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Powerpoint "Save As Picture" from C# Microsoft.Office.Interop.PowerPoint

My question is pretty similar to this one and I'm afraid the answer is the same... I want to save all the shapes/images on a slide as a single png (or jpeg). Programmatically, I get as far as
slide.Shapes.SelectAll();
but don't see a way to save as image. Is this possible? If not, any other suggestions, hopfully w/ examples? (not VBA - I need to automate the whole conversion)
There was a reference to OpenXML in the other post, but I'm not even sure how to pull that in.

I don't know how you'd do this in C# but I'd guess that you'd make use of the same methods as you would with VBA, where you can do:
Activewindow.Selection.ShapeRange.Export( "c:\temp\delete-me.jpg",ppShapeFormatJPG)
ppShapeFormatJPG is a PowerPoint constant, a VBA Long = 1; IIRC that'd be an Integer in C#.
The method also can take two more optional parameters, scalewidth and scaleheight, which govern the width and height of the exported image in undocumented ways. By default, no parms supplied, I get exports at 72 dpi. Larger numbers result in higher pixel count exports but distorted proportions. I'm sure there's some strange logic to it, but it escapes me; all hints welcome!
There's a third optional parm, ExportMode. In my tests, it makes no difference whether you supply it or not, and if you do, which of the available values you choose.

Reading Rich Text from Excel Range (cells) with Office Interop

(This question was formerly titled "C# / WPF : Going from Excel Interop "Range" to WPF "FlowDocument"" however I've made progress on that front that allows me to restrict my question. I'm leaving the original question below so existing answers will still make sense.)
I'm using Office Interop to read the contents of cells in an Excel worksheet. Some of those cells contain Rich Text (for example some words are italicized but not the whole cell) and I would like to capture them as RTF so I can then display them into WPF controls.
I have been able to obtain the RTF contents of cells using the clipboard API, where I use Excel Interop to copy a Range of one cell to the clipboard, and then read the clipboard, like so:
// Step 1 : retrieve the RTF from the clipboard as a string
string txt = Clipboard.GetText(TextDataFormat.Rtf);
// Step 2 : create a FlowDocument object and a TextRange object:
FlowDocument doc = new FlowDocument();
TextRange tr = new TextRange(doc.ContentStart, doc.ContentEnd);
// Step 3 : convert the clipboard string to a stream
byte[] byteArray = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(txt);
MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream(byteArray);
// Step 4 : load that stream into TextRange
tr.Load(stream, DataFormats.Rtf);
If I then assign "doc" to the Document property of, say, a RichTextBox control, it'll display the content of the Excel cell with the exact same formatting as Excel does, down to colored words and font sizes.
However, this is extremely slow. It may take minutes to load a thousand cells that way, even if most are empty.
So here's my updated question : clearly Excel has a mechanism for returning the RTF content of an Excel cell, otherwise my Clipboard code couldn't work. But is there are more efficient way than the Clipboard to exploit that mechanism ? Ideally through Interop ?
Original question :
This may be an unusual question but as I'm quite new to C#, WPF and Interop, I might be going about things the wrong way so don't hesitate to offer a better approach. Here's what I'm trying to do :
I'm coding a WPF application that uses Office Interop to grab the contents of cells from an Excel worksheet. That content is text which may contain some formatting (for example some words are in bold, others are in italics). The application then displays that content in a "FlowDocumentScrollViewer" control on its GUI.
I want this "FlowDocumentScrollViewer" control to render the content from the Excel cell exactly as it appears in Excel, with formatting and everything.
The best I've managed so far is to display the cell's content without any formatting. Here's how this works : I use Office Interop to read a Range of cells from the worksheet and take their Value2 property. Value2 is of type "object". Then I create a FlowDocument object out of it, like so:
FlowDocument doc = new FlowDocument();
Paragraph p = new Paragraph(new Run(Variable_containing_a_Value2.ToString()));
doc.Blocks.Add(p);
And then I store this FlowDocument into the "FlowDocumentScrollViewer" Document property.
Now since I'm using "ToString()" on the Value2 I'm not surprised that any formatting information this object might contain disappears past this point.
My problem is, I haven't been able to find a way to create that FlowDocument, from that Value2 object, that preserves formatting.
Now, I know there has to be a way to get that information through, because when I copy my Excel cell and paste it in Word, for example, then the formatting is carried through. I just don't know how.
Help me Obiwans, you're my only hope, as even Google has failed me.

It seems to me that you have at least a couple of options that will work better than just copying the cell contents as text. The Range object has Copy() and CopyPicture() methods, which you can use to have Excel copy the contents of the range to the clipboard.
The basic Copy() method should (I haven't tested it) put the contents of the cell into the clipboard in a variety of formats, including RTF. And you should be able to get the RTF and put that into the FlowDocument element.
Using RTF, you may still not get exactly the representation as seen in Excel. The only way to do that is to have Excel do the rendering. In that case, you'll want the CopyPicture() method, which will put picture of the range on the clipboard. This will be either a bitmap or metafile, depending on the options you use for the method call. You can then retrieve these from the clipboard and put them into your FlowDocument.
Depending on what applications you're looking at, e.g. Word, there's yet another more complicated approach, one that I doubt would work with FlowDocument, but which they are using. That is, they are presenting the Excel range an OLE object. This is harder to implement, but has the advantage that it's a live representation of the original Excel document, and the user can edit the range in-place in the host application.
The above should be enough to get you pointed in the right direction, so at least you know what you're looking for when you do your web searches. As stated, your question is very broad, and so the above is necessarily vague as well. Once you've decided on a particular method, have done some research and made an attempt into implementing that method, if you still have problems you can post a new question, with a good Minimal, Complete, and Verifiable code example that shows clearly what you've tried, with a detailed explanation of what specifically you're still having trouble with.

