How to share PowerPoint macro enabled presentation with students?

Question

How can I share a  powerpoint macro enabled presentation with students and maintain all the coding?

Answer 1

Microsoft is actively developing Office.js, a JavaScript-based add-in type that works with all versions of Office. It doesn't appear that Microsoft has any appetite for extending VBA to the newer platforms, that technology is very old and not adapted to an online or mobile environment.

Google Docs has it's own automation solution, the Google Apps Script, not compatible with Office. Large technology companies rarely co-operate to give better compatibility for users.

Answer 2

As long as you share your PPTM file (macro-enabled presentation), your macros will be preserved. Just make sure to have your students click on the macro Enable button if prompted when they open the file.

You will lose the macros/coding if you save your file as a regular PowerPoint presentation (PPTX) or regular PowerPoint show (PPSX) or other non-macro-enabled formats.

Answer 3

Hi l.g.gillis,

Thank you for querying in this forum.

According to your description, it seems that you want to share a presentation with VBA code with your students.

If my understanding is right, you can save your file with VBA code as type PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Presentation, you can click File > Save As > In the Save as type list, select the following type: PowerPoint Macro-Enabled Presentation. For more details, you can refer to this article: Save a presentation that contains VBA macros.

Then you can upload the file to OneDrive for business, then you can select this file > click Share and share this file with your students. However, you students may need to download the file and open this pptm file on the local, because VBA code is not supported in Excel Online. For more details about how to share files, you can refer to this article: Share OneDrive files and folders.

If the scenario above is not consistent with yours, you can also post back and provide more details about your requirement and we will try our best to help you.

Best Regards,

Sukie

Answer 4

Your students will need to be running the desktop version of Office. Macros don't run on PowerPoint Online or PowerPoint for mobile devices.

It's always a good idea to test macro-enabled presentations on the Mac platform, that version doesn't support all commands that work under Windows.

Answer 5

Thanks for the information. I do have a simple interactive colouring page with VBA code. I am unable to share the presentation because it deactivates the VBA code. Very disappointing. I hope someone comes up with a solution so powerpoint and google slides is more compatible and able to support VBA coding.