WiX Installer for VSTO with Visual Studio

I needed to create a silent installer for a VSTO Office Add-In I had created. The installer would be deployed silently via a group policy with an internal network. To do this an MSI (Microsoft Installer) would be ideal which would let you run something like this:

msiexec /i c:\path\to\installer.msi /quiet /log c:\path\to\info.log 

The only MS info I could find regarding the install of a VSTO was really old (originally for Visual Studio 2013) and required InstallShield.

I then investigated creating a MS “Setup Project” – which may have worked eventually, if I persevered, but there seemed to be a lot of “working out” to do that should be straight forward.

So, then I turned my attention to WiX Toolset. I had seen this used previously, it is free and I have nothing to lose.

Change the Master Slide with Aspose

I’ve done quite a bit of work with Aspose and come up with solutions I haven’t found documented anywhere.

The challenge is to take an initial PowerPoint file to use as a template and append another PowerPoint file to it. Then output multiple Presentations, each with a version of the master slides applied.

MS SQL module for pyodbc

I’ve been learning Python over the past week, and following on from my previous post I put together a handy “data.py” module for all the basic SQL commands:

Connect Python to MS SQL Server

In the event you need to connect to a MS SQL Server database from Python, there are two installs required to have Python connect to your MS SQL database.

PowerPoint VBA export slides to PPTX and JPG files

Normally I steer clear of VBA, but if I just need to do some quick processing then it makes sense!

Sub ExportSlidesToIndividual()
    Dim oPPT As Presentation, oSlide As Slide
    Set oPPT = ActivePresentation
    For Each oSlide In oPPT.Slides
        i = oSlide.SlideNumber
        t = "Slide"
         For Each oShp In oSlide.Shapes
          With oShp
            If .Type = msoPlaceholder Then
              Select Case .PlaceholderFormat.Type
                Case ppPlaceholderCenterTitle, ppPlaceholderTitle
                  t = oShp.TextFrame.TextRange.Text
                 
              End Select
            End If
          End With
        Next
        pad = Right(String(3, "0") & (i * 10), 3)
        oSlide.Export "c:\exported\" & pad & t & ".jpg", "JPG"
        oSlide.Export "c:\exported\" & pad &  t & ".pptx", "PPTX"            
    Next
    Set oPPT = Nothing
    MsgBox ("Processing complete")
End Sub

Visual Studio Tools for Office with the Image Relay API

This project is just an example of what is possible with the Image Relay API. Image Relay is a DAM system. I have changed the client name and images for the purpose of this entry. It is also possible to do this using a demo account.

This add-in was created to allow users within an organisation to insert “on brand” imagery within a presentation.

Bad Request – Invalid Verb HTTP Error 400. The request verb is invalid.

In my development environment I run a local web browser from visual studio. I was developing an app which used Web API 2. I had no problems and then suddenly I got this error being returned by my API: