PowerPoint Skill

Use the pptx CLI for all PowerPoint operations.

When to use

• Inspect slide contents, shapes, formatting, charts
• Edit text while preserving formatting
• Generate table slides from YAML specs
• Render slides to PNG for visual verification

Setup

Before generating slides, ensure the project has a .clean-slides/ directory. The CLI auto-discovers template.pptx and config.yaml from there — no flags needed.

# Quick start — uses the bundled example template
pptx init

# With a custom/corporate template
pptx init -t path/to/corporate-template.pptx

This creates .clean-slides/template.pptx and .clean-slides/config.yaml. All pptx generate commands in that directory tree will use them automatically.

If no .clean-slides/ directory exists, the CLI prints a hint suggesting pptx init.

Overriding auto-discovery

Explicit flags always win:

# Override template and config for a single run
pptx generate spec.yaml -t other.pptx -c other-config.yaml -o output.pptx

See examples/custom-template/README.md for a full walkthrough of custom template setup.

Core workflow: inspect → edit → verify

# 1. Inspect — progressive drill-down
pptx show deck.pptx                    # slide list
pptx show deck.pptx 3                  # shapes on slide 3
pptx show deck.pptx 3 5                # full detail for shape [5]

# 2. Edit — shape identified by index or name
pptx edit deck.pptx 3 5 "New text" --out edited.pptx

# 3. Verify — render to PNG
pptx render edited.pptx 3 --out images/

Inspect commands

pptx show <file>                       # slides with layout, shape count, word count
pptx show <file> <slide>               # all shapes sorted top→bottom, left→right
pptx show <file> <slide> <shape>       # full JSON: text runs, formatting, chart data

pptx layouts <file>                    # available slide layouts with placeholders & content areas
pptx theme <file>                      # color scheme (accent1, accent2, etc.)
pptx xml <file> <slide> <shape>        # raw OOXML for debugging

Run pptx layouts on your template before generating — it shows each layout's fillable placeholders (title, subtitle, tracker, logo, etc.) and content areas with dimensions. Layouts with a secondary content area (e.g. 2/3, 3/4) have a sidebar for supporting content like key takeaways, charts, or images.

Shape types in output: ph0 (placeholder), text, chart, image, group, line, shape

Edit commands

pptx edit <file> <slide> <shape> <text> [--out PATH]
pptx batch <file> <edits.json> [--out PATH]

Text formats — inspect output = edit input:

{"paragraphs": [
  {"runs": [
    {"text": "Bold ", "bold": true},
    {"text": "normal"}
  ], "level": 0}
]}

Run fields: text, font, size, bold, italic, underline, color, superscript, subscript

• "bold": true → explicitly bold
• "bold": false → explicitly not bold (overrides inherited)
• (omit field) → inherit from parent

Slide management

pptx add-slide <file> <layout> [--at N] [--out PATH]
pptx delete-slide <file> <slide> --confirm [--out PATH]
pptx delete-shape <file> <slide> <shape> [--out PATH]
pptx insert <deck.pptx> <source.pptx> [--at N] [--slides 1,3-5] [--out PATH]

Replace a slide with a generated table

# 1. Generate the table slide (title/subtitle are set in the YAML)
pptx generate spec.yaml -t template.pptx -o /tmp/table.pptx

# 2. Insert at position 8, pushing old slide 8 → 9
pptx insert deck.pptx /tmp/table.pptx --at 8 --out deck.pptx

# 3. Delete the old slide (now at position 9)
pptx delete-slide deck.pptx 9 --confirm --out deck.pptx

# 4. Verify
pptx render deck.pptx 8 --out renders/

Render

pptx render <file> <slides> [--out DIR] [--dpi N]
pptx crop <png> <L> <T> <R> <B> [--out PATH]

<slides> accepts single (3), list (1,8,16), or ranges (1,3-5,8). Multiple slides share one PDF conversion.

Coordinates for crop are in inches (matches shape positions from show).

Generate tables from YAML

Context: pptx generate accepts multiple YAML files and produces one deck with one slide per YAML, in input order.

pptx generate spec.yaml -o output.pptx
pptx generate slide1.yaml slide2.yaml slide3.yaml -o output.pptx
pptx generate spec.yaml -t template.pptx -o output.pptx
pptx generate spec.yaml -t template.pptx -c config.yaml -o output.pptx
pptx validate spec.yaml
pptx verify spec.yaml --detail

Top-level YAML keys (all optional, set before table:):

• title — required — fills the title placeholder
• subtitle — fills the subtitle placeholder
• tracker — fills the on-page tracker (supports \n for line breaks)
• slide_layout — template layout name (e.g. "Default", "2/3", "3/4")
• content_layout — content area policy: default (below header) or full (near top)
• sidebar — formatted paragraphs for the secondary content area in split layouts (2/3, 3/4, 1/2)

See INPUT-SCHEMA.md for the complete schema.

