PowerPoint Publishing

The HyperWorks Desktop PowerPoint Publishing feature reduces the effort needed to generate and update Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT) presentations from HyperWorks Desktop sessions. This is achieved by establishing a live link or connection between HyperWorks Desktop and PowerPoint. The synchronization can be triggered either from HyperWorks Desktop or PowerPoint using a PowerPoint add-in. Changes made in the PowerPoint presentation are preserved when new runs are post-processed after updating your session; full support of report templates are provided. The PowerPoint layout can be defined the first time you publish using PowerPoint master templates. You can visualize broken connections in PowerPoint, which allows for easy debugging if the PowerPoint presentation is not updated correctly. All HyperWorks Desktop export formats are supported: Anim., GIF, AVI, H3D, PNG, JPEG, BMP, and TIF. Dynamic linking of HyperGraph notes with PowerPoint allows text fields to be updated with new results. Live links are supported on Windows, whereas Linux is supported by data exchange over the file system using the PPT add-in.

To access PowerPoint Publishing, from the menu bar, select File > Publish > PowerPoint. Or, from the Standard toolbar > PPT menu, select Publish to PowerPoint.

powerpoint_publish_stan_toolbar

The first time you use PowerPoint Publishing on Windows, you will be prompted to install the PowerPoint add-in, as shown below. This adds the Altair menu to PowerPoint. Click OK to install the add-in.

powerpoint_publish_addin

PowerPoint Publishing Add-In prompt.

HyperWorks Desktop automatically installs the Altair PowerPoint add-in and maintains version handling.

Upon selection, the Publishing PowerPoint dialog is displayed:

publishing_powerpoint

Publishing PowerPoint dialog

You can uninstall the Altair add-in from PowerPoint by performing the following steps:

1.	From PowerPoint, click the Office button, , and select PowerPoint Options.

Note:

In Windows 8/PowerPoint 2013, you must use File > Options to view the PowerPoint Options dialog.

2.	From the PowerPoint Options dialog, click Add-Ins on the left side of the dialog.

3.	From the Manage drop-down menu, select PowerPoint Add-ins and click Go. The Add-Ins dialog is displayed.

4.	From the Add-Ins dialog, select the Altair PowerPointAddin_V# from the list and click Remove.

add_in_dialog_removing

The steps below illustrate the basic work flow when publishing data from your HyperWorks Desktop session to a PowerPoint presentation. Click on the links to see a more detailed description of a step.

1.	From the Preferences > Export Settings > PPT Options menu, select PPT Options.

From this dialog, you can select a master template and define the export options. See PPT Export Options for more information.

2.	From the Session browser > Publish column, select the pages from your session that you want to export.

3.	From the Standard toolbar, select the PPT icon, , or select File > Publish > PowerPoint. The Publishing PowerPoint dialog is displayed.

4.	From the dialog, select New PPT to publish to a new PowerPoint presentation. A PowerPoint presentation is created from your HyperWorks Desktop session.

5.	In HyperWorks Desktop, from the Publishing PowerPoint dialog, select Opened PPT.

6.	From the drop-down menu, select the opened PPT that you want to publish to. Or, choose Select PPT on Disk to open an existing PowerPoint file.

7.	Click Synchronize to update existing PowerPoint slides with the images and KPI's that have been changed in your session.

Note If you click Publish, all selected pages and windows will always be added as new slides to your PowerPoint presentation.

8.	Click Synchronize when Publishing to add new pages to PowerPoint and also synchronizes images, animations, and headers in the previously created PowerPoint pages.

Note:

If you make changes to your HyperWorks Desktop session, you can transfer those edits to an open or existing PowerPoint presentation.

From PowerPoint, you can update your presentation with the changes you made to your HyperWorks Desktop session.

1.	From the Altair add-in toolbar, select Sync Live. The changes from your HyperWorks Desktop session are synchronized to the PowerPoint file.

Note: Use File > Save As to save your HyperWorks Desktop session to a session file or report template for later use.

