Paper Slides: From Paper to Conference Talk

Generate conference presentation slides from: $ARGUMENTS

Context

This skill runs after Workflow 3 (

/paper-writing

). It takes a compiled paper and generates a presentation slide deck for conference oral talks, spotlight presentations, or poster lightning talks.

Unlike posters (single page, visual-first), slides tell a temporal story: each slide builds on the previous one, with progressive revelation of the research narrative. A good talk makes the audience understand why this matters before showing what was done.

Constants

VENUE =
NeurIPS
— Target venue, determines color scheme. Supported:
```
NeurIPS
```
,
```
ICML
```
,
```
ICLR
```
,
```
AAAI
```
,
```
ACL
```
,
```
EMNLP
```
,
```
CVPR
```
,
```
ECCV
```
,
```
GENERIC
```
. Override via argument.
TALK_TYPE =
spotlight
— Talk format. Options:
```
oral
```
(15-20 min),
```
spotlight
```
(5-8 min),
```
poster-talk
```
(3-5 min),
```
invited
```
(30-45 min). Determines slide count and content depth.
TALK_MINUTES = 15 — Talk duration in minutes. Auto-adjusts slide count (~1 slide/minute for oral, ~1.5 slides/minute for spotlight). Override explicitly if needed.
ASPECT_RATIO =
16:9
— Slide aspect ratio. Options:
```
16:9
```
(default, modern projectors),
```
4:3
```
(legacy).
SPEAKER_NOTES = true — Generate
```
\note{}
```
blocks in beamer and corresponding PPTX notes. Set
```
false
```
for clean slides without notes.
PAPER_DIR =
paper/
— Directory containing the compiled paper.
OUTPUT_DIR =
slides/
— Output directory for all slide files.
REVIEWER_MODEL =
gpt-5.4
— Model used via Codex MCP for slide review.
AUTO_PROCEED = false — At each checkpoint, always wait for explicit user confirmation.
COMPILER =
latexmk
— LaTeX build tool.
ENGINE =
pdflatex
— LaTeX engine. Use
```
xelatex
```
for CJK text.

💡 Override:

/paper-slides "paper/" — talk_type: oral, venue: ICML, minutes: 20, aspect: 4:3

Talk Type → Slide Count

Talk Type	Duration	Slides	Content Depth
`poster-talk`	3-5 min	5-8	Problem + 1 method slide + 1 result + conclusion
`spotlight`	5-8 min	8-12	Problem + 2 method + 2 results + conclusion
`oral`	15-20 min	15-22	Full story with motivation, method detail, experiments, analysis
`invited`	30-45 min	25-40	Comprehensive: background, related work, deep method, extensive results, discussion

Venue Color Schemes

Same as

/paper-poster

Venue	Primary	Accent	Background	Text
NeurIPS	`#8B5CF6`	`#2563EB`	`#FFFFFF`	`#1E1E1E`
ICML	`#DC2626`	`#1D4ED8`	`#FFFFFF`	`#1E1E1E`
ICLR	`#059669`	`#0284C7`	`#FFFFFF`	`#1E1E1E`
CVPR	`#2563EB`	`#7C3AED`	`#FFFFFF`	`#1E1E1E`
GENERIC	`#334155`	`#2563EB`	`#FFFFFF`	`#1E1E1E`

State Persistence (Compact Recovery)

Persist state to

slides/SLIDES_STATE.json

after each phase:

json

{
  "phase": 3,
  "venue": "NeurIPS",
  "talk_type": "spotlight",
  "slide_count": 10,
  "codex_thread_id": "019cfcf4-...",
  "status": "in_progress",
  "timestamp": "2026-03-18T15:00:00"
}

On startup: if

SLIDES_STATE.json

exists with

"status": "in_progress"

and within 24h → resume. Otherwise → fresh start.

Workflow

Phase 0: Input Validation & Setup

Check prerequisites:
bash
```
which pdflatex && which latexmk
```

Verify paper exists:

bash

ls $PAPER_DIR/main.tex || ls $PAPER_DIR/main.pdf
ls $PAPER_DIR/sections/*.tex
ls $PAPER_DIR/figures/

Backup existing slides: if
```
slides/
```
exists, copy to
```
slides-backup-{timestamp}/
```
Create output directory:
```
mkdir -p slides/figures
```
Detect CJK: if paper contains Chinese/Japanese/Korean, set ENGINE to
```
xelatex
```
Determine slide count: from TALK_TYPE and TALK_MINUTES using the table above
Check for resume: read
```
slides/SLIDES_STATE.json
```
if it exists

State: Write

SLIDES_STATE.json

with

phase: 0

Phase 1: Content Extraction & Slide Outline

Read

paper/sections/*.tex

and build a slide-by-slide outline.

