Question

Is their any way to find out if two textboxes or shapes overlap using VBA in PowerPoint (2007)?

Thanks

Answer 1

This should get you going.

It still needs to account for boundary cases:

Do two shapes just touching count as an overlap or not?

What about line thickness? The shape size doesn’t include the line thickness, but a thick line might cause the shapes to visual overlap.

Function ShapesOverlap(oSh1 As Shape, oSh2 As Shape) As Boolean
    Dim Shp1Left As Single
    Dim Shp1Right As Single
    Dim Shp1Top As Single
    Dim Shp1Bottom As Single

    Dim Shp2Left As Single
    Dim Shp2Right As Single
    Dim Shp2Top As Single
    Dim Shp2Bottom As Single

    Dim bHorizontalOverlap As Boolean
    Dim bVerticalOverlap As Boolean

    With oSh1
        Shp1Left = .Left
        Shp1Right = .Left + .Width
        Shp1Top = .Top
        Shp1Bottom = .Top + .Height
    End With

    With oSh2
        Shp2Left = .Left
        Shp2Right = .Left + .Width
        Shp2Top = .Top
        Shp2Bottom = .Top + .Height
    End With

    ' do they overlap horizontally?
    If Shp1Left > Shp2Left Then
        If Shp1Left < Shp2Right Then
            bHorizontalOverlap = True
        End If
    End If
    If Shp1Left < Shp2Left Then
        If Shp1Right > Shp2Left Then
            bHorizontalOverlap = True
        End If
    End If

    ' do they overlap vertically?
    If Shp1Top > Shp2Top Then
        If Shp1Top < Shp2Bottom Then
            bVerticalOverlap = True
        End If
    End If
    ' do they overlap vertically?
    If Shp1Top < Shp2Top Then
        If Shp1Bottom > Shp2Top Then
            bVerticalOverlap = True
        End If
    End If

    ShapesOverlap = bHorizontalOverlap And bVerticalOverlap

End Function