How to group a number of shapes on another PowerPoint.Slide

Question

I want to group a number of shapes in another slide. The task seems very simple. However, the problem is the shapes needed to be grouped is not on the current slide.

For example,

The current slide is slide number 2. My shapes needed to be grouped are on the slide number 10. When a shape on the slide number 10 get selected, it always causes error. It seems that, we cannot change the slide selection.

My code is follow:

PowerPoint.Slides allSlides = ppApp.ActivePresentation.Slides;

for (int i = 1; i <= allSlides.Count; i++)

{

PowerPoint.Slide slide = allSlides[i];

if (slide.SlideId == 10)

{

    //- Select the slide first

    slide.Select();

    //- Select (assuming) shape1 and shape3

    slide.Shapes[1].Select(); //- Error: The shape1 cannot be selected????

    slide.Shapes[3].Select(Microsoft.Office.Core.MsoTriState.msoFalse);

    PowerPoint.ShapeRange shapeRange = ppApp.ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange;

    shapeRange.Group();

}

}

Answer 1

Unless there's no way around it, NEVER select slides or shapes. And there's almost never a situation where you need to select them.

In VBA, if you want to work with something on Slide 10:

Dim oGrpShp as shape 

With ActivePresentation.Slides(10)
  ' And here you could work with the slide's ShapeRange
  set oGrpShp = .Shapes.Range.Group
  ' now you can work with the group as needed:
  oGrpShape.left = 300 ' or whatever
End With

If you try this on a slide that includes placeholders, it will error; you cannot include placeholders in a group.