So the blog has been quieter than usual, but I haven’t been so quiet around here. I am working on learning more about how VBA works with PowerPoint so I can make more interactive PowerPoints than animations alone can do. (I cannot believe this but I seriously think this project might drive me to Flickr and the professional learning networks that are over there…) Beyond that, once I get the code to run, I am afraid it won’t run the same on the Mac as it does on the PC. (The lack of streamlined animation responses pushed me to VBA). I really wish Microsoft would publish identical software packages (like include the Mac’s magic lasso in the PC version and the PC’s custom animation path feature on the Mac).
I guess I needed to vent. If you have suggestions beyond the Powerful PowerPoint for Educators book and the websites that come up when one searches for VBA and PowerPoint, I would gladly take them! I’ll post an update on this project when there is more news. I hope the summer is bringing you time to rest, refresh, and explore new things.
No Time to Sleep 
Have you seen the PowerPoint VBA reference from Microsoft? (link in my latest blog entry: http://metazin.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/how-to-work-with-powerpoint-files-in-python/)
Also, I can tell you VBA will not work with PowerPoint 2008 on the Mac — Microsoft removed VBA support from Office 2008 (the Excel users on Mac are particularly perturbed by this). If you need to target Mac PowerPoint, AppleScript is the way to go. I’ll try to write about that in the future (you can also hook up Python to Applescript).