PowerPoint automation services in SharePoint 2013

A useful tool which has been provided in SharePoint 2013 is the PowerPoint automation services. This is a new resource that is introduced in 2013. Its based on the word automation services model. The use of this model is pretty straightforward when you begin using the service and leverage the knowledge which you have gained and approach the project depending on which one you might need.

Supports sync, async and streaming of documents into the service. This becomes very useful when you have many documents which are being uploaded throughout your enterprise and you document various tasks.

Supported Formats and Sources: PPT and PPTX

The different destinations allow you to convert those files to PPTX, PDF, XPS, JPEG, and PNG.

When you are making a request as a developer, the request is the base class that has the method to begin and end the conversing. To create the document, you are going to be using various classes.

From resources open to public via Microsoft, you are able to convert PowerPoint binary files and the PowerPoint Open XML format to other formats.

An example which you may find that your company is in, and perhaps this is why you are reading this post, can be as follows.

Suppose that you have many hundred presentations which you have accumulated throughout your site. At this point, you may deploy a solution which will iterate through each of the presentations which you have in your repository and checks whether each file is in proper format and then convert each of the files which are into the proper PPTX format.

When you are implementing the service, you are sending a request to the server. At this point you need to specify the files which you are searching for and the conversion type which you want to be created. Because the pattern is asynchronous, you are able to continue writing code which will continue after a request has been sent.

In order to make a notice after the completion of the conversion, it is possible to specify a delegate which references a callback to execute the notice when this is complete.