Can't preview presentation in gmail

[andres-root]

Hi,
I'm trying to preview a presentation created with python-pptx in gmail but It says that it can't be opened. I'm not sure why is this happening. Is there a way to archive this with python-pptx?

Thanks!

[scanny]

We need a substantially more complete description before we can act on this one.

[andres-root]

This is a screenshot of what I mean. I also tried all of the options in the menu. In neither case does it work. I'm wondering if there is a way to format the pptx generated with python-pptx in order to allow gmail to preview the presentation.

[andres-root]

By the way thanks for your quick answer!

[scanny]

Hmm, that's interesting. Can you open the presentation okay with PowerPoint? Also, what .pptx file did you start off with in python-pptx?

Also, what would you expect to appear? Would it just be the first slide or would you be able to page through the slides?

[andres-root]

Well, when I do the same with a pptx generated with ms powerpoint or libre office it allows me to preview all the presentation. I can open the presentation without problems using powerpoint or libre office though.

[scanny]

Ok, I have an idea what this might be. My hypothesis is that Gmail is looking for a slide count in the <Slides> element of the app.xml in the .pptx package. If a presentation is created from the default template, e.g. with document = Document() (no file path), that number is 0. This could be causing Gmail to think there are no slides in the package.

Give this a try and see if it works:

1. With python-pptx, open an existing pptx file saved by PowerPoint or LibreOffice (i.e. not created with python-pptx).
2. Save it without making any changes under a different filename
3. See if that works with Gmail

document = Document('native.pptx')
document.save('touched-by-python-pptx.pptx')

If that works it would support the hypothesis. We can go from there.

[andres-root]

Hi, I did the test, and I can preview the presentation, but, I made a test adding some shapes and then it only showed the first slide in the preview. For the test I used this tutorial on read the docs: https://python-pptx.readthedocs.org/en/latest/user/quickstart.html. Since the presentation that I create in my app is way more complex, I think that's the main reason it does not show any preview on gmail. However I'll keep testing if I see anything else.

[scanny]

Did you only add shapes or did you actually add a slide as well?

[andres-root]

I added a Slide as well.
On Nov 12, 2014 2:26 PM, "Steve Canny" [email protected] wrote:

Did you only add shapes or did you actually add a slide as well?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#131 (comment).

[scanny]

why don't you try with just adding shapes to an existing slide. If that works, it would point to adding a slide as the triggering event.

Then you could add a single blank slide and see if that triggers the break.

If you get it narrowed down to that I can give you a few lines of 'repair' code to fix up the slide count figure in app.xml and we'll see if that fixes it. I've got a suspicion it will.