PowerPoint Presentation Skill

Create professional PowerPoint presentations with design best practices, content validation, and quality assurance workflows.

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when you need to:

Create presentations from scratch without a template using PptxGenJS
Edit or modify existing presentation templates
Extract and analyze presentation content as markdown
Generate visual thumbnails of slides
Convert presentations to images for visual inspection
Validate presentation quality (content, layout, contrast, typography)
Unpack and manipulate presentation XML structure
Verify design compliance before final delivery

Triggers on requests like: create presentation, build PowerPoint, edit PPTX, generate slides, presentation QA, validate slides, analyze presentation structure.

Prerequisites and Setup

Required Dependencies

Install all required tools:

# Python libraries
pip install "markitdown[pptx]"
pip install Pillow

# Node.js global package
npm install -g pptxgenjs

# LibreOffice (Windows - if not installed)
winget install LibreOffice

# Poppler (PDF conversion utilities)
# Windows: via Chocolatey or direct download from https://github.com/oschwartz10612/poppler-windows/releases/
choco install poppler
# Or manually add poppler to system PATH

Verification

Verify installation:

python -m pip list | findstr /I "pptx pillow markitdown"
npm list -g pptxgenjs
soffice --version  # LibreOffice
pdfimages -v       # Or pdftoppm -v (Poppler utilities)

Workflow: Create Presentation from Scratch

Use PptxGenJS when creating presentations without a template.

Step 1: Plan Content and Design

Before coding, define:

Color palette (pick 1-2 supporting tones plus 1 accent; avoid generic blue)
Typography (header font + body font pair)
Layout pattern (two-column, icon+text rows, grids, or half-bleed images)
Visual elements for each slide (images, icons, charts, shapes; avoid text-only)

Step 2: Create Presentation Structure

npm install pptxgenjs
# Or in a Node.js/JavaScript project: npm install pptxgenjs

Step 3: Build Slides Programmatically

Use PptxGenJS to add slides with consistent styling:

const PptxGenJS = require("pptxgenjs");
const prs = new PptxGenJS();

prs.defineLayout("TITLE_SLIDE", {
  name: "Title Slide",
  width: 10,
  height: 7.5
});

const slide = prs.addSlide("TITLE_SLIDE");
slide.background = { color: "1E2761" };
slide.addText("Your Title", {
  x: 0.5,
  y: 2.5,
  w: 9,
  h: 2,
  fontSize: 44,
  bold: true,
  color: "FFFFFF",
  fontFace: "Georgia",
  align: "left"
});

prs.writeFile("output.pptx");

Step 4: Apply Design Best Practices

Element	Rule
Color dominance	60-70% primary color, 1-2 supporting, 1 accent
Typography	36-44pt (titles), 20-24pt (headers), 14-16pt (body), 10-12pt (captions)
Spacing	0.5" minimum margins, 0.3-0.5" between blocks
Layouts	Vary layouts across slides (columns, cards, callouts)
Visuals	Every slide must have an image, icon, chart, or shape element
Text alignment	Left-align body paragraphs and lists; center only titles
Contrast	Ensure 4.5:1 contrast for text, 3:1 for focus indicators

Workflow: Edit Existing Template

Use when a template or reference presentation exists.

Step 1: Analyze Template

# Generate thumbnail view of template
python scripts/thumbnail.py template.pptx

# Extract text with formatting context
python -m markitdown template.pptx > content.md

Step 2: Unpack and Modify

# Unpack presentation for XML-level editing
python scripts/office/unpack.py template.pptx unpacked/

# Edit slide files (e.g., unpacked/ppt/slides/slide1.xml)
# Then repack
python scripts/office/pack.py unpacked/ output.pptx

Step 3: Validate Changes

Extract and verify content:

python -m markitdown output.pptx > output.md
# Check for placeholder text or errors
python -m markitdown output.pptx | grep -iE "xxxx|lorem|ipsum|placeholder"

Workflow: Content Extraction and Analysis

Extract presentation content for review or repurposing.

# Extract all text as markdown (fastest for review)
python -m markitdown presentation.pptx

# Generate visual thumbnail grid of all slides
python scripts/thumbnail.py presentation.pptx

# Extract raw XML for advanced analysis
python scripts/office/unpack.py presentation.pptx unpacked/

Workflow: Quality Assurance (Required Before Submission)

Critical: Assume there are problems. Your first render is almost never correct.

Content QA

# Extract presentation text
python -m markitdown output.pptx

# Check for placeholder text or missing content
python -m markitdown output.pptx | grep -iE "xxxx|lorem|ipsum|this.*(page|slide).*layout"

Fix any issues found before proceeding to visual QA.

Visual QA

Convert slides to images for inspection:

soffice --headless --convert-to pdf output.pptx
pdftoppm -jpeg -r 150 output.pdf slide
# Creates slide-01.jpg, slide-02.jpg, etc.

Inspection Checklist

Review slide images for:

Overlapping elements (text through shapes, lines through words)
Text overflow or cut-off at edges
Insufficient spacing (< 0.3" gaps between elements; < 0.5" from edges)
Uneven gaps (large empty areas near cramped sections)
Low contrast text (e.g., light gray on cream background)
Low contrast icons (dark icons on dark backgrounds without contrasting circle)
Decorative lines misaligned (positioned for single-line text but title wraps two lines)
Elements not consistently aligned
Placeholder content remaining

Verification Loop

Generate slides → Convert to images → Inspect visually
List all issues found (even minor ones)
Fix issues in code
Re-render affected slides only: pdftoppm -jpeg -r 150 -f N -l N output.pdf slide-fixed
Repeat until full inspection reveals no new issues

Do not declare success until completing at least one full fix-and-verify cycle.

Color Palettes (Reference)

Choose a palette specific to your topic:

Palette	Primary	Secondary	Accent
Midnight Executive	1E2761 (navy)	CADCFC (ice blue)	FFFFFF (white)
Forest & Moss	2C5F2D (forest)	97BC62 (moss)	F5F5F5 (cream)
Coral Energy	F96167 (coral)	F9E795 (gold)	2F3C7E (navy)
Ocean Gradient	065A82 (deep blue)	1C7293 (teal)	21295C (midnight)
Berry & Cream	6D2E46 (berry)	A26769 (dusty rose)	ECE2D0 (cream)
Teal Trust	028090 (teal)	00A896 (seafoam)	02C39A (mint)

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Do not use the same layout across slides
Do not center body text; left-align paragraphs and lists
Do not skimp on size contrast; titles need 36pt+ to stand out from 14-16pt body text
Do not default to blue; pick colors reflecting the specific topic
Do not create text-only slides; add images, icons, charts, or visual elements
Do not use accent lines under titles (hallmark of AI-generated slides)
Do not use low-contrast colors for text or icons
Do not forget text box padding when aligning shapes with text

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
LibreOffice not found	Install via `winget install LibreOffice` and ensure it is in system PATH
Poppler utilities missing	Download from https://github.com/oschwartz10612/poppler-windows/releases/ or install via `choco install poppler`
PDF conversion fails	Verify LibreOffice with `soffice --version` and restart terminal session after install
Text extraction shows placeholders	This is expected; manually edit extracted content and regenerate slides
Slide images show overlapping elements	Reduce font sizes, increase box spacing, or use multi-column layouts
PptxGenJS not recognized as command	Install globally: `npm install -g pptxgenjs` and ensure npm is in PATH

create-pptx