Slide template by talk type:

Oral (15-22 slides)

Slide	Purpose	Content Source	Figure?
1	Title	Paper metadata	No
2	Outline	Section headers	No
3-4	Motivation & Problem	Introduction	Optional
5	Key Insight	Introduction (contribution)	No
6-9	Method	Method section	Yes (hero figure)
10-14	Results	Experiments	Yes (per slide)
15-16	Analysis / Ablations	Experiments	Yes
17	Limitations	Conclusion	No
18	Conclusion / Takeaway	Conclusion	No
19	Thank You + QR	—	QR code

Spotlight (8-12 slides)

Slide	Purpose	Content Source	Figure?
1	Title	Paper metadata	No
2-3	Problem + Why It Matters	Introduction	Optional
4	Key Insight	Contribution	No
5-6	Method	Method (condensed)	Yes (hero)
7-9	Results	Key results only	Yes
10	Takeaway	Conclusion	No
11	Thank You + QR	—	QR code

Poster-talk (5-8 slides)

Slide	Purpose	Content Source	Figure?
1	Title	Paper metadata	No
2	Problem	Introduction (1 slide)	No
3	Method	Method (1 slide)	Yes
4-5	Results	Key result only	Yes
6	Takeaway + QR	Conclusion	QR

For each slide, specify:

Title (max 8 words)
3-5 bullet points (max 8 words each)
Figure reference (if any) from paper/figures/
Speaker note (2-3 sentences of what to say)
Time allocation (in seconds)

Output:

slides/SLIDE_OUTLINE.md

🚦 Checkpoint:

📊 Slide outline ready:
- Talk type: [TALK_TYPE] ([TALK_MINUTES] min)
- Slide count: [N] slides
- Figures used: [N] from paper/figures/
- Time budget: [breakdown]

Slide-by-slide outline:
1. [Title slide]
2. [Motivation — 1.5 min]
3. [Problem statement — 1 min]
...

Proceed to drafting? Or adjust the outline?

⛔ STOP HERE and wait for user response. This is the most critical checkpoint — the outline determines the entire talk flow.

Options:

"go" → proceed to Phase 2
adjustments (e.g., "merge slides 3-4", "add a demo slide", "cut the ablation") → revise
"stop" → save to
```
slides/SLIDE_OUTLINE.md
```

State: Write

SLIDES_STATE.json

with

phase: 1

Phase 2: Slide-by-Slide Content Drafting

For each slide in the outline, draft the actual content.

Presentation rules (enforced strictly):

Rule	Rationale
One message per slide	If a slide has two ideas, split it
Max 6 lines per slide	More than 6 lines = wall of text
Max 8 words per line	Audience reads, not listens, if text is long
Sentence fragments, not sentences	"Improves F1 by 3.2%" not "Our method improves the F1 score by 3.2 percentage points"
Figure slides: figure ≥60% area	The figure IS the content; bullets are annotations
Bold key numbers	"Achieves 94.3% accuracy"
Progressive disclosure	Use `\pause` or `\onslide` for complex slides
No Related Work slide	Unless invited talk (30+ min)

For each slide, produce:

```
\frametitle{}
```
Content (itemize or figure + caption)
```
\note{}
```
with speaker text (if SPEAKER_NOTES=true)

Phase 3: Generate Slides LaTeX

Create

slides/main.tex

using beamer.

Template structure:

latex

\documentclass[aspectratio=169]{beamer}

% Venue theme
\usepackage{xcolor}
\definecolor{primary}{HTML}{VENUE_PRIMARY}
\definecolor{accent}{HTML}{VENUE_ACCENT}

% Clean theme
\usetheme{default}
\usecolortheme{default}
\setbeamercolor{frametitle}{fg=primary}
\setbeamercolor{title}{fg=primary}
\setbeamercolor{structure}{fg=accent}
\setbeamercolor{itemize item}{fg=primary}
\setbeamercolor{itemize subitem}{fg=accent}
\setbeamertemplate{navigation symbols}{}
\setbeamertemplate{footline}{
  \hfill\insertframenumber/\inserttotalframenumber\hspace{2mm}\vspace{2mm}
}

% Packages
\usepackage{graphicx,amsmath,booktabs}
\graphicspath{{figures/}}

% Speaker notes (if enabled)
% \setbeameroption{show notes on second screen=right}

% Metadata
\title{PAPER TITLE}
\author{Author 1 \and Author 2}
\institute{Affiliation}
\date{VENUE YEAR}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\titlepage
\end{frame}

% Content slides follow...

\begin{frame}{Motivation}
\begin{itemize}
  \item Bullet point 1
  \item Bullet point 2
  \item \textbf{Key insight in bold}
\end{itemize}
\note{Speaker note: explain the motivation...}
\end{frame}

