Missing text in SLD 2017 PPTX file: Labels on embedded xls graphs (in PPTX) will not show up in SDL

Question

Hello. We have a new PowerPoint issue. I have a PPTX file with around 30 slides, (professionally built, using master slides, theme colors, animations) with embedded Excel bar graphs. 
 
 The embedded xls files do not have labels on them, just numbers. (In the image below the colors changed on the bar graph when I opened it to edit & then flipped back to teal/purple.) 
 
 The labels for the columns are, as far as I can tell, just text boxes that have been lined up to the columns. But they will not import into SDL. 
 
 Missing all labels for bar graph and key labels in upper right. 
 
 I have tried using different PowerPoint File types. 
 I&rsquo;ve saved down to *.ppt & back up to *.pptx. 
 I&rsquo;ve tried the default SDL project template settings. Both the default & our custom template result in the same issue. 
 I have tried checking and unchecking everything within the PowerPoint File types settings. 
 We are running SDL Trados Studio 2017 SRT &ndash; 14.1.6413.8 (Professional) . 
 This happens on all PCs in our office. So it&rsquo;s for sure an issue within SDL/PPT. 
 
 The only thing I&rsquo;ve found that works is if I retype the label (the full word rekeyed) in that existing text box (not making a new box)&hellip;then SDL will pick up what I rekeyed!! 
 Nothing changes if I add a space to the end of the text, but if I add a letter to the end of the label something REALLY WEIRD happens:

Now the space &ldquo;q&rdquo; shows up, but the text that is the label is some funky tag. 
 <field type=&rdquo;datetime&rdquo;&hellip; 
 I have no idea what that is or why its doing that. But something is applied to the text that I cannot clear without deleting all text and rekeying it&hellip; 
 Here&rsquo;s the MAIN issue , we cannot tell what will and will not populate into SDL. Yet again, this PPTX issue has delayed our project as we now have missing translation and have to do another round of translation to pick up these bits that fell out. This is extremely frustrating to everyone & delays our project. We rely on SDL to tell us the correct Word count when we quote these projects &ndash; and if SDL isn&rsquo;t able to handle PPTX files correctly we have to do a lot of steps to get around SDL&rsquo;s shortcomings. 
 
 I'm attaching sample files if anyone wants to see what they see. Any insight into why this is happening and how to prevent it would be most helpful. 
 Graph Labels.zip 
 Thank you! 
 -Steph

Paul · Accepted Answer

Hi Localization Engener 
 The teams have investigated this issue and the problem is caused by the source content. The label is actually a DateTime field and should not contain localizable text. Studio is expecting DateTime information that is not presented so nothing is extracted. When you overwrite the content by editing the text you actually remove the entire DateTime field and this is why it then works. 
 The solution is to contact the creator of the powerpoint and ask them to check the library they are using and have them enter the text in a text field. The image below taken from the underlying xml of your pptx explains. On the left is an edited field and on the right is the one you get from your client: 
 
 Note the "type" of field that is presented. 
 So in a nutshell this is not considered a bug in Studio, rather it's a problem of the source file since Studio is validating the content that should be presented.

Paul · Answer

Hi Localization Engener , 
 
I haven't looked at your files yet but the problem might be that the Excel files embedded into the PPTX are XLS (based on your description). See if you can test using XLSX as the embedded format... so recreate the PPTX for a test.

Paul · Answer

Hi Localization Engener , 
 
I think this may be a problem with how the file was put together. Is it possible to get some history on how this file was compiled? I compared the underlying XML with a corrected file and there are some significant differences on the technology used to create the graphs and the code used to represent the fonts, but I need to engage a developer for their opinion on whether we can address this or not. 
 
Thank you

Trados Studio > 1. Trados Studio

Missing text in SLD 2017 PPTX file: Labels on embedded xls graphs (in PPTX) will not show up in SDL