Removing chart from PowerPoint slide with Apache POI

Question

We're trying to remove a chart from a PowerPoint slide using Apache POI 3.16 but we're having difficulties.

Our code performs the following steps:

1. Open an existing PowerPoint document (a template document)
2. Add and remove slides
3. Update charts in existing slides

This works fine.

At some point, we need to remove a chart from a given slide. Here's our attempt:

OPCPackage pkg = ppt.getPackage();

String chartRelationId = slide.getRelationId(chart);
pkg.removeRelationship(chartRelationId);

pkg.removePart(chart.getPackagePart());

The pkg.removePart() call seems to work but writing the final PowerPoint document to disk fails with an exception saying that the part file could not be removed (presumably because we already deleted it).

The pkg.removeRelationship() call also triggers an exception during writing the document to disk that says that core.xml already exists.

Is it possible to remove a chart from a PowerPoint slide with Apache POI? If so, how?

Answer 1

Since XSLFChart is in @Beta state, there is not a explicit Shape for a chart until now. So using apache poi we can only get XSLFGraphicFrame s which are containing charts. But removing a XSLFGraphicFrame from the slide will not removing all related chart parts too. So the removing the related chart parts top-down, means from POIXMLDocumentPart level down to PackagePart level is not implemented until now. And since all relevant methods in POIXMLDocumentPart are protected and the XSLFChart itself is final there is not really a easy possibility to work around.

The folowing code shows the problem. It is commented as such.

The code removes all charts from the first slide and removes all relationships and related parts that would be: /ppt/embeddings/Microsoft_Excel_WorksheetN.xlsx , /ppt/charts/colorsN.xml and /ppt/charts/styleN.xml . Only /ppt/charts/chartN.xml cannot be removed, as it is commented.

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;

import org.apache.poi.xslf.usermodel.*;
import org.apache.poi.sl.usermodel.*;

import org.apache.poi.POIXMLDocumentPart;

import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.opc.OPCPackage;
import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.opc.PackagePart;
import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.opc.PackageRelationshipCollection;
import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.opc.PackageRelationship;

import org.apache.xmlbeans.XmlObject;

import java.util.Map;
import java.util.HashMap;

import java.util.regex.Pattern;

public class ReadPPTRemoveChart {

 public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

  XMLSlideShow slideShow = new XMLSlideShow(new FileInputStream("PPTWithCharts.pptx"));

  XSLFSlide slide = slideShow.getSlides().get(0);

  Map<String, XSLFGraphicFrame> chartFramesToRemove = new HashMap<>();

  for (XSLFShape shape : slide.getShapes()) {
   if (shape instanceof XSLFGraphicFrame) {
    XSLFGraphicFrame graphicframe = (XSLFGraphicFrame)shape;
    XmlObject xmlobject = graphicframe.getXmlObject();
    XmlObject[] graphics = xmlobject.selectPath(
                            "declare namespace a='http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/main' " +
                            ".//a:graphic");
    if (graphics.length > 0) { //we have a XSLFGraphicFrame containing a:graphic
     XmlObject graphic = graphics[0];
     XmlObject[] charts = graphic.selectPath(
                           "declare namespace c='http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/chart' " +
                           ".//c:chart");
     if (charts.length > 0) { //we have a XSLFGraphicFrame containing c:chart
      XmlObject chart = charts[0];
      String rid = chart.selectAttribute(
                          "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships", "id")
                          .newCursor().getTextValue();
      chartFramesToRemove.put(rid, graphicframe);
     }
    }
   }
  }

  PackagePart slidepart = slide.getPackagePart();
  OPCPackage opcpackage = slideShow.getPackage();

  for (String rid : chartFramesToRemove.keySet()) {
   //at frist remove the XSLFGraphicFrame
   XSLFGraphicFrame chartFrame = chartFramesToRemove.get(rid);
   slide.removeShape(chartFrame);
   //Here is the problem in my opinion. This **should** remove all related parts too.
   //But since XSLFChart is @Beta, it does not.

   //So we try doing removing the related parts manually.
   //we get the PackagePart of the chart
   PackageRelationship relship = slidepart.getRelationships().getRelationshipByID(rid);
   PackagePart chartpart = slidepart.getRelatedPart(relship);

   //now we get and remove all the relations and related PackageParts from this chartpart
   //this are /ppt/embeddings/Microsoft_Excel_WorksheetN.xlsx, /ppt/charts/colorsN.xml 
   //and /ppt/charts/styleN.xml
   for (PackageRelationship chartrelship : chartpart.getRelationships()) {
    String partname = chartrelship.getTargetURI().toString();
    PackagePart part = opcpackage.getPartsByName(Pattern.compile(partname)).get(0);
    opcpackage.removePart(part);
    chartpart.removeRelationship(chartrelship.getId());
   }
   //this works

   //now we **should** be able removing the relationship to the chartpart from the slide too
   //but this seems not to be possible
   //doing this on PackagePart level works:
   slidepart.removeRelationship(rid);
   for (PackageRelationship sliderelship : slidepart.getRelationships()) {
    System.out.println("rel PP level: " + sliderelship.getTargetURI().toString());
   }
   //all relationships to /ppt/charts/chartN.xml are removed