What's the difference between Entity.Attributes and Entity.FormattedValues?

I'm learning how to write custom workflows and am trying to figure out where and in which format all the values I need are stored. I have noticed that I can access Entity instance data in both the Attributes and FormattedValues properties. How do I know when to use which one?
I have noticed MSDN's remark "Entity formatted values are only available on a retrieve operation, not on an update operation.".
For testing I've made two foreach-blocks iterating through both collections. Attributes gives me 65 lines and FormattedValues gives me 39. I can see that, yes, the output from FormattedValues is indeed formatted.
For example, where Attributes gives the output "Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk.OptionSetValue", FormattedValues gives me a string with the actual value.
Which values/attributes are generally excluded from the FormattedValues collection and why?

I'm not 100% sure about this, but the formatted values are the values you will be able to see on the form. In that list you will be able to find money types with the $ symbol, or the labels of the option sets. A text field shouldn't be shown since is already human-readable.
https://community.dynamics.com/crm/b/crmmitchmilam/archive/2013/04/18/crm-sdk-nugget-entity-formattedvalues-property.aspx
Refer to this article to know a little bit more about it. I rareley using that attribute list since the data is in string format. I found it really useful to retrieve the OprionSet lables.

After a quick check it'd appear that the difference between an attribute and a formatted value is that the former to the actual value stored in the DB (or at least the value that was stored there at the occasion of fetching it) while the latter serves what's shown to the user.
I haven't used formatted values but until proven otherwise, I'd say that an entity's attribute will provide you with the typed value that the regarded field is based on (be that int, DateTime and such), whereas its formatted value is the rendered, stringified representation of that value (being dependent on e.g. what form you're referring to, what language etc.)
By that logic, I'd expect the set of formatted values to be a subset to the set of attributes. Also, it should be constituted of exclusively String typed values, while the counterpart is a member of the type conversion table.
An example of the difference I can think of is an option set called picky with the currently selected option named "hazaa" and the ID of 1234. The below sample is written by heart so feel free to correct. It exemplifies the point, though: plainValue will be an integer equal to 1234, while formattedValue will be "hazaa".
int plainValue = (int)entity["picky"];
String formattedValue = (String)entity.FormattedValues["picky"];
I'd say that the attributive approach is more reliable as it'll render the actual values, while the alternative can lead to unexpected outcome. However, there's a certain convenience to it, I must add.
Personally, I'd recommend to look into the method GetAttributeValue<T>(String) or, as every cocky CRM developer would - have your own class with extension methods and use the method Get<T>(T,String) in there. That provides you with the sense of control and offers the best predictability and readability, IMAO.

How to check a checkbox in a PDF programmatically

I am experimenting with Essential Objects' EO.PDF component for .NET
and can't find a way to "check" a checkbox in an existing PDF document.
I have posted to the EO forum already, but I think that it may not be a vendor specific issue.
// I've tried 'Yes', 'On', 'True', and even 'X'
// but it does not show a tick in the output PDF.
doc.Fields["chk1"].Value = "???";
Please guide me.

I have not used EssentialObjects' EO.PDF personally, but according to the documentation there seem to be two ways to set it: you can either set the Value property to "1", or set the boolean Checked property to true. (I think you'd have to cast the field to a PdfCheckBoxField to use the latter method.)

Is there any way for Validating cell value in excel (vsto)

Suppose i have some value in excel cell,its type may be anything date,numeric or string
and i want that cell to be validated against its type...
Is there any way of doing this ?
thanks in advance..

I assume you mean that you have contents in a cell, which could be either a date, a double, or a plain string, and that you want to assert what corresponding .NET type it is. I believe there is no direct way of doing this. One approach would be to retrieve the Value2 in the cell, and try to cast it to each of these types, starting from the most restrictive one, until the cast works - i.e. DateTime (DateTime.FromOADate), then double (Convert.ToDouble), then string - and then apply the validation rule that applies to the particular type you found.
I am not quite sure what you mean by validation, though, and what that would buy you. Once you know the type of the content, what would you do with it?

I use Excel's data validation technique in a VSTO application myself. It obviously isn't VSTO but it works well enough. There are some drawbacks like you can't have multiple validations on the same cell (i.e. you have to know what your validating for)

You can directly use the excel's functionality !!!
no need of any coding for that !!
instead of hard work go for the smart work ...
In excel,
Go to the cell where you want the validation to come
Menu ->> Data --> validation
Here you can directly use the various excel validation terms.
Which you can refer here or..
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/211485
Thanx
Regards.