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Delete notes page text (or text and shapes)

If you have PowerPoint 2007 or later

Your notes are gone.

If you have an earlier version of PowerPoint

(Thanks to MVP Shyam Pillai for this one)

A VBA routine can delete all shapes from the notes page. See further on for a routine that will only delete the notes text placeholder.

Sub DelNotesShapes()
Dim oSld As Slide
For Each oSld In ActivePresentation.Slides
    If oSld.NotesPage.Shapes.Count > 0 Then
        oSld.NotesPage.Shapes.Range.Delete
    End If
Next oSld
Set oSld = Nothing
End Sub

Same strategy, slightly different approach:

Sub BlitzTheNotes()

Dim oSlides As Slides
Dim oSl As Slide
Dim x As Integer

Set oSlides = ActivePresentation.Slides
For Each oSl In oSlides
    For x = oSl.NotesPage.Shapes.Count to 1 Step -1
        oSl.NotesPage.Shapes(1).Delete
    Next x
Next oSl

End Sub

Both routines seem slightly odd, in that you'd expect to be able to do something like

For X = 1 to .Shapes.Count
    .Shapes(X).Delete
Next X

But that won't work. When you delete .Shapes(1), .Shapes(2) is now the first shape in the collection, so if you delete .Shapes(2) next, you're leaving what was 2 and is now 1 on the page. And eventually it errors because after you delete the first object of, say, 4 in the collection, there's no longer a .Shapes(4) so when you try to delete it ... BOOM!

Another approach, if you simply want to delete the notes text:

Sub BlitzTheNotesText()

    Dim oSl As Slide
    Dim oSh As Shape

    For Each oSl In ActivePresentation.Slides
        ' Locate and delete the notes page body text placeholder
        For Each oSh In oSl.NotesPage.Shapes
            If oSh.Type = msoPlaceholder Then
                ' Is the shape a body text placeholder?  If so, delete it.
                If oSh.PlaceholderFormat.Type = ppPlaceholderBody Then
                    oSh.Delete
                    ' or if you'd rather not delete the notes, use oSh.Visible = False
                    ' change it to oSh.Visible = True and rerun the macro to reverse the effect
                End If
            End If
        Next oSh
    Next oSl

End Sub

See How do I use VBA code in PowerPoint? to learn how to use this example code.


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Delete notes page text (or text and shapes)
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00178_Delete_notes_page_text_-or_text_and_shapes-.htm
Last update 07 June, 2011
Created: