Best way to store a table of data in a VBA Powerpoint add-in

Hi all,

For a powerpoint add-in I'm creating, the code draws upon a set of data (to be more specific, 3 columns times 30 rows of integers). I currently have these data stored in a local Excel file, and every time the Powerpoint add-in is executed, the code opens up excel in the background, and retrieves the data from the excel file for the code to operate.

The problem here is that opening the excel application in the background takes time, and so the first time the user executes the macro, there is a 5 second delay or so. I'm hence looking for a better way to store these data that the code draws upon. Note that I'll need to include this data as part of the add-in file to be distributed (so a single .ppam file). Any suggestions?

I have thought about including the data in a table in the powerpoint file, but unfortunately ppam does not save slides, and so this won't work. I have also heard references to leveraging XML, but am unclear as to how to do that, so any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Thanks GC Excel. Can you elaborate a bit more on how to do that? Three questions specifically:

1. How to integrate this text or comma delimited file into the ppam?
2. How to store and reference data in the text file given the row & column current format?
3. How to store and reference data in the comma delimited file?