Item	Description
New PPT	Publishes your session to a new PowerPoint file. Publish will always add pages to a PowerPoint presentation, while Synchronize will update the linked objects in PowerPoint. Note: When you are publishing your session for the first time to a new PPT, Publish is the only option available on this dialog.
Opened PPT	Publishes or synchronizes your session to an open PowerPoint file.
Select PPT on Disk	Publishes or synchronizes your session to a saved PowerPoint file.
Synchronize when Publishing	Synchronizes your session data to PowerPoint when publishing. This will first synchronize the existing PowerPoint presentation and then append your PowerPoint presentation with the pages and windows that you selected from the Session browser.
Synchronize HyperGraph Notes	If selected, the HyperGraph notes are synchronized upon publishing.
Synchronize	Click Synchronize to transfer the updates made in your HyperWorks Desktop session to your currently linked PowerPoint presentation.
Publish	Click Publish to add new slides to the PowerPoint PPT for all of the checked page titles, windows, and tagged notes from HyperWorks Desktop, with respect to what is selected to be published in the Session browser. Note: Publish always appends news slides to the opened or saved PowerPoint PPT. You must rearrange the order of the slides in PowerPoint to insert pages later.
PPT Options	Displays the PPT Export Options dialog. Use this dialog to define your presentation layout when first publishing to a new PowerPoint presentation.
Cancel	Closes the dialog.

Export options must be defined before exporting your session to PowerPoint. From the Preferences > Export Settings menu, select PPT Options. Or, from the Publishing PowerPoint dialog, click PPT Options. All settings will be saved in the hwsettings.xml file and will be available in the next HyperWorks desktop session.

ppt_export_options

PowerPoint Options dialog for HyperWorks Desktop on Windows

Defining PowerPoint Export Options on Windows - Use PPT Presentation resolution with Scale Factor

When using HyperWorks Desktop for Windows with no more than two windows above or beside each other, the Use PPT Presentation resolution with Scale Factor option is the preferred method. If you have five or more windows in your HyperWorks Desktop session, the Fixed Resolution option should be used.

When you sync your session data with PowerPoint and the Use PPT Presentation resolution with Scale Factor option is active, the sync feature automatically takes care of the following situations:

•	Changes to the PowerPoint master aspect ratio.

•	Changes to the distances between the graphical area and the PowerPoint borders.

•	Changes to the aspect ratio or the size of images or animations in PowerPoint.

Using the scaling factor makes it easy to control the proportion of text in the legend in relation to the images in the PowerPoint file.

The height and the width of the exported images in PowerPoint, either at the first export defined by the borders in the Visual Position section or at sync time defined by the size in PowerPoint, is multiplied by the scaling factor to maintain the session's correct appearance when published to PowerPoint. If the scale factor is set to 1, the image will be captured in the exact same pixel size as it has in PowerPoint, which could lead to disproportionately large legends or labels.

Only this option allows you to deform the images/plots in PowerPoint (from your HyperWorks Desktop session) and return them to their preferred appearance by selecting Altair > Sync Live in PowerPoint. The aspect ratio will be maintained.

Defining PPT Export Options on Windows and Linux - Fixed Resolution and Use HyperWorks Desktop area resolution

Both the Fixed Resolution and Use HyperWorks Desktop area resolution options are available on Windows and Linux. When using HyperWorks Desktop on Linux, or if you have pages with many windows, the Fixed Resolution option is the preferred method because:

•	The export is independent from the Linux screen resolution.

•	You can maintain the aspect ratio when you:

o	Maintain the existing PowerPoint master file resolution (saved in the hwsettings.xml file).

o	Maintain the distances between the graphical area and the PowerPoint borders (saved in the hwsettings.xml file)

Maintain the aspect ratio in PowerPoint. You can shrink or enlarge an image using ONLY the corner handles, not the top or bottom middle image anchors. If the corner handles aren't used to re-size the image, and if you export the session again from HyperWorks Desktop to PowerPoint, the images will not be displayed properly in PowerPoint; the aspect ratio will not be maintained.

On Linux, you can increase or decrease the resolution in the PPT Export Options dialog and sync those changes from the XML file using Altair > Sync File when you change the width ONLY (the height automatically adjusts). If you change the Visual Position values in the dialog or the PPT Aspect Ratio option, the aspect ratio will not be maintained.

Note: It is recommended that you document your settings in case you delete your hwsettings.xml file.

If you are using HyperWorks Desktop on Linux and select the Use the HyperWorks Desktop area resolution, the following occurs:

•	PowerPoint Publishing keeps the HyperWorks Desktop graphical resolution and fits it proportionally into the PowerPoint window with the first export, maintaining the aspect ratio.

