How to create a PowerPoint presentation file in Xamarin.Forms?

PowerPoint presentation is a file format that allows you to create and show a series of slides containing text, shapes, charts, images and SmartArt diagrams with rich set of formatting options to make your presentation more attractive and memorable.

Syncfusion Essential Presentation is a .NET PowerPoint library used to create, open, read, and edit PowerPoint presentations. Using this library, you can start creating a PowerPoint file in Xamarin.

Steps to create a PowerPoint presentation file:

1. Create a new C# Xamarin.Forms application project.

2. Select a project template and required platforms to deploy the application. In this application the portable assemblies to be shared across multiple platforms, the .NET Standard code sharing strategy has been selected. For more details about code sharing refer here.

3. Install Syncfusion.Xamarin.Presentation NuGet package as a reference to the .NET Standard project in your Xamarin applications from NuGet.org.

4. Add new Forms XAML page in portable project If there is no XAML page is defined in the App class. Otherwise proceed to the next step.

1. To add the new XAML page, right click on the project and select Add > New Item and add a Forms XAML Page from the list. Name it as MainXamlPage.
2. In App class of portable project (App.cs), replace the existing constructor of App class with the code snippet given below which invokes the MainXamlPage.

   public App()
   {
       // The root page of your application
       MainPage = new MainXamlPage();
     
   }
   

5. In the MainXamlPage.xaml add new button as shown below.

   <ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
    x:Class="GettingStarted. MainXamlPage">
   <StackLayout VerticalOptions="Center">
     
   <Button Text="Generate Document" Clicked="OnButtonClicked" HorizontalOptions="Center"/>
     
   </StackLayout> 
   </ContentPage>
   

6. Include the following namespace in the MainXamlPage.xaml.cs file.

   using Syncfusion.Presentation;
   

7. Include the below code snippet in the click event of the button in MainXamlPage.xaml.cs, to create an PowerPoint file and save it in a stream.

   //Create a new PowerPoint presentation
   IPresentation powerpointDoc = Presentation.Create();
    
   //Add a blank slide to the presentation
   ISlide slide = powerpointDoc.Slides.Add(SlideLayoutType.Blank);
    
   //Add a textbox to the slide
   IShape shape = slide.AddTextBox(10, 10, 500, 100);
    
   //Add a text to the textbox.
   shape.TextBody.AddParagraph("Hello World!!!");
    
   //Save the PowerPoint to stream in pptx format. 
   MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream();
   powerpointDoc.Save(stream);
    
   powerpointDoc.Close();
    
   //Save the stream as a file in the device and invoke it for viewing
   Xamarin.Forms.DependencyService.Get<ISave>().SaveAndView("GettingStared.pptx", "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation", stream);
   

8. Download the helper files from this link and add them into the mentioned project. These helper files allow you to save the stream as a physical file and open the file for viewing.

9. Compile and execute the application.

By executing the program, you will get the PowerPoint document as follows.