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Change pptx language encoding

I came across the neat little R package slidex() to convert pptx to rmd. However, it does only support "en-US" language encoding.

How do I change the language encoding of an existing .pptx file?

Solution

  • Language tags are scattered all over a PowerPoint file. There are add-ins that can do a pretty thorough job: PPTools LanguageSelector

    Personally, I prefer to change the file ending to .Zip, expand the file and use a text editor like NotePad++ to find and replace all language tags (you're looking for tags like lang="en-US"), then rezip. The default Windows Zip utility is not the best for this, it adds a top-level folder that PowerPoint can't parse. WinZip and 7-Zip are better.

    If you're using PowerPoint for Windows, save the file as a PowerPoint XML Presentation (*.xml). Do the find and replace on that, then resave as a normal presentation. That avoids the unzip/rezip issue.