PowerPoint Automation Server Windows 10

Is it possible to attach to an existing instance (not started by MATLAB) of PowerPoint under Win10 (Matlab R2015b/64)?. I have had no success with actxGetRunningServer - says PPT not running - if I start PPT in the normal way from the Windows GUI then try to attach to it. This was possible under W7. Also, the running instance (not started by MATLAB) prevents actxserver from completing so I have to tell the user to quit the existing instance then start the automation server.

Answer 1

[Dave Watson]

OK, here's the answer, I believe. actxGetRunningServer() will not find a running instance of either Excel or PPT if you have installed 32-bit Office but are trying to execute from 64-bit MATLAb (presumably the other way around too). However, since multiple instances of PPT are not allowed, you can't just start a server up either without shutting the existing one down (of course, that doesn't apply if you started PPT in MATLAB). This restriction does not apply to Excel as multiple instances are allowed; therefore, even though 64-bit ML won't attach to 32-bit Excel, you can just start another one. actxserver() doesn't seem to care about 32-bit 64-bit mastch up?. At least all this seems to apply for R2015b.

I note that the doc for R2019a doesn't say any more about this than what I have for R2015b.

[Dave Watson]

Update. Try running PPT as Administrator. This seems to get around the issue.