creating a new pptx with python-pptx, and setting dimensions

Question

I have a series of images that I want to consistently embed in a powerpoint document at the same position on the page.

I can do the image import piece, but I need the powerpoint dimensions to be specifiable by the user.

I think I can use the slide_height and slide_width. I'm trying code like this, to get a page 300mm high, but it isn't working:

pack = Presentation(pptx=None) pack.slide_height(300) pack.save('test.pptx')

It throws a "TypeError: 'Emu' object is not callable" error.

I'm sure this is really obvious, but I can't see what the syntax should be, and the documentation isn't helping me. Would anyone be able to correct my code?

Many thanks,

Jeff.

Answer 1

I think what you're looking for is this:

from pptx import Presentation
from pptx.util import Mm

prs = Presentation()
prs.slide_height = Mm(300)
prs.save('test.pptx')

In the API documentation for Presentation.slide_height you'll notice that slide_height is not followed by any parentheses (in contrast to save() just above it, for example). This indicates that slide_height is a property rather than a method, and is used by accessing it directly or assigning to it, like any other attribute.

The native unit of PowerPoint is the English Metric Unit (EMU), which is 1/914400th of an inch. These are described in the documentation here. 300 of these is a very short length indeed, which is what you would get if you assigned 300 to slide_height directly.

To allow you to skip the arithmetic, there are a variety of utility objects (like Mm() above) that allow EMU to be specified in common units, like centimeters and inches. Those are described in the documentation here.