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I'm trying to create an app that opens up Microsof...
# cfml-general
s
I'm trying to create an app that opens up Microsoft Powerpoint Presentation Files. (In Presentation Mode) The files will be opened from a full-screen gui that acts as an agenda. If you were embarking on this journey. 1. Do you see any way to accomplish this with CFML 2. What would you recommend looking into as programming languages? I don't know yet how to best interfacer with Powerpoint. It seems to accept command line parameters to open documents, but I'm trying to figure out where to start.
d
im pretty sure microsoft has the market cornered on what you're trying to do with its sharepoint services. instead of opening it as a powerpoint you could convert it to images or a pdf first, possibly with cfdocument(?), or with a containerized "microservice" like gotenberg
my team went the gotenberg route since we have not had much luck with the adobe offerings in CF
you could even do this with AWS lambda functions (the conversion to image/pdf)
s
Don't you lose animations and builds when converting it to image/pdf? How well did gotenberg work?
d
yeah im certain you'd lose animations. i forgot people actually use those 😄 gotenberg is "ok" it's not 1:1 representation but it's close enough for something that's free
i dont think there are any products other than microsoft's apps that open a 1:1 representation of a ppt and i think that's only the case if you're using windows, maybe?
i know there are significant discrepancies between outlook on win/mac. not sure if it impacts powerpoint the same way
my brain says it does, but i dont know if it's true in 2022
s
It does. From my experience.
This one company pulls it off, using a in house application they call orchestrate. (By Freeman) There must be a way.
Do you know if it's possible to have CFML issue CMD commands?
d
yeah you can do that with cfexecute
but before you go down the road using ms office to do any conversions i think we avoided that because it violates the license
s
Well I'm not going to convert it
d
whatcha planning on doing?
d
If all you're trying to do is load a PPT on a local workstation, you can probably do that via CLI arguments. If what you're really wanting to do is load a PPT via a browser, you can look at something like: https://github.com/meshesha/PPTXjs I haven't had to use PPT in a very long time, but Microsoft used to have an option for exporting to HTML that kept all the animations and transitions. Not sure if that's still an option or not.
s
So I want to create a GUI that has a conference agenda, which when clicked pop open powerpoint in (Slideshow mode). powerpnt.exe /S C:\Users\YourName\Documents\show.pptx
d
is this a web app or like a kiosk type thing?
s
I want it to be a web app.
And i Need a devleloper!
d
cfexecute would only run on the server - not on anyone's workstation if the server wasnt local to that computer (which it wouldnt be as a typical web app)
s
Yeah, I recall thinking about that earlier....
d
mobile support is another complex rabbit hole. that's why we went with images/pdfs. maybe the html option dswitzer suggested will work
it's probably under "export" in powerpoint (and this is where we ran into licensing issues)
d
I would look into that link I sent. I have tried it myself, but I'm sure there are other alternatives as well. That would allow you to open the PPTX file in a browser and just have the browser render the slides.
s
@dswitzer Ok I'll check it out. Does the browser present clean (i.e.) in a borderless & full screen?
d
s
@dswitzer Thanks!
I feel i'll need to resolve font issues.
m
There is Microsoft Office URI schemes that are installed on the machines with office you can look into using... https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/client-developer/office-uri-schemes Nothing to do with CF just including in a anchor tag
e
You could convert the code from wordpress.. https://wordpress.org/plugins/embed-any-document/
Or you could just host it on slideshare...:)
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