Inline formatting

Text strings in cells, headers, and sidebar support markdown-style inline formatting:

• **bold text** → bold
• *italic text* → italic
• [link text](https://example.com) → clickable hyperlink (blue, underlined)

Column widths

By default, columns are sized automatically based on content (wider for cells that need more wrapping room). Override with column_widths:

table:
  column_widths: equal          # equal body columns — best when columns are items being compared
  column_widths: [1, 2, 1, 1]  # manual proportions

Custom templates

The tool ships with a built-in template config, but supports any PowerPoint template. The workflow is: inspect the template, generate a config, review/adjust, then generate slides.

Step 1: Inspect the template

pptx layouts template.pptx             # see all layouts, placeholders, content areas
pptx theme template.pptx               # see theme color scheme (dk1, lt1, accent1, etc.)
pptx show template.pptx 1              # inspect shapes on a sample slide
pptx xml template.pptx 1 <shape>       # raw XML for bullet lstStyle details

What to look for:

• Layouts: which layout names exist, which have content areas
• Placeholders: what index is title (usually 0), subtitle (usually 1), any tracker/breadcrumb
• Theme colors: what dk1, dk2, accent1 map to — these determine text and accent colors
• Fonts: what headline vs body fonts the template uses (check actual slide text, not just theme — templates often override theme fonts at the slide level)
• Bullet hierarchy: if the template has custom bullet styles, inspect the lstStyle XML on a content placeholder

Step 2: Generate a starter config

pptx init-config template.pptx -o template-config.yaml

This auto-extracts:

• Theme colors → mapped to semantic names (midnight, electric_blue, etc.)
• Theme fonts → headline/body
• Slide dimensions and estimated layout geometry
• Placeholder indices (title, subtitle, tracker if detected)
• Available layout names (listed as comments)

The output is a complete, valid config with sensible defaults for everything — but some values will need adjustment.

Step 3: Review and adjust the config

Key areas to verify and adjust:

1. colors: The auto-extracted electric_blue and cyan may not map correctly to your template's accent colors. Compare with pptx theme output and adjust.

2. fonts: The theme's major/minor fonts may differ from what the template actually uses on slides. Inspect a content slide (pptx show template.pptx 2 <shape>) and check the actual font in use.

3. font_sizes: Defaults are conservative (12pt body). Check your template's actual type scale and adjust title, body, table sizes.

4. placeholders: Verify title (usually 0) and subtitle (usually 1) are correct. If your template has a tracker/breadcrumb placeholder, set its index. Remove tracker if there isn't one.

5. default_colors: These control what theme color names are used for body text (tx1), headers (tx1 or accent1), dividers, and links. Adjust to match your template's design language.

6. bullets: The hardest to auto-detect. If your template has custom bullet styles with specific chars (•, –, ›) and indentation, inspect the slide master lstStyle:

   pptx xml template.pptx 1 <content-placeholder>
   # Look for <a:lstStyle> with <a:lvl1pPr>, <a:lvl2pPr>, etc.
   

   Update bullet chars, mar_l_emu, indent_emu, and spacing to match.

7. layout: The auto-detected margins and Y positions are estimates. If slides look misaligned, measure positions from pptx show template.pptx <slide> output and adjust content_start_y_emu, footer_line_y_emu, etc.

Step 4: Generate with custom config

# Generate
pptx generate spec.yaml -t template.pptx -c template-config.yaml -o output.pptx

# Validate / verify also accept --config
pptx validate spec.yaml -c template-config.yaml
pptx verify spec.yaml -c template-config.yaml --detail

Tips for custom templates

• Start simple: generate a basic 2×2 table first and render it to check alignment
• Iterate: render after each config adjustment to see the effect
• Content areas from layout: when using -t template.pptx, the generator reads content area dimensions from the actual slide layout placeholders, so layout geometry often works even with approximate config values
• Bullet levels: if your template doesn't use custom bullets, the defaults (•, –, ›) work for most templates
• The config doesn't need to be perfect: the generator adapts to the template's actual placeholder positions at runtime; the config mainly controls styling (fonts, colors, spacing)

Backup policy

Before editing, save a backup:

cp deck.pptx deck.backup.pptx
pptx edit deck.pptx ... --out deck.edited.pptx

Always use --out to write to a new file unless explicitly asked to overwrite.

Tips

• Placeholders (ph0, ph1, etc.) are structural — edit text only, don't delete or resize
• Inspect before editing — use show to find the right shape index
• Render after editing — visual verification catches formatting issues
• Copy formatting from inspect — the JSON output works directly as edit input