Moving from Microsoft Office VBA to AppleScript:
MacTech's Guide to Making the Transition

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April, 2007
Page 101

          On Error Resume Next

' does it have a text frame?

If .HasTextFrame Then

' does the text frame have any text?

' see if there's any there

' before trying to alter it

If .TextFrame.HasText Then

.TextFrame.TextRange.Text = "And here we are, safely"

End If

End If

End With

End Sub

becomes:

tell application "Microsoft PowerPoint"

     --get the selected shape via the handler

     set selectedShape to my GetSelectedShape() -- paste it in below!

     try -- to avoid error messages if shape has no text frame or no text

          tell selectedShape

              if has text frame then -- does it have one?

                   --if so, does the text frame have any text?

                   if has text of its text frame then -- needs 'its'

                        set content of text range of its text frame to ¬

                            "And here we are safely."

                   end if

              end if

          end tell

     end try

end tell

For production work, you would put all the lines, after getting selectedShape, into an IsSafeToTouch(selectedShape) handler, sending it the selectedShape and returning a boolean true, or false under other conditions or on error, before setting the text in the main script. There would be many different places and contexts where you would call this handler before setting different text:

     tell application "Microsoft PowerPoint"

     --get the selected shape via the handler

     set selectedShape to my GetSelectedShape() -- paste it in below!

     set check to my IsSafeToTouch(selectedShape)

     if check then

          set content of text range of selectedShape's text frame to ¬