Open and save Presentation in Xamarin

3 Aug 20265 minutes to read

Syncfusion® PowerPoint is a Xamarin PowerPoint library used to create, read, edit and convert PowerPoint documents programmatically without Microsoft PowerPoint or interop dependencies. Using this library, you can open and save a Presentation in Xamarin.

Steps to open and save a PowerPoint presentation programmatically

Step 1: Create a new C# Xamarin.Forms application project.

Create Xamarin project

Step 2: Select a project template and the required platforms to deploy the application. In this application, the .NET Standard code-sharing strategy is selected so that portable assemblies are shared across multiple platforms. For more details about code sharing, refer here.

Create Xamarin CodeSharing Option

Step 3: Install Syncfusion.Xamarin.Presentation NuGet package as a reference to the .NET Standard project in your Xamarin applications from NuGet.org.

Install Syncfusion.Xamarin.Presentation Nuget Package

Starting with v16.2.0.x, if you reference Syncfusion® assemblies from trial setup or from the NuGet feed, you also have to add “Syncfusion.Licensing” assembly reference and include a license key in your projects. Please refer to this link to know about registering Syncfusion® license key in your application to use our components.

Step 4: Add a new Forms XAML page to the portable project if no XAML page is defined in the App class. Otherwise, proceed to the next step.

  • To add the new XAML page, right-click the project and select Add > New Item, then add a Forms XAML Page from the list. Name it MainXamlPage.
  • In the App class of the portable project (App.cs), replace the existing constructor of the App class with the code snippet given below, which invokes the MainXamlPage.
public App()
{
  // The root page of your application
  MainPage = new MainXamlPage();
}

Step 5: In the MainXamlPage.xaml add new button as shown below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
             x:Class="Read_and_edit_PowerPoint_presentation.MainXamlPage">
    <StackLayout VerticalOptions="Center">
        <Button Text="Open and Save Presentation" Clicked="OpenAndSavePresentation" HorizontalOptions="Center"/>
    </StackLayout>
</ContentPage>

Step 6: Include the following namespaces in the MainXamlPage.xaml.cs file.

using System.IO;
using System.Reflection;
using Syncfusion.Presentation;
using Xamarin.Forms;

Step 7: Include the below code snippet in the click event of the button in MainXamlPage.xaml.cs, to open an existing PowerPoint presentation in Xamarin.

//"App" is the class of Portable project.
Assembly assembly = typeof(App).GetTypeInfo().Assembly;
//Open an existing PowerPoint presentation
IPresentation pptxDoc = Presentation.Open(assembly.GetManifestResourceStream("Read-and-edit-PowerPoint-presentation.Assets.Template.pptx"));

Step 8: Add the code snippet below, which demonstrates accessing a shape from a slide and changing the text within it.

//Gets the first slide from the PowerPoint presentation
ISlide slide = pptxDoc.Slides[0];
//Gets the first shape of the slide
IShape shape = slide.Shapes[0] as IShape;
//Change the text of the shape
if (shape.TextBody.Text == "Company History")
    shape.TextBody.Text = "Company Profile";

Step 9: Add the code example below to save the PowerPoint presentation in Xamarin.

//Create new memory stream to save Presentation.
MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();
//Save Presentation in stream format.
pptxDoc.Save(stream);
//Close the presentation
pptxDoc.Close();
stream.Position = 0;
//Save the stream as a file in the device and invoke it for viewing
Xamarin.Forms.DependencyService.Get<ISave>().SaveAndView("Output.pptx", "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation", stream);

Helper files for Xamarin

Refer the below helper files and add them into the mentioned project. These helper files allow you to save the stream as a physical file and open the file for viewing.

Project File Name Summary

Portable project

ISave.cs

 Represent the base interface for save operation

iOS Project

SaveIOS.cs

 Save implementation for iOS device

PreviewControllerDS.cs

 Helper class for viewing the PowerPoint Presentation in iOS device

Android project

SaveAndroid.cs

 Save implementation for Android device

UWP project

SaveWindows.cs

 Save implementation for UWP device.

You can download a complete working sample from GitHub.

By executing the program, you will get the PowerPoint document as follows.

Xamarin output PowerPoint document