Using and automating barcodes with VBA in PowerPoint

With Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), you can easily solve many problems. Here, we briefly show you how to integrate a barcode into a PowerPoint presentation using VBA, how to use it, and how to remove it.

This is how to insert the ActiveBarcode Control into the active slide using VBA:
In this example, the barcode is placed at the specified position and size into the slide. The object can then be addressed via ab:

Dim ab As Shape
Set ab = Application.ActiveWindow.View.Slide.Shapes.AddOLEObject(Left:=100,
  Top:=100, Width:=300, Height:=150, ClassName:="ACTIVEBARCODE.BarcodeCtrl.1")

Now you can change the standard properties (e.g. height, width) of the OLE object using the properties of the variable ab:

ab.Width = 200
ab.Height = 120

Now you can use the properties and methods of the barcode object as you like:

ab.OLEFormat.Object.Type = 6
ab.OLEFormat.Object.Text = "987698769812"
ab.OLEFormat.Object.Rotate = 90

You can easily remove the control from the macro/slide if you no longer need it, for example, after printing:

 ab.Delete

Hint: If it's necessary that Windows process upcoming events (often named as "KeepWindowsAlive") within a macro, you can force this by using the following VBA function:

DoEvents

This can be necessary, e.g. if the Control must draw itself new.