Configuring PowerPoint templates

Applies to JungleDocs for Office 365.
For a similar tutorial for JungleDocs for SharePoint 2010-2019, click here.

In this JungleDocs for Office 365 tutorial, you will learn how to configure PowerPoint templates by adding content controls and Small Parts.

Configure your PowerPoint template using placeholders

Using JungleDocs for 365 you can configure a PowerPoint template to be auto-filled with metadata from your SharePoint Online lists. You do this by inserting a column name in brackets, like this: {ColumnInternalName} or {[Column Display Name]}. For example, if we used {Customer:Address} in the template, assigned this template to a rule, and then ran that rule after selecting the Contoso company as a customer, the address of this company would be displayed in the generated PowerPoint presentation.

Configure your PowerPoint template using Small Parts

With JungleDocs for Office 365, you can easily merge multiple PowerPoint slides/files into one. The merging of multiple PowerPoint files is very similar to Word document merging using Small Parts.

There are three steps you will have to go through. They are as follows:

1. Create a PowerPoint Small Parts library.

2. Configure your PowerPoint template.

3. Configure your JungleDocs rule.

1. Create a PowerPoint Small Parts library

1. Click Settings > Add an app, then select Document Library.

2. Select Advanced Options.

3. Give your library a name, then, under Document Template, select Microsoft PowerPoint presentation and click Create.

4. Now create folders in this library and copy the slides into the folders according to the topic. We recommend using one PowerPoint slide per file.

2. Configure your PowerPoint template

Now that you have created a PowerPoint Small Parts library, you need to link the folders in this library to your PowerPoint template that is assigned to a rule.

1. Open the PowerPoint template used by the rule.

2. In the slide title field, enter  Small Part: FolderName to create a reference to a particular Small Parts folder (e.g., Small Part: Introduction). Use one slide to refer to one folder.

Note that unlike in Word, there are no content controls in PowerPoint: it's sufficient to write text in the slide title. Use one slide for one Small Part folder.

3. Configure your JungleDocs rule

Now that you have configured your PowerPoint template you can move onto working on the JungleDocs rule.

1. Create a library for storage of the generated presentations, add the content type with the configured template and required columns.

2. In this library, launch JungleDocs for Office from the ribbon. In the New tab, you will automatically see all rules based on the library content types.

3. Click on the down-arrow to edit the Base rule.

4. Provide a location for Small Parts. Click Browse to navigate to the correct library.

5. Edit other rule settings if needed. Once the Small Parts library is defined the JungleDocs rule icon will say so.

6. You can also decide to create a new Base rule with different settings for another template.

You are all set to go now. You can start assembling your presentations by clicking on the JungleDocs rule you’ve just created or edited.