ppt2pptx 0.3.1

A pure-Python converter from legacy PowerPoint .ppt files to .pptx

ppt2pptx

ppt2pptx converts Microsoft PowerPoint 97–2003 binary .ppt presentations to Office Open XML .pptx using only the Python standard library. It reads the CFB/OLE container and PowerPoint record stream directly; it never launches PowerPoint, LibreOffice, COM, or a conversion service.

The project is useful for a broad set of real presentations, but it is not a complete implementation of every legacy PowerPoint feature. Unsupported or lossy content is diagnosed instead of being silently presented as fully faithful.

Highlights

• Opens RC4 CryptoAPI password-protected presentations when a password is supplied.
• Preserves normal slide order and dimensions without mistaking masters or notes for slides.
• Preserves hidden-slide state so excluded slides remain hidden during slide shows.
• Restores positioned editable text, fonts, sizes, colors, bold/italic/underline, paragraph alignment, bullets, rotation, flips, and safe external hyperlinks.
• Preserves PNG, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, EMF, WMF, and PICT media, including cropping, position, rotation, and flips when present.
• Recreates common editable shapes, solid/gradient backgrounds, comments, speaker notes, slide numbers, dates, headers, and footers.
• Copies common core properties such as title, author, keywords, and timestamps.
• Supports atomic single-file and recursive batch conversion with JSON diagnostics.

Usage

python -m pip install ppt2pptx
ppt2pptx presentation.ppt
ppt2pptx presentation.ppt -o presentation.pptx --report report.json
ppt2pptx protected.ppt --password-file password.txt
ppt2pptx inspect presentation.ppt --json
ppt2pptx batch input-directory -o output-directory --recursive --report batch.json

The input is always read-only and output files are written atomically. The converter refuses to overwrite its input.

The Python API accepts the password directly:

from ppt2pptx import convert

result = convert("protected.ppt", "protected.pptx", password="secret")
print(result.report.to_dict())

Current limitations

Charts, SmartArt, animation timelines, audio/video playback, embedded OLE objects, and complex freeform or grouped master geometry remain incomplete. Solid and common gradient backgrounds are retained, while advanced fills and effects may be approximated. PICT data is preserved, but rendering depends on the PPTX consumer. PowerPoint 95 and earlier files use a different record format and are deliberately rejected with a clear error.

Development

python -m pip install -e .
PYTHONPATH=src python -m unittest discover -s tests -v
python -m build

The converter itself does not depend on LibreOffice. The real-file regression script may use LibreOffice only to verify that generated packages render:

PYTHONPATH=src python scripts/validate_real_files.py tests/real_samples \
  -o tests/real_output --render --password hello

Specification

• MS-PPT: PowerPoint Binary File Format
• MS-CFB: Compound File Binary File Format
• MS-ODRAW: Office Drawing Binary File Format