractor for PowerPoint files. From what I remember about the format, even your text changer would not be an easy job. The file is basically a bunch of serialized objects stored in an OLE stream. The text extracter walked through the object tree and recognized the text objects.

It might be possible to modify the strings in place because they are simplest objects. But it would be a pain to insert the changes in the file. I forgot if there are offsets and sizes that would need to be adjusted but I suspect there are.

I would worry about the reliability of the binary editor. I bet it would be brittle to changes.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Re: Editing Binary PowerPoint files
by punchcard_don (Beadle) on Mar 18, 2004 at 22:42 UTC
    Granted, but in absence of a better solution, I've got to give it a try. I figure my one hope is the simplicity of the changes. A chart with four values - switch old values for new - and three words in a line of text. Doing the text replacement manually in HexEdit appears to work just fine. Can it be that fragile?

Log In?
Username:
Password:

What's my password?
Create A New User
Domain Nodelet?
Node Status?
node history
Node Type: note [id://337822]
help
Chatterbox?
and the web crawler heard nothing...

How do I use this?Last hourOther CB clients
Other Users?
Others taking refuge in the Monastery: (4)
As of 2024-04-24 05:29 GMT
Sections?
Information?
Find Nodes?
Leftovers?
    Voting Booth?

    No recent polls found