Custom XML support PowerPoint via Office JS

Question

Custom XML support PowerPoint via Office JS

Miikka Laakso 41

We are building Office JS taskpane addin for (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and we are heavily relying on the data stored into the document (custom XML). In Word and Excel there are API's to access that information, but it seems that in PowerPoint the support is not yet there.

Lack of API support is critical for us, is there plans to add support for this or any workarounds?

I found discussion few years back, stating that the support was almost there already in 2021:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/64805455/how-to-work-with-custom-xml-in-powerpoint-and-office-js

Any help/pointers/etc. would be appreciated!

Maharajpet, Mallikarjun 10 Reputation points

2023-06-30T05:13:23.91+00:00

Hi, as of today(20-Jun-2023), I still don't see api to manage custom xml parts in PowerPoint office js. Has this released or not? if not is there any specific timeline as to when it will come.

Thanks,

Mallikarjun

2 answers

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Maharajpet, Mallikarjun 10 Reputation points

2023-06-30T05:13:23.91+00:00

Hi, as of today(20-Jun-2023), I still don't see api to manage custom xml parts in PowerPoint office js. Has this released or not? if not is there any specific timeline as to when it will come.

Thanks,

Mallikarjun

Answer 1

Luyi Han 1 Microsoft Employee

Hi, thank you for your support for Microsoft.
About the custom xml API, we made some progress with it, but unfortunately, it hasn't been fully implemented.
Based on the available resource, it's highly unlikely to publish it within this year.
We will share the update once we have it.

Thanks

Miikka Laakso 41 Reputation points

2022-04-26T05:23:08.563+00:00

Thanks for your answer! Please raise the priority on this issue. In the end this is very core feature and may prevent mass adoption of many solutions implemented in Office JS ecosystem (since PPTX API's are lacking behind)

Is there any workarounds in PPTX? E.g. is there way to read/write part of the document and process it for example in backend?
Luyi Han 1 Reputation point Microsoft Employee

2022-04-28T02:46:37.863+00:00

Would you please help share more about your specific scenarios with this? This could help us better determine priorities.
Miikka Laakso 41 Reputation points

2022-04-28T05:18:25.937+00:00

Simply we are building Office taskpane addin where we automate document creation and lifecycle processes for end users.

We need to store document specific information (meta data) to Office documents which we ourselves utilize and could provide for other applications/integrations. This also works to another direction we need to be able read the data back to our application (written by taskpane or some other application/integrations)

Office.Settings is no good for this use case since it's very restricted only for the taskpane use (also I think it's too restricted, should only rely on taskpane guid).

Please contact me directly if you would like to understand our solution better!
Luyi Han 1 Reputation point Microsoft Employee

2022-04-29T09:58:18.883+00:00

Thanks for the clarification, and I will share the information with the PPT team for further evaluation.
Miikka Laakso 41 Reputation points

2022-05-17T07:39:37.5+00:00

Any update on matter?
Luyi Han 1 Reputation point Microsoft Employee

2022-05-17T07:51:57.643+00:00

Hi, do you mind sharing your email address or other contact information that could help me contact you directly?
Mikko Luomanperä 0 Reputation points

2023-12-14T09:05:22.65+00:00

Are there any progress on this matter?? This feature will help us a lot!
Mikko Luomanperä 0 Reputation points

2024-01-02T08:48:08.1433333+00:00

Any updates on this matter?

Answer 2

PowerPoint Office JS CustomXML APIs are now available for Beta via Insider Builds:

Mikko Luomanperä 0 Reputation points

2025-01-20T10:53:16.7633333+00:00

Created new issue based on this customxml functionality
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2149356/powerpoint-office-js-customxml-api-does-not-return

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Custom XML support PowerPoint via Office JS

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