Hi grumpy, the gentleman I spoke to said nothing about screwing a bolt into the crankshaft first....
A slide puller is because with a screw puller you can not put the nose of that into the centre of the crank as you will damage the hole/thread.
If you put the bolt in, then use an old nut to go ove the point of the threaded shaft, hold both the head of the bolt and the nut with a spanner against a leg of the puller, you can use a threaded puller. All you have to watch is that the bolt you have screwed in has plenty of thread up in the crank, that you do not load it sideways and bend the bolt.
Cheers, bob.