   //but on POIXMLDocumentPart level this has no effect
   for (POIXMLDocumentPart sliderelpart : slide.getRelations()) {
    System.out.println("rel POIXML level: " + sliderelpart.getPackagePart().getPartName());
   }
   //relationships to /ppt/charts/chartN.xml are **not** removed

   //So we cannot remove the chartpart.
   //If we would do this, then while slideShow.write the 
   //org.apache.poi.xslf.usermodel.XSLFChart.commit in XSLFChart.java fails 
   //because after removing the PackagePart is absent but the relation is still there.
   //opcpackage.removePart(chartpart);

  }


  slideShow.write(new FileOutputStream("PPTWithChartsNew.pptx"));
  slideShow.close();
 }
}

After opening the PPTWithChartsNew.pptx using PowerPoint and saving it then, the unnecessary /ppt/charts/styleN.xml parts are removed too since there are no more relations to them.

---

Edit Sep 24 2017:

Found a solution using reflection. As said, the removing the related chart parts needs to be top-down, means from POIXMLDocumentPart level down to PackagePart level. And since POIXMLDocumentPart.removeRelation is protected, we need doing this using reflection.

import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;

import org.apache.poi.xslf.usermodel.*;
import org.apache.poi.sl.usermodel.*;

import org.apache.poi.POIXMLDocumentPart;

import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.opc.OPCPackage;
import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.opc.PackagePart;
import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.opc.PackageRelationshipCollection;
import org.apache.poi.openxml4j.opc.PackageRelationship;

import org.apache.xmlbeans.XmlObject;

import java.util.Map;
import java.util.HashMap;

import java.util.regex.Pattern;

import java.lang.reflect.Method;

public class ReadPPTRemoveChart {

 public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

  XMLSlideShow slideShow = new XMLSlideShow(new FileInputStream("PPTWithCharts.pptx"));

  XSLFSlide slide = slideShow.getSlides().get(0);

  Map<String, XSLFGraphicFrame> chartFramesToRemove = new HashMap<>();

  for (XSLFShape shape : slide.getShapes()) {
   if (shape instanceof XSLFGraphicFrame) {
    XSLFGraphicFrame graphicframe = (XSLFGraphicFrame)shape;
    XmlObject xmlobject = graphicframe.getXmlObject();
    XmlObject[] graphics = xmlobject.selectPath(
                            "declare namespace a='http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/main' " +
                            ".//a:graphic");
    if (graphics.length > 0) { //we have a XSLFGraphicFrame containing a:graphic
     XmlObject graphic = graphics[0];
     XmlObject[] charts = graphic.selectPath(
                           "declare namespace c='http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/drawingml/2006/chart' " +
                           ".//c:chart");
     if (charts.length > 0) { //we have a XSLFGraphicFrame containing c:chart
      XmlObject chart = charts[0];
      String rid = chart.selectAttribute(
                          "http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships", "id")
                          .newCursor().getTextValue();
      chartFramesToRemove.put(rid, graphicframe);
     }
    }
   }
  }

  PackagePart slidepart = slide.getPackagePart();
  OPCPackage opcpackage = slideShow.getPackage();

  for (String rid : chartFramesToRemove.keySet()) {
   //at frist remove the XSLFGraphicFrame
   XSLFGraphicFrame chartFrame = chartFramesToRemove.get(rid);
   slide.removeShape(chartFrame);
   //Here is the problem in my opinion. This **should** remove all related parts too.
   //But since XSLFChart is @Beta, it does not.

   //So we try doing removing the related parts manually.

   //we get the PackagePart of the chart
   PackageRelationship relship = slidepart.getRelationships().getRelationshipByID(rid);
   PackagePart chartpart = slidepart.getRelatedPart(relship);

   //now we get and remove all the relations and related PackageParts from this chartpart
   //this are /ppt/embeddings/Microsoft_Excel_WorksheetN.xlsx, /ppt/charts/colorsN.xml 
   //and /ppt/charts/styleN.xml
   for (PackageRelationship chartrelship : chartpart.getRelationships()) {
    String partname = chartrelship.getTargetURI().toString();
    PackagePart part = opcpackage.getPartsByName(Pattern.compile(partname)).get(0);
    opcpackage.removePart(part);
    chartpart.removeRelationship(chartrelship.getId());
   }

   //now we remove the chart part from the slide part
   //We need doing this on POIXMLDocumentPart level. 
   //Since POIXMLDocumentPart.removeRelation is protected, we need doing this using reflection
   XSLFChart chart = (XSLFChart)slide.getRelationById(rid);
   Method removeRelation = POIXMLDocumentPart.class.getDeclaredMethod("removeRelation", POIXMLDocumentPart.class); 
   removeRelation.setAccessible(true); 
   removeRelation.invoke(slide, chart);

  }

  slideShow.write(new FileOutputStream("PPTWithChartsNew.pptx"));
  slideShow.close();
 }
}