Usage¶

The refractions task pane appears in PowerPoint's Home ribbon under the refractions button. It has three states.

1. Scan slide¶

When you open a slide, refractions scans it for embedded Prism charts and lists each one with its slide name and object index.

Click any chart in the list to highlight the corresponding shape on the slide.

2. Edit in Prism¶

With a chart selected (either by clicking in the task pane or clicking on the slide), click Edit in Prism.

refractions:

1. Saves the PowerPoint document.
2. Extracts the embedded .pzfx to a temp directory.
3. Pre-allocates the OLE container to 10 MB so future edits never overflow.
4. Opens the .pzfx in GraphPad Prism.

The task pane shows Prism is open — make your edits, then click Update slide.

3. Update slide¶

After editing in Prism, click Update slide in the task pane. refractions:

1. Saves the Prism document.
2. Exports a fresh PNG preview.
3. Writes the updated .pzfx back into the OLE container.
4. Replaces the slide's preview image with the new PNG.
5. Repacks the PPTX in place.

You'll see Done — close and reopen the file to see changes in the task pane.

Multiple charts on one slide¶

You can edit one chart per slide at a time. After clicking Update slide, the task pane returns to the scan list and you can pick the next chart.

Tips¶

• Save the PowerPoint file before scanning so refractions reads the latest content.
• The PPTX stays a real OLE-embedded file, so colleagues on Windows can still double-click any chart to edit it via the native OLE handler.
• If you accidentally cancel an edit, your previous chart is preserved in the slide.