# Part 2

This session finished with posting the following SE question here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/39819876/in-which-way-are-these-two-powerpoint-shapes-different-accessed-via-api

In full it read like this:

As part of an open source assistive technology project (here), I am accessing a PowerPoint file by python API (python-pptx).
Some shapes are causing exceptions when I look at color. But it's hard to see which.
I've created this minimal example: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ihbd3e9yh235mg/MCVE.pptx?dl=0
and indeed, here's a screenshot:

It consists of a single slide, with shapes that work on the left, and shapes that fail on the right. Using the format painter will make a shape work (or not, depending on the source of the formatting) but I've been through every way of checking the formats that I can think of, and both sets of shapes appear identical.

How are the two sets of shapes in the minimal example different?

If anyone would like to pop over and add their expertise, that would be lovely. Otherwise, the live notes are below.

###### 02/10/2016-17:55:17 BST:

Okay, I'm back. Now I want to change grab_text so that it gives informatin about which colour information is missing. I can also use this as an oppertunity to overhaul the output text anyway.

###### 02/10/2016-18:06:36 BST:

Made some costmetic changes, now trying to get an event to trigger on blank colours.

###### 02/10/2016-18:10:45 BST:

I thought my debug code was wrong. Turns out that there really is a page where the colours are *all* wrong. And it's more than just gery...

###### 02/10/2016-18:14:15 BST:

Tried to change the colours to a lighter shade, NO effect. Trying again now I've remembered to save the file.

###### 02/10/2016-18:15:34 BST:

Replacing the box with another worked. But this is going to be an extra pain if I also have to check and fix all of the links as well.

###### 02/10/2016-18:16:36 BST:

I'm checking format painting from the fixed square.

###### 02/10/2016-18:17:24 BST:

That might have worked...

###### 02/10/2016-18:18:52 BST:

Indeed it has... but what changed?

###### 02/10/2016-18:21:18 BST:

I've been thought everything in the list... No differences in the formating.

###### 02/10/2016-18:22:52 BST:

Okay, time to take stock. We now understand that there is something in the formating of certain powerPoint shapes that causes some to refuse to give a colour and some to be happy with it. We know that this property can be transfered by the format painter tool. We've also checked all of the formating settings we can think of, and CAN'T find a difference. What's our next move?

###### 02/10/2016-18:25:35 BST:

I've created a new pointpoint file, that is different on only one way - that I format painted one additional cell. I'm now going to run opendiff and see if that gives me a clue.

###### 02/10/2016-18:26:53 BST:

Nevermind, they aren't (obviously) easily readable and it's probably more trouble that it's worth to go thought and unzip them all. What to do next?

###### 02/10/2016-18:30:15 BST:

I'm going to commit this, and try with something else.

###### 02/10/2016-18:30:24 BST:

No, that's NOT the best way. I'm going to create an example.

###### 02/10/2016-18:35:15 BST:

I've created a stripped down PowerPoint file.

###### 02/10/2016-18:38:41 BST:

I've built a special extra file that has just eight shapes on it, the four on the left are somehow different from the ones on the right. To Check nothing broke in the copying I then copied them back to the orginal file and tried again and the same problem came up.

###### 02/10/2016-18:49:34 BST:

I've created a SO question here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/39819876/in-which-way-are-these-two-powerpoint-shapes-different-accessed-via-api so I'll come back to it later.