How to insert a newline in PowerPoint (PPTX) in OpenXML / PresentationML / C#

Question

While Word and PowerPoint both use OpenXML, newlines are handled differently. In Word/WordprocessingML you can run.Append(new Break()) (see here) to insert a newline. Unfortunately in PresentationML this leads to a nonvalid presentation and with errors when loading it in PowerPoint.

How to add a newline in the TextBody of a PowerPoint Shape?

Answer 1

The Open XML Productivity Tool of Open Office SDK 2.5 has this great Reflect Code tool to get C# code of whatever OpenXML file you have. But especially after much editing, the text in a presentation gets splitted in various Run elements and the reflect code isn't very compact. Here's an example of a TextBody of a Shape.

new TextBody(
  new A.BodyProperties(),
  new A.Paragraph(
    new A.Run( new A.Text("first line") ),
    new A.Break(),
    new A.Run( new A.Text("second line") )
  ),
  new A.Paragraph(
    new A.Run( new A.Text("new paragraph") )
  )
)

Note, the Break is child of the Paragraph, not child of a Run (as it is in WordprocessingML).

Note, that the Break makes a newline (Shift-Return in PowerPoint), if you want a new paragraph (Return in PowerPoint), you'll need a new Paragraph.