Apache POI - Java - Get Section Name - PowerPoint

Question

Microsoft Powerpoint has a feature to split the slides by section (a logical grouping). What's the best way to extract the section name? Tech Stack -

• Apache POI - v5.2.2
• Java

I've achieved the same with VBA sectionName = ActivePresentation.SectionProperties.Name(currentSlide.sectionIndex)

Answer 1

The Office Open XML which Apache POI uses is Office Open XML defined in 2006 and first published in Office 2007. This OOXML does not know something about sections in presentations. Sections were introduced later (2010).

Even ECMA-376 5th edition does not contain anything about sections in presentations. So Microsoft has not public published XSDs for this extension yet. So XmlBeans can't have created classes for it.

So if one would want using that feature, one would must manipulate the XML directly.

How to get what XML needs to be manipulated?

All Office Open XML files, so also PowerPoint *.pptx, are ZIP archives containing XML files and other files in a special directory structure. One can simply unzip a *.pptx file and have a look into.

Have a look into the /ppt/presentation.xml and you will see the XML.

What to use to manipulate the XML?

One can use org.openxmlformats.schemas.presentationml.x2006.main.* classes contained in poi-ooxml-full-5.*.jar as long as possible and else org.apache.xmlbeans.XmlObject and/or org.apache.xmlbeans.XmlCursorcontained in xmlbeans-5.*.jar. But using XmlObject directly can be very laborious.

Complete example for how to get the sections and the section names:

import java.io.FileInputStream;

import org.apache.poi.xslf.usermodel.*;

import org.apache.xmlbeans.XmlObject;
import javax.xml.namespace.QName;

public class PowerPointGetSectionProperties {
    
 static Long getSlideId(XSLFSlide slide) {
  if (slide == null) return null;
  Long slideId = null;
  XMLSlideShow presentation = slide.getSlideShow();
  String slideRId = presentation.getRelationId(slide);
  org.openxmlformats.schemas.presentationml.x2006.main.CTPresentation ctPresentation = presentation.getCTPresentation();
  org.openxmlformats.schemas.presentationml.x2006.main.CTSlideIdList sldIdLst = ctPresentation.getSldIdLst();
  for (org.openxmlformats.schemas.presentationml.x2006.main.CTSlideIdListEntry sldId : sldIdLst.getSldIdList()) {
   if (sldId.getId2().equals(slideRId)) {
    slideId = sldId.getId();
    break;
   }
  }
  return slideId;
 } 
 
 static XmlObject[] getSections(org.openxmlformats.schemas.presentationml.x2006.main.CTExtensionList extList) {
  if (extList == null) return new XmlObject[0]; 
  XmlObject[] sections = extList.selectPath(
    "declare namespace p14='http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/powerpoint/2010/main' "
   +".//p14:section");
  return sections;
 }
 
 static XmlObject[] getSectionSldIds(XmlObject section) {
  if (section == null) return new XmlObject[0];
  XmlObject[] sldIds = section.selectPath(
    "declare namespace p14='http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/powerpoint/2010/main' "
   +".//p14:sldId");
  return sldIds;
 }
 
 static Long getSectionSldId(XmlObject sectionSldId) {
  if (sectionSldId == null) return null;     
  Long sldIdL = null;
  XmlObject sldIdO = sectionSldId.selectAttribute(new QName("id"));
  if (sldIdO instanceof org.apache.xmlbeans.impl.values.XmlObjectBase) {
   String sldIsS = ((org.apache.xmlbeans.impl.values.XmlObjectBase)sldIdO).getStringValue();
   try {
    sldIdL = Long.valueOf(sldIsS); 
   } catch (Exception ex) {
    // do nothing
   }
  }
  return sldIdL;
 }

 static XmlObject getSection(XSLFSlide slide) {
  Long slideId = getSlideId(slide);
  if (slideId != null) {
   XMLSlideShow presentation = slide.getSlideShow();
   org.openxmlformats.schemas.presentationml.x2006.main.CTPresentation ctPresentation = presentation.getCTPresentation();
   org.openxmlformats.schemas.presentationml.x2006.main.CTExtensionList extList = ctPresentation.getExtLst();
   XmlObject[] sections = getSections(extList);
   for (XmlObject section : sections) {
    XmlObject[] sectionSldIds = getSectionSldIds(section);
    for (XmlObject sectionSldId : sectionSldIds) {
     Long sldIdL = getSectionSldId(sectionSldId);
     if (slideId.equals(sldIdL)) {
      return section;
     }
    }
   }
  }
  return null;
 }
 
 static String getSectionName(XmlObject section) {
  if (section == null) return null;
  String sectionName = null;
  XmlObject name = section.selectAttribute(new QName("name"));
  if (name instanceof org.apache.xmlbeans.impl.values.XmlObjectBase) {
   sectionName = ((org.apache.xmlbeans.impl.values.XmlObjectBase)name).getStringValue();
  }
  return sectionName; 
 }

 public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception {

  XMLSlideShow slideShow = new XMLSlideShow(new FileInputStream("./PPTXUsingSections.pptx"));

  for (XSLFSlide slide : slideShow.getSlides()) {
   System.out.println(slide.getSlideName());
   XmlObject section = getSection(slide); 
   String sectionName = getSectionName(section);  
   System.out.println(sectionName);
  }

  slideShow.close();
 }
}