•	Synchronization behaves as follows:

o	On Windows, the sync captures the images in the exact same size as they have in PPT and fits it into the PowerPoint window, maintaining the aspect ratio. No scaling factor is used.

o	On Linux, it captures the HyperWorks Desktop resolution and fits it into the PowerPoint window size as it was created upon the first export. If you change the ratio/window size in HyperWorks Desktop, it can look distorted in PowerPoint.

When a PowerPoint presentation is synced on Linux with data from a new run using the XML file with the Sync files feature in the PowerPoint plug-in (see Synching Data from PowerPoint to HyperWorks Desktop), we recommend the following:

•	Always export using the Fixed Resolution option.

•	Always use the same settings/values for the margins, picture resolution, and aspect ratio in the PPT Export Options dialog (they are saved in hwsettings.xml when you restart HyperWorks Desktop).

•	Never change the aspect ratio of the tagged images in PowerPoint (changing the size and position is acceptable).

Thumbnail Mode on Windows

PowerPoint Publishing offers a thumbnail mode, which is available on Windows only and in the following situations:

•	Each time you use the option Use PPT Presentation Resolution with Scale Factor (first export and update).

•	When you select Use HyperWorks Desktop area resolution and the Sync Live option in PowerPoint. Upon the first export, a 1:1 scale factor is used to capture the area and fit it into the PowerPoint area.

•	This feature is triggered if either the height or width of an image in PowerPoint is below 300 pixels.

•	It is not used when you select the Fixed Resolution option.

In thumbnail mode, the height of the captured image is always 540 pixels when capturing in HyperWorks Desktop. The width is calculated according to the aspect ratio in PowerPoint to keep the aspect ratio.

Other options in the dialog include the following:

Item

Description

PowerPoint master

Click the file browser icon to select a PowerPoint master template.

Title attributes

Use Separate TextBox for each HWD Page Title - Select this to overwrite the master template and use a separate text box for each page title in your HyperWorks Desktop session.

Select the font icon, , to overwrite the default font options.

Use title attributes from Master PPT - Select this option to use the title attributes from the master PowerPoint template.

Visual Position

Positions the page title and graphics area object to a defined position in the PowerPoint slide. Enter values as the percentage of the whole page width and height for the following:

•	Title From Top (default: 5) Positions the page title from the top of the page.

•	Title From Left (default: 5) Positions the page title from the left of the page.

•	Graphical Area from Top (default: 20) Positions the graphical area from the top of the page.

•	Graphical Area from Bottom (default: 10) Positions the graphical area from the bottom of the page.

•	Graphical Area from Left (default: 10) Positions the graphical area from the left of the page.

•	Graphical Area from Right (default: 10) Positions the graphical area from the right of the page.

If you change the values described under Visual Position, the height will automatically change without distorting the published output in PowerPoint.

Page

Select Publish each window to a separate slide, if necessary.

Tag Table

Click to open the Tag Table dialog, which displays the tag name for each object in your session and its format. A tag is a label used to identify two linked objects in HyperWorks Desktop and PowerPoint. In PowerPoint, objects can be text boxes, images or animations, which correspond in HyperWorks Desktop to page titles, notes or windows. To change the tag's format, click in the Format cell and select a new type from the drop-down menu.

Note: The Tag Table is only available on Windows.

When you select a tag from the Tag column, the object is displayed in a thumbnail preview in the bottom portion of the Tab Table.

tagtable

•	Rename Tags: Click on the tag name to rename it. Page titles and images are auto tagged. To edit the tag names for better orientation, use Auto Tag and then rename the tags before publishing for the first time.

•	Auto Tag: Automatically applies tags to the HyperWorks Desktop session objects.

•	Clear Tags: Clears the current tags, allowing you to assign new tag names to objects before publishing.

•	Close: Closes the dialog.

OK

Accepts the current settings and saves them to hwsettings.xml.

Cancel

Cancels all changes and does not modify hwsettings.xml; closes the dialog.

The TableView tab contains the following option, which is on by default.

•	Sync with conditional formatting colors

ppt_export_tableview

When this option is enabled, and you select the Sync Live option from the PowerPoint Altair menu, PowerPoint only retrieves changes from the conditionally formatted cells. It does not retrieve manual changes made to the cells. This allows you to edit your PowerPoint file without the risk of losing any of your changes if you sync again with your HyperWorks Desktop session.

