PPTX

What This Skill Helps With

Use this skill when you need to create, edit, review, or inspect a PowerPoint deck and want a dependable workflow for slides, notes, themes, and structure.

Ask for this skill with prompts like

Use the exact skill name $pptx in your prompt.

• Use $pptx to summarize this presentation and the speaker notes.
• Use $pptx to create a slide deck from this outline.
• Use $pptx to inspect the theme colors and fonts in this example deck.
• Use $pptx to review whether this presentation structure is clear and professional.

Tools and Assumptions

This skill works best when the agent can use some of these tools:

• python-pptx for standard slide creation and edits
• ZIP or XML inspection tools for notes, relationships, and deeper OOXML debugging
• optional export tooling when previews or PDFs are needed

If a requested feature is not supported well by python-pptx, inspect the PPTX as OOXML instead of forcing a fragile high-level edit.

Recommended Workflow

1. Read and summarize an existing deck

• Extract slide titles, body text, and any visible structure first.
• If the task mentions speaker notes, inspect the notes content explicitly.
• Summarize slide by slide before proposing edits.

2. Create a new deck

• Use python-pptx for standard business, academic, or technical decks.
• Start from a clear outline: title, purpose, audience, and one message per slide.
• Keep layouts simple before adding design polish.

3. Edit an existing deck

• Use python-pptx for text, shapes, tables, and images when the layout is straightforward.
• Be cautious with masters, complex animations, and unusual theme behavior.
• Preserve the original file until the revised deck is verified.

4. Inspect theme and OOXML structure

A .pptx file is a ZIP archive. Inspect OOXML directly when:

• fonts or colors are inconsistent,
• speaker notes are missing from high-level extraction,
• slide relationships are broken,
• layout inheritance behaves unexpectedly,
• comments or embedded assets need inspection.

Key areas:

• ppt/presentation.xml
• ppt/slides/slideN.xml
• ppt/notesSlides/notesSlideN.xml
• ppt/theme/theme1.xml
• ppt/slideLayouts/
• ppt/slideMasters/

Important Limits

• python-pptx does not cover every PowerPoint feature.
• Speaker notes, comments, and advanced theme behavior may require XML inspection.
• Exported previews do not guarantee the deck will render identically in every PowerPoint environment.

Common Mistakes

• Editing slide text without checking the intended audience and message hierarchy.
• Rebuilding a complex master or theme when a smaller content edit would do.
• Ignoring speaker notes when the user asked for a presentation review.
• Overwriting the original before testing slide order, text overflow, and theme consistency.