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Update an Existing Presentation Safely

Use this workflow when changing a presentation you did not create in the current session.

1. Test before opening

presentation(action="test", filePath="C:\Decks\existing.pptx")

test checks whether PowerPoint can open the file without keeping a live session. If it succeeds, open the file once and keep the returned session ID.

2. Inspect before editing

Start with discovery operations:

  • slide(action="get-count", ...) for the slide range.
  • shape(action="get-count", ...) for each slide you will change.
  • shape(action="get-name", ...) and shape(action="get-alt-text", ...) to identify content.
  • textframe(action="get-text", ...) before replacing text.
  • layout(action="get-layout", ...) and pagesetup(action="get-settings", ...) before changing layout or size.

Reading first avoids editing the wrong 1-based index.

3. Make focused changes

Change only the slides and shapes needed for the task. If a change is uncertain, render that slide before continuing rather than making the same guess across the whole deck.

4. Verify and close

Render every changed slide with export(action="export-slide-to-image", ...). Run the accessibility audit when content or reading order changed.

Close with save=true to keep the changes or save=false to discard them:

presentation(action="close", sessionId="...", save=true)