When you export a TableView session to a new PowerPoint file for the first time, the spreadsheet may not export exactly as it appears in TableView. You may need to resize it in PowerPoint so that it fits properly on the page. For example, if you return to HyperGraph and change curve attributes, the conditionally formatted TableView cells would also change.

In the image below, if you manually change the background color for a cell in the Body Part column, this change would not be synced with PowerPoint. However, conditionally formatted cell data based upon plot data changes would be synced with PowerPoint and reflected in the PowerPoint file.

ppt_tableview_cell_ex

Note If you are in PowerPoint and you want to sync a TableView table, the TableView table must still have the same number of columns and rows as it did when you first published the session to PowerPoint. If you change the number of rows or columns in the TableView table, PowerPoint will not be able to sync that type of change and an error message will be displayed.

Similarly, if you change the number of rows or columns in a TableView table and you attempt to synchronize the updated *.mvw session with an open or existing PowerPoint file, an error message will be displayed.

From the Publish column in the Session browser, select the pages or windows that you want to publish to PowerPoint. Once selected, right-click in the Session browser to access the following context menu options:

Item	Description
Create Tag	To create a tag for a new entity in the Session browser, right-click on the entity and select Create Tag. The following dialog is displayed: Enter a tag name and select its format from the drop-down menu.
Tag Table	To view, rename, delete, or change the format for tags while in the Session browser, right-click and select Tag Table from the context menu. See the previous Tag Table definition for more information.
Quick Publish	Transfers data to PowerPoint from the HyperWorks Desktop session with respect to what is selected/highlighted in the Session browser (the publishing settings will be ignored). Quick Publish always create new pages in the PowerPoint file. If you are on a HyperWorks Desktop page, HyperGraph notes are tagged and no windows are selected for publishing; the page must be selected so that the notes will be published.
Publish Settings	See Publish Settings to learn more about the EMF and MPT file format option available when publishing a session.

HyperWorks Desktop automatically adds the Altair add-in tool to PowerPoint when you first use PowerPoint Publishing. The Altair menu options allow you to take the updates from your PowerPoint presentation and sync them to your HyperWorks Desktop session. You can also view the tag names and actual values of the object in the presentation using View Names and View Values.

powerpoint_plugin_menubar

Item	Description
Sync Live	Click Sync Live to perform a live update to your PowerPoint presentation with the changes made to your HyperWorks Desktop session.
Tag Table	Displays the tag name for each object in your session and its format. From this table, you can view the tags and verify that the connections or links between the HyperWorks Desktop session and PowerPoint are established. The connection is retained by the tag name. To change the tag's format, click in the Format cell and select a new type from the drop-down menu.
For Linux Only: Sync File	On Linux, you can also sync a modified PowerPoint presentation, however the work flow is different. You can publish from a HyperWorks Desktop session to a new PowerPoint file only; the other options are disabled in the Publishing PowerPoint GUI. If you modify your HyperWorks Desktop session, you cannot synchronize those changes with an existing or opened PowerPoint file using live link like you can on Windows. You have to use Publish to transfers those changes to an existing PowerPoint presentation. A .vbs file, .xml file and the directory [demo_pptData] are created when you publish from HyperWorks Desktop on Linux to PowerPoint. Double-click the *.vbs file to open the PowerPoint file when you want to create a new PowerPoint presentation When you want to update your presentation from PowerPoint, use Sync File to load the XML file that contains any changes to the HyperWorks Desktop session. See Using PowerPoint Publishing on Linux for more information.
View Names	Click View Names to view the tag names on the PowerPoint slides. The tag values indicate if the tag came from HyperWorks Desktop or if it was directly added in PowerPoint. For example, below is an example of a HyperWorks Desktop session tag: Text tags are string-based and require a string match to retain a connection. If you enter text in the tagged text field in PowerPoint, the tag will break. The broken tag is displayed in red. A broken tag also displays Missing "Tag Name" on the PowerPoint slide. For example, the text "Crash Comparison" has been altered in PowerPoint and as a result, the tag is broken, as illustrated in the image below.
View Values	Click View Values to view the actual values of the tags (images, animations, plots and text) in PowerPoint file.

