Working with slide layouts

A slide layout is a template part that describes the placeholder and formatting structure a slide can inherit from a slide master. In PresentationML it is rooted at <p:sldLayout/>; in ooxmlsdk it is represented as a slide layout part reached through relationships.

Slide layout structure

The layout root can contain common slide data, header/footer settings, timing, transition, color map override, and extension data.

<p:sldLayout
  xmlns:p="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/presentationml/2006/main"
  type="title">
  <p:cSld name="Title Slide">
    <p:spTree>
      <p:nvGrpSpPr>
        <p:cNvPr id="1" name=""/>
        <p:cNvGrpSpPr/>
        <p:nvPr/>
      </p:nvGrpSpPr>
      <p:grpSpPr/>
      <!-- placeholder and shape definitions -->
    </p:spTree>
  </p:cSld>
</p:sldLayout>

Important attributes include:

Navigating layouts in Rust

A layout is normally reached from a slide part. This example opens a presentation, walks the slides, follows each slide layout relationship, and returns the layout XML.

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
pub fn get_slide_layout_xml(path: &Path) -> Result<Vec<String>, Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
  let document = PresentationDocument::new_from_file_with_settings(path, lazy_settings())?;
  let presentation_part = document.presentation_part()?;
  let mut layouts = Vec::new();

  for slide_part in presentation_part.slide_parts(&document) {
    if let Some(layout_part) = slide_part.slide_layout_part(&document) {
      layouts.push(
        layout_part
          .data_as_str(&document)?
          .unwrap_or_default()
          .to_string(),
      );
    }
  }

  Ok(layouts)
}
}

Layout parts can also relate back to a slide master and to dependent resources such as images, charts, diagrams, embedded packages, and theme overrides. Use the generated part accessors where available, because they resolve relationship ids without hard-coding package paths.

Editing notes

Creating a valid layout from scratch requires a coordinated slide master, layout part, relationship entries, content type overrides, and placeholder XML. In Rust, prefer copying an existing layout and making small schema-aware edits unless your code owns all of those package updates and validates the saved presentation.