Here is a good introduction article : https://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/mac-software/how-to-applescript-tutorial-3623522/
Sometimes the base language of a slide deck is differnt than the actual texts and elements (textboxes, etc.). I wanted a way to switch all elements at once.
This is from a German Powerpoint installation to change the language to "Englisch (USA)" as it is shown in the Powerpoint language selection list under the "tools / extras" (depending on your translation) menu.
I counted the position of the language I wanted in the shown list, since I could not get the "select row X .." to work. *shrug
An Applescript for Mac OSX "Powerpoint for Mac" to change an existing powerpoint deck to a different language
Author: Maik Nogens, 2018 Inspired from : https://gist.github.com/low-decarie/4440405
- Works on Powerpoint for Mac v16.15
- Works on PPTX extension
- Does NOT work on POTM extension
tell application "Microsoft PowerPoint"
activate
set theView to view of document window 1
repeat with slideNumber from 1 to count of slides of active presentation
go to slide theView number slideNumber
tell slide slideNumber of active presentation
activate
tell shapes
select
end tell
end tell
tell application "System Events"
tell process "Microsoft PowerPoint"
tell menu bar 1
# Change the entry to the shown name
# Couldnt get it to work with German PPT and index numbering
# Index Position could be different in each local OS language version of powerpoint
tell menu bar item "Extras"
tell menu "Extras"
click menu item 5
end tell
end tell
end tell
end tell
tell window 1 of process "Microsoft PowerPoint"
tell scroll area 1
tell table 1
# I could not get this to work:
#select static text "Englisch (USA)" of UI element 1 of row 22 of table 1 of scroll area 1 of window "Sprache"
# So I counted the entry I wanted manually in the list:
#Position 22 = Englisch (USA)
# UI element = Position = here: 22
select UI element 22
end tell
end tell
click button "OK"
end tell
end tell
end repeat
end tell