On Linux, you can publish a HyperWorks Desktop session to a new PowerPoint file. If you modify your HyperWorks Desktop session, you cannot synchronize those changes with an existing or opened PowerPoint file like you can on Windows, you can only use Publish to New PPT to transfer those changes to an existing PowerPoint presentation.

To access PowerPoint Publishing, from the menu bar, select File > Publish > PowerPoint. Or, from the Standard toolbar > PPT menu, select Publish to PowerPoint.

The Publishing PowerPoint dialog is displayed:

publishing_powerpoint_linux

1.	From the Publishing PowerPoint dialog, select New PPT and click Publish.

2.	From the file browser, select a location to save your file. The following files are saved:

*.xml, *.vbs, and a [demo_pptData] directory.

3.	For a newly-published session, double-click the *.vbs file. The PowerPoint files opens.

Note: HyperWorks Desktop will prompt you to add the Altair add-in to PowerPoint upon selecting the *.vbs file for the first time.

4.	If you update your HyperWorks Desktop session and you want to update the PowerPoint presentation, click New PPT > Publish to create a new set of files as described above to capture those modifications.

When you edit the HyperWorks Desktop session and you want to capture those changes to a PowerPoint file, click Publish to create a new PPT. Each time you publish to PowerPoint on Linux, a new set of files is created: *.vbs, *.xml and the [demo_pptData]. You can use the XML file to synchronize an existing PowerPoint file with the changes made in HyperWorks Desktop.

1.	Open a saved PowerPoint presentation.

2.	From PowerPoint, click the Altair tab. The toolbar is displayed.

altair_addin_tools

3.	Click Sync File to load the XML file.

4.	All the images in the PowerPoint presentation are updated to reflect the images contained in the XML file.

How do I...

1.	From the menu bar, select Preferences > Export Settings > PPT Options. The PPT Export Options dialog is displayed.

2.	From the PowerPoint master field, click the file browser to select a master template.

3.	From the Session browser, select the pages from your session that you want to publish.

session_browser_publish

Once your pages are selected, you are ready to publish your session to PowerPoint.

4.	From the menu bar, select File > Publish > PowerPoint. Or, from the Standard toolbar > PPT menu, select Publish to PowerPoint to display the Publishing PowerPoint dialog.

5.	From the Publishing PowerPoint dialog, select New PPT.

6.	Click Publish. The HyperWorks Desktop session is published to a PowerPoint presentation.

7.	Select File > Save As > Session or File > Save As > Report Template to save to a session file or a report template for later use.

If you have added pages to your HyperWorks desktop session, or have edited existing data in your session, you can transfer these modifications to an open PowerPoint file.

1.	From the menu bar, select File > Publish > PowerPoint. Or, from the Standard toolbar > PPT menu, select Publish to PowerPoint to display the Publishing PowerPoint dialog.

2.	From the Publishing PowerPoint dialog, select Opened PPT.

3.	From the drop-down menu, select the opened PPT that you want to publish to. Or, choose Select PPT on Disk to open an existing PowerPoint file.

4.	Click Synchronize to update existing PowerPoint slides with only the images that have been changed in your session.

Note If you click Publish, new slides will be added to your PowerPoint presentation.

5.	Click Synchronize when Publishing to add new pages to PowerPoint and also synchronizes images, animations, and headers in previously created PowerPoint pages.

From PowerPoint, you can update your presentation with the changes you made to your HyperWorks Desktop session.

1.	From PowerPoint, click the Altair tab. The toolbar is displayed.

altair_addin_tools

2.	Click Sync Live to update PowerPoint with the modifications made in the HyperWorks Desktop session.

PowerPoint Publishing

PowerPoint Publishing

PowerPoint Publishing

New PPT

Opened PPT

Select PPT on Disk

Synchronize when Publishing

Synchronize HyperGraph Notes

Synchronize

Publish

PPT Options

Cancel

Defining PowerPoint Export Options on Windows - Use PPT Presentation resolution with Scale Factor

Thumbnail Mode on Windows

PowerPoint master

Title attributes

Visual Position

Page

Tag Table

OK

Cancel

Create Tag

Tag Table

Quick Publish

Publish Settings

Sync Live

Tag Table

For Linux Only: Sync File

View Names

View Values

How do I...