Mac Forum / Applications / PowerPoint / November 2005

Mac PPT's VBA is still at version 5 (ie, equivalent to Office 97), so a number
of things won't fly.  Enums, events ...

I don't recall when .FileDialog was ... erm ... revealed on the Windows side.
It's in PPT97 and PPT2000 but hidden.  Doesn't appear in PPTX, hidden or not.

I suspect you'll need to create your own dialog (user form) or learn
Applescript.

================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ:  www.pptfaq.com
PPTools:  www.pptools.com
================================================

Hi,

FileDialog is probably a new command introduced in Visual Basic for
Applications version 6. Office on the Mac supports VBA up to version 5.

However, it is possible to display the File Open dialog box
programmatically in VBA on the Mac.

One way is to use VBA to click the File Open button on the standard
toolbar. Check the Excecute command for command bar buttons in help for
an example.

A better way is to create a temporary toolbar, put the File Open button
on it, then use the execute command to display the File Open dialog box.
This way if someone has customized their standard toolbar it will still
work.

Here's some code I use to create a temporary toolbar called Animate Object:

    ' Create the temporary toolbar and add two command buttons to it
    Set TempBar = CommandBars.Add(Name:="AnimateObject")
    TempBar.Visible = True

    Application.CommandBars("AnimateObject").Controls.Add
Type:=msoControlButton, Id:= _
        2746, Before:=1
        Application.CommandBars("AnimateObject").Controls.Add
Type:=msoControlButton, Id:= _
        750, Before:=2

    'Set TempBarButton =
CommandBars("AnimateObject").Controls.Add(Type:=msoControlButton)
    'With TempBarButton
        '.FaceId = 2746
        '.Visible = True
    'End With
    Set MyBar = CommandBars("AnimateObject")
    With MyBar
        .Height = 0
        .Width = 50
        .RowIndex = 3
        .Position = msoBarTop
        .Visible = False
    End With

Notice that the FaceID number and the msoControlButton ID are the same
number. You can find those numbers by finding and downloading FACEID.XLS
(it's available from several MVP web sites - find it with Google). The
number for File Open dialog box is 23.

To get rid of the temporary command bar:
Application.CommandBars("AnimateObject").Delete

To click the first button on the command bar
Application.CommandBars("AnimateObject").Controls(1).Execute

To click the second it would be
Application.CommandBars("AnimateObject").Controls(2).Execute

Just to make sure everything worked OK I just successfully tested with
this code:

Sub tempbar()
    ' Create the temporary toolbar and add two command buttons to it
    Set test = CommandBars.Add(Name:="test")
    test.Visible = True

    Application.CommandBars("test").Controls.Add
Type:=msoControlButton, Id:= _
        23, Before:=1
End Sub

Sub click()
Application.CommandBars("test").Controls(1).Execute
End Sub

-Jim