http://www.pptools.com/merge/ PPTools Merge - What's new? http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:11:49 EST Merge can now merge hyperlinks and add text from UNICODE files into placholders, enabling you to merge text with non-roman character sets. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:50:46 EST Merge now tests fieldnames in your data files for proper formatting and more. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Sat, 24 Jan 2009 14:48:37 EST 24 Jan 2009 release of PPTools Merge: Merge now replaces invalid characters in @filename fields with dashes Made numerous updates to make Merge work more smoothly in PPT 2007 and with Excel 2007 files Fixed several "side-effect" bugs inadvertently created by changes in previous version Previously Merge documentation simply suggested that each data field and merge field be made 'unique' by adding colons or other unusual characters to the beginning and end of the fieldname. Failure to use proper data fieldnames has been the single biggest cause of tech support issues, so now Merge requires all fieldnames to be properly formatted. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00039.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00039.htm Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:07:30 EST A bug in PowerPoint 2007, all releases/service packs to date, prevents Merge from seeing merge fields in table cells. On this page we provide two easy workarounds that allow you to merge data into tables. Or at least make it look that way. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:05:08 EST Merge hyperlinks feature now works in Presentations mode as well as Slides mode. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:42:37 EST We've fixed a few problems with merging hyperlinks and made Merge much less fussy about the way data field names are formatted in your data file. In Presentations mode. Merge now displays the number of the slide it's working on as well as the presentation/record number. This gives you a better idea of how far along it's gotten in the merge and what slides in your template take the longest to merge. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Tue, 24 Feb 2009 11:00:54 EST The 24 Feb 2009 release of Merge fixes a problem that caused inserted text to be doublespaced under some circumstances. This only happened in PowerPoint 2007. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00039.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00039.htm Sun, 05 Apr 2009 14:36:13 EST Good news: Merge now works with PowerPoint 2007 tables. Once again, we conquer MS Bugs. Yes!!! http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Sun, 05 Apr 2009 14:38:11 EST We worked our way around a bug in PowerPoint 2007 that previously kept Merge from merging data into tables. Merge now WORKS with PowerPoint 2007 tables. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:50:35 EST Merge now imports Excel data differently (directly instead of via Excel export to tab delimited files). This means that it now directly supports text in non-roman character sets (Japanese, Chinese, etc). No more need to merge the text from Unicode files. Merge now allows you to arrange your data by rows (as before) or by columns. This can make it much simpler to maintain large, complex data sheets. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00041.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00041.htm Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:10:44 EST New, improved version of PPTools Merge now available (and FREE). http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:45:14 EST Merge now tests for valid output file name and for write privileges in the output folder before it allows merge to continue. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00003.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00003.htm Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:07:07 EST PPTMerge merges a PowerPoint template slide or presentation with data from your Excel or Text files to produce customized individual slides or complete presentations -- quickly and automatically. Think of it as Mailmerge for PowerPoint. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:53:20 EST Test mode now has From and To options; you can now merge any section of records you like from your data file. There's now a ? button next to the Merge button. Merge disables the Merge button until you've provided all the information it needs to do the merge, but sometimes it's not obvious what's missing. Click the ? button to learn why the Merge button is disabled. Merge now includes a full Help file. Click the ? button on the Merge toolbar then click the "Merge Help" link in the upper right area of the resulting dialog box. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:46:10 EST 12 February, 2010 Fixed a bug that permitted clicking the Merge button in Slides mode when only path (no filename), was supplied in step 4. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:48:55 EST Previously Merge would sometimes accept improperly formatted fieldnames; if, for example, there was a fieldname like C or another single letter, Merge would replace every instance of C on each slide with whatever was in that column, even if it was blank. This led to some rather odd results at times. The fix has the happy side effect of speeding up merges considerably. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:18:08 EST 13 August, 2010 Made changes that help prevent extra linespacing from showing up in both merged and non-merged text. Speeded up merging somewhat. Added simple initial version of merge picture into shape FILL so as not to destroy animations If a placeholder shape is picture filled to start with, Merge will use the picture to be merged as a shape fill rather than inserting the picture as a new shape and deleting the original shape (which is what caused the animation problem) Currently, this distorts the merged picture if the placeholder shape doesn't match picture's proportions. This will be addressed in a later version of Merge. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Sun, 15 Aug 2010 18:11:41 EST 15 August, 2010 Improved picture fill option Merge now determines the proportions of the picture to be merged, resizes the PIC:picturename placeholder to match and then sets merged picture as fill for the placeholder. In other words, the PIC:placeholder and the pictures to be merged needn't be the same proportions. Merge ensures that the pictures won't be distorted by resizing the placeholder. Note that this works with raster graphics files that PowerPoint can import (JPG, PNG, BMP, GIF etc) but not with vector graphics files (WMF, EMF, EPS etc.) If you merge vector graphics, Mefge simply fills the PIC:placeholder with the graphic without attempting to prevent distortion. We're looking into ways of fixing that problem next. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:42:45 EST Merge now ignores data in hidden Excel columns and rows. