DevExpress Presentation API Library: Create, Load, and Save Presentations

• Aug 27, 2025
• 2 minutes to read

Important

The DevExpress Presentation API Library is currently available as a Community Technology Preview (CTP). Note that we do not recommend that you integrate pre-release libraries into mission-critical software applications. You can try the library and share your feedback so that we can make necessary adjustments before the official release. To start a conversation, submit a ticket via the DevExpress Support Center — we’d love to hear from you.

The DevExpress Presentation API library allows you to create a new presentation or load an existing presentation from a PPTX file.

Create a Presentation

Use the Presentation() parameterless constructor to create a new presentation with one empty slide (the slide’s layout type is SlideLayoutType.Title):

C#

using DevExpress.Docs.Presentation;
//...
    Presentation presentation = new Presentation();

VB.NET

Imports DevExpress.Docs.Presentation
'...
    Dim presentation As Presentation = New Presentation()

A new presentation contains a single default slide master - a layout and appearance settings storage that helps you create consistent slides. For more information, refer to the following section: Layout Presets.

Load a Presentation from a Stream

Use the Presentation(Stream) constructor to load a presentation from a stream:

C#

using DevExpress.Docs.Presentation;
//...
    using (FileStream fs = File.OpenRead(@"D:\mypresentation.pptx")) {
        Presentation presentation = new Presentation(fs);
        // Do something with the presentation. For example, export it:
        presentation.ExportToPdf(new FileStream(@"D:\exported-document.pdf", FileMode.Create));
    }

VB.NET

Imports DevExpress.Docs.Presentation
'...
    Using fs As FileStream = File.OpenRead("D:\mypresentation.pptx")
        Dim presentation As Presentation = New Presentation(fs)
        ' Do something with the presentation. For example, export it:
        presentation.ExportToPdf(New FileStream("D:\exported-document.pdf", FileMode.Create))
    End Using

Note: If you try to load a corrupted PPTX file or file in another format, you get a PresentationUnsupportedFormatException.

Load a Presentation from a Byte Array

Use the Presentation(Byte[]) constructor to load a presentation from a byte array:

C#

using DevExpress.Docs.Presentation;
//...
    Presentation presentation = new Presentation(File.ReadAllBytes(@"D:\mypresentation.pptx"));

VB.NET

Imports DevExpress.Docs.Presentation
'...
    Dim presentation As Presentation = New Presentation(File.ReadAllBytes("D:\mypresentation.pptx"))

Note: If you try to load a corrupted PPTX file or file in another format, you get a PresentationUnsupportedFormatException.

Save the Presentation

Call the SaveDocument method to save the presentation to a PPTX file:

C#

FileStream outputStream = new FileStream(@"D:\mypresentation.pptx", FileMode.Create);
presentation.SaveDocument(outputStream);
outputStream.Dispose();

VB.NET

Dim outputStream As FileStream = New FileStream("D:\mypresentation.pptx", FileMode.Create)
presentation.SaveDocument(outputStream)
outputStream.Dispose()

Next Steps

Configure Slide Masters and Layouts

Learn how to configure slide masters and layouts.

Manage Slides

Learn how to manage slides in a presentation.