Searching within a PowerPoint file.

Question

Is there a way to search the text within a particular PowerPoint attachment in Confluence?

We have some large PPTX files in our system. While the global search functionality will let us find any docs that contain a particular keyword, we don't seem to have any way of jumping to the matched text when viewing the document within Confluence. The Confluence viewer renders the PowerPoint slides as static graphics, so they're not searchable using the browser's built-in find command.

Is there a way around this? Perhaps an add-on that allows for search within the document, or one that renders the PowerPoint as text so that we can simply use the browser's find functionality?

This is a crucial issue for us, and one that's prompting our stakeholders to look for a different software solution to replace our Confluence install.

urachakonda · Answer

We too are desperately looking for a solution for this problem.

bennoll · Answer

The View File macro still has the same issue with PDFs as with Powerpoint: it renders them as non-searchable JPEGs rather than as text. PDFs are a better option in general though since they're able to be opened directly within the browser, at which point the user can search to their heart's content.

Forcing our users and clients to convert their files every time they want to attach something isn't a practical workaround in any case.

bennoll · Answer

That's just documenting the global search I mentioned above. I can use that functionality to find a particular Powerpoint file, but I can't search within the file once I've navigated to the appropriate page.

If I have a 50-page Powerpoint file, Confluence's search functionality will be able to tell me that it contains a particular search term, but I'm going to have to read through the entire document page-by-page if I want to see the term in use. Either that or download the file, which isn't always an option.