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Tue, 25 Jan 2011 20:05:24 EST FIX: discovered and worked around a bug in PowerPoint 2010 that caused images over approximately 415 pixels wide to import as squares instead of in their normal aspect ratio. FEATURE: Merge now allows you to choose XLSM as well as other Excel 2007/2010 file types as a data source if you're using PowerPoint 2007 or higher. FEATURE: Code Extensions You can now have Merge run your own VBA code on merged presentations after the merge completes. Save your code in a subroutine like so: Sub MergeExtension() ' your code here End Sub The subroutine MUST be named MergeExtension. Save the file containing the subroutine as MergeExtension.PPA or MergeExtension.PPAM (PPT 2007 or higher). Just before saving each merged presentation Merge looks for this file first in the same folder as your merge template file, then in your PPTools folder. When it finds the file, it loads it and runs the code in Sub MergeExtension(). The code can do pretty much anything you want it to. If you have special uses for Merge that aren't met by the basic product, we can now write custom code to extend Merge just for you. Contact us for details. See the Contact link at the left of every page on this site. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:30:25 EST Happy Valentine's Day! And to celebrate, Merge gets a new feature some of you may love: It's still a bit experimental but you can merge ranges of data (e.g. WorksheetName!A1:D8), named ranges of data or charts on chart sheets into specified areas on your PowerPoint slides. These can be merged as pictures, linked objects or embedded objects. It's all a bit much to explain in a small space, so if you're interested, please use the Contact link on the left of this page to get in touch with us. We're putting together more documentation and sample files that'll illustrate correct usage of these new features. As soon as these are ready, we'll include them in a new Merge installer. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Thu, 30 Jun 2011 23:36:19 EST 30 June, 2011 FIXED: If you used full paths to filenames in your @filename column, Merge would turn all the colons and slashes in the path into dashes, so the files would have VERY odd names and would land in the wrong place. It now removes improper characters from the filename only but leaves the drive and path intact. NEW: Updated Help file included with this version of Merge ... it's not really quite complete yet but enough of an improvement over the old help file that including it seemed like a good idea. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:51:20 EST FIXED: If the first cell or cells in a row of data were blank, Merge would pick up some or all of the data from the following non-blank cells in the row instead of simply treating the cell as empty. It now works correctly. FIXED: If you used full paths to filenames in your @filename column, Merge would turn all the colons and slashes in the path into dashes, so the files would have VERY odd names and would land in the wrong place. It now removes improper characters from the filename only but leaves the drive and path intact. NEW: Updated Help file included with this version of Merge ... it's not really quite complete yet but enough of an improvement over the old help file that including it seemed like a good idea. FIXED: Worked around an apparent bug in PowerPoint 2010 that prevented Merge from merging data into tables FIXED: bug in Slides Mode that could cause incomplete merges under some circumstances - only first N records worth of data might merge. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Tue, 05 Jul 2011 09:10:52 EST NEW: You can merge into both the ScreenTip Text of hyperlinks and Web Text of any shape on a slide. FIXED: If the first cell or cells in a row of data were blank, Merge would pick up some or all of the data from the following non-blank cells in the row instead of simply treating the cell as empty. It now works correctly. FIXED: If you used full paths to filenames in your @filename column, Merge would turn all the colons and slashes in the path into dashes, so the files would have VERY odd names and would land in the wrong place. It now removes improper characters from the filename only but leaves the drive and path intact. NEW: Updated Help file included with this version of Merge ... it's not really quite complete yet but enough of an improvement over the old help file that including it seemed like a good idea. FIXED: Worked around an apparent bug in PowerPoint 2010 that prevented Merge from merging data into tables FIXED: bug in Slides Mode that could cause incomplete merges under some circumstances - only first N records worth of data might merge. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Wed, 06 Jul 2011 10:20:39 EST NEW: You can merge into both the ScreenTip Text of hyperlinks and Web Text of any shape on a slide. FIXED: If the first cell or cells in a row of data were blank, Merge would pick up some or all of the data from the following non-blank cells in the row instead of simply treating the cell as empty. It now works correctly. FIXED: If you used full paths to filenames in your @filename column, Merge would turn all the colons and slashes in the path into dashes, so the files would have VERY odd names and would land in the wrong place. It now removes improper characters from the filename only but leaves the drive and path intact. NEW: Updated Help file included with this version of Merge ... it's not really quite complete yet but enough of an improvement over the old help file that including it seemed like a good idea. FIXED: Worked around an apparent bug in PowerPoint 2010 that prevented Merge from merging data into tables FIXED: bug in Slides Mode that could cause incomplete merges under some circumstances - only first N records worth of data might merge. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:48:30 EST FIX: Merge wasn't merging to shapes on custom layouts and some masters in PowerPoint 2007 and 2010. Working properly now. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00002.htm Tue, 09 Apr 2013 11:17:49 EST Speed and reliabilty improvements to Merge's Excel imports. Improvements to the Merge dialog box. AutoMerge feature added. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00005.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00005.htm Fri, 15 Jan 2016 12:35:18 EST If you use Merge to insert pictures from the internet via URLs rather than filenames, you may run into problems if you have an older copy of Microsoft Internet Explorer. This page explains more. http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00043.htm http://www.pptools.com/merge/FAQ00043.htm Wed, 02 Aug 2017 14:16:02 EST Merge can merge pictures from the internet as well as from your local computer. You can use URLs instead of file names/file paths if you wish. There are a few tricks to doing this. This page explains the details.