How to work with the PowerPoint template for creating documents with dynamic pictures

A lot of graphics tools make PowerPoint an ideal application for creating templates with dynamic pictures. But not many document creation tools offer support for PowerPoint templates. For example, even the Microsoft Office connector for Power Automate still does not support the ability to fill out PowerPoint templates. Using Plumsail Documents as a connector helps solve this problem.

...Do you know about any connector that can help to generate a PowerPoint presentation? It seems that the Plumsail connector can do that...

In this article, we will show you the logic behind populating PowerPoint templates and creating documents with pictures using the example of a restaurant menu. Once you understand how this works, you can automatically populate your presentations with user data from your apps using Power Automate, Zapier, or Make and generate any documents with pictures in the future.

 

  Further in the article:

1. Overview of the PowerPoint template
2. Create document generation process
3. Configure output file settings
4. Add delivery
5. Start restaurant menu creation process
6. Fill out the Form
7. Populate the PowerPoint template with the other apps
8. More features
9. Get started

 

1. Overview of the PowerPoint template

We choose a ready-made restaurant menu template from the Plumsail Documents library for the template. A template is a pre-formatted document with special placeholders. It contains static and dynamic data. Static data is presented in plain text in the form of headings and a text block with contact details. Dynamic data is presented in the form of individual tokens.

 

Each token in the template is responsible for the format of the data and the place it will be displayed in the final document. For example, tokens {{dish_1Name}}, {{dish_1Description}}, {{dish_1Composition}}, {{dish_1Price}} based on their names are responsible for the name, description, composition, and price of the first dish.

 

The template also has special dummy pictures for dishes. To insert images in it, we need to use a picture formatter: {{img_dish_1.url}:picture}, {{img_dish_2.url}:picture}, {{img_dish_3.url}:picture},{{img_drink.url}:picture} and {{img_dessert.url}:picture}. A picture formatter lets the templating engine know that incoming data will be a picture and should be processed properly. The photos' urls will come from the web form submission. When the image is applied to the template, it will be the same size as the dummy block in the template.

If you need to change or view the settings of the token used to insert an image into a PowerPoint template, use the hint below.

 

For a better understanding of how to set up images in a PowerPoint template, we recommend reading the article Pictures in PPTX templates.

2. Create document generation process

Now that we understand the structure and logic of our template, we move on to the creating document generation process. We launch Plumsail Documents, click the Add Process button, and select the Start From Template item. In the list with templates, select "Restaurant menu & special offer food menu". Enter the name of the process and enable the toggle to create a rich web form, which we will use to populate our template.

 

Go to the template, check it, and click the Save & Next button.

 

3. Configure output file settings

The next step - setting up the output file that we will receive after generating the document. The main lines to fill will be Output filename and Output type. Depending on your needs, you can choose one of two formats for the final document: PDF or PowerPoint PPTX. Select PDF format and press the Save & Next button.

 

NOTE: Don't forget to remove the watermark from the resulting file. Enable the toggle from test mode to production.

4. Add delivery

After completing the configuration of the output file, we go to the tab to choose the delivery method. It can be your mailbox, Google Drive, SharePoint, etc. We set to save our generated document to a SharePoint library. Alternatively, if the needed delivery option is missing, you can manipulate a resulting file in Power Automate, Zapier, or Make platforms and send it to any app.

 

5. Start restaurant menu creation process

When the template preparation and settings are over, we proceed to launch the process that will populate the template and create the restaurant menu automatically. We’ll do it on the form submission using the rich web form that we ticked to create at the very beginning of the process creation.

 

6. Fill out the form

Before filling out the form, let's see what blocks it consists of. Our form has a three-stage filling, where at each stage you need to enter your own data type.

 

Step 1

• information about the day of the week for which the menu is being made;
• advertising text.

Step 2

• 3 blocks for main dishes with a description: name, description, composition, and price;
• 3 buttons for attaching images.

Step 3

• 2 blocks for describing dessert and drink: name, description, composition, and price;
• 2 buttons for attaching images.

Each field and attachment button in the form corresponds to a specific token in the template. That allows us to transfer the data from the form to the template and generate a ready-to-use document with filled data.

 

Now we can move on to filling out our form to get a professional-looking menu with the images we saw at the beginning of the article.

 

7. Populate the PowerPoint template with data from other apps

You can also populate the PowerPoint templates from your favorite apps using integration platforms such as Zapier, Power Automate, or Make. To do this, you will need to create a Zap / Flow / Scenario and register only two actions in it:

1. Set up a trigger. You can choose any trigger available in the application that suits your situation. In our case, the trigger is submitted forms.

2. Start the process. We select the Plumsail Documents applications to start the process. Select the process we need from the list. Map the trigger output to token fields that appeared after you selected the process in the Start document generation process action.

Now, every time the trigger is activated, the document generation process will be started according to our settings in Plumsail Documents. Here is how this process will look in different applications:

Power Automate

 

Make

 

Zapier

 

You may also find articles helpful:

• Use Zapier
• Use Power Automate
• Use Make

8. More features

Now you know how to work with the PPTX template with dynamic pictures, but this is only a small part of all possibilities. Using Plumsail Documents templating syntax, you can transfer more than images into your PPTX templates. Transfer your data to dynamically create tables, slides, lists, charts and more. Collect data and start the document generation process with the applications you are already used to. You can create marketing collateral, sales pitches, dashboards, and more.

Dashboard with different types of charts

 

Catalog with products and descriptions

 

Infographic with data and chart

 

9.Get started

Register an account and get a free trial for one month.

If you have any questions or comments about the material, feel free to leave them in our community portal.

Start generating documents right now!