% Figure slide example
\begin{frame}{Method Overview}
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.85\textwidth]{method_overview.pdf}
\vspace{0.5em}
\begin{itemize}
  \item Key annotation about the figure
\end{itemize}
\note{Walk through the figure left to right...}
\end{frame}

% ... more slides ...

\begin{frame}{Thank You}
\centering
{\Large Questions?}\\[2em]
Paper: [URL or QR placeholder]\\
Code: [URL or QR placeholder]
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Symlink figures:

bash

ln -sf ../paper/figures/*.pdf slides/figures/ 2>/dev/null
ln -sf ../paper/figures/*.png slides/figures/ 2>/dev/null

Key formatting rules:

Title font: ≥28pt, venue primary color
Body font: ≥20pt
Footnotes: ≥14pt
No navigation symbols
Frame numbers in bottom-right
Clean white background (no gradients, no decorative elements)

Phase 4: Compile Slides

bash

cd slides && latexmk -$ENGINE -interaction=nonstopmode main.tex

Error handling loop (max 3 attempts):

Parse error log
Fix: missing package, undefined command, file not found, overfull boxes
Recompile

Verification:

bash

# Check slide count matches outline
pdfinfo slides/main.pdf | grep Pages

If page count differs significantly from outline (>2 slides off), investigate.

State: Write

SLIDES_STATE.json

with

phase: 4

Phase 5: Codex MCP Review

Send the slide outline + selected LaTeX frames to GPT-5.4 xhigh:

mcp__codex__codex:
  config: {"model_reasoning_effort": "xhigh"}
  prompt: |
    Review this [TALK_TYPE] presentation ([TALK_MINUTES] min) for [VENUE].

    Evaluate using these criteria (score 1-5 each):

    1. **Story arc** — Does the talk build a compelling narrative? (Problem → insight → method → evidence → takeaway)
    2. **Slide density** — Any slides with too much text? (Max 6 lines, 8 words/line)
    3. **Time budget** — Is [N] slides realistic for [TALK_MINUTES] minutes?
    4. **Figure visibility** — Will figures be readable on a projector?
    5. **Opening hook** — Do slides 2-3 grab attention? (Not "In this paper, we...")
    6. **Takeaway** — Is the final message clear and memorable?
    7. **Progressive build** — Are complex ideas revealed gradually?

    Slide outline:
    [PASTE SLIDE_OUTLINE.md]

    Selected frames (LaTeX):
    [PASTE KEY FRAMES]

    Provide:
    - Score for each criterion
    - Top 3 actionable fixes
    - Overall: Ready to present? (Yes / Needs revision / Major issues)

Apply fixes. Recompile if LaTeX was changed.

⚠️ If
mcp__codex__codex
is not available (no OpenAI API key), skip external review and proceed to Phase 6. Note the skip in
SLIDES_STATE.json
.

Save review to

slides/SLIDES_REVIEW.md

State: Write

SLIDES_STATE.json

with

phase: 5

Phase 6: Speaker Notes

For each slide, ensure a

\note{}

block exists with:

What to say (2-3 complete sentences, conversational tone)
Timing hint (e.g., "spend 1 minute here", "quick — 20 seconds")
Transition phrase to the next slide (e.g., "So how do we actually implement this? Let me show you...")

Also generate

slides/speaker_notes.md

as a standalone backup:

markdown

# Speaker Notes

## Slide 1: Title
[No speaking — wait for introduction]

## Slide 2: Motivation
"Thank you. So let me start with the problem we're trying to solve..."
[Time: 1.5 min]

## Slide 3: Problem Statement
"Specifically, the challenge is..."
→ Transition: "To address this, our key insight is..."
[Time: 1 min]

...

State: Write

SLIDES_STATE.json

with

phase: 6

Phase 7: PowerPoint Export

Generate an editable PPTX using

python-pptx

bash

python3 -c "import pptx" 2>/dev/null || pip install python-pptx

Write

slides/generate_pptx.py

that:

Creates a PPTX with correct aspect ratio (16:9 → 13.33" x 7.5"; 4:3 → 10" x 7.5")
For each beamer frame:
- Creates a slide with matching layout
- Title in venue primary color, bold
- Bullet points with venue accent color markers
- Figures embedded as images (from slides/figures/)
- Speaker notes transferred to PPTX notes field
Title slide with special formatting (centered, larger title)
Thank You slide with centered text
Applies venue color scheme throughout

bash

cd slides && python3 generate_pptx.py
# Output: slides/presentation.pptx

⚠️ If
python-pptx
is not installed, skip with a note: "Install
pip install python-pptx
to enable PowerPoint export."

State: Write

SLIDES_STATE.json

with

phase: 7

Phase 8: Full Talk Script

Generate

slides/TALK_SCRIPT.md

— a complete, word-for-word script for the talk.

This is different from speaker notes (brief reminders). The talk script is a full manuscript that can be read aloud or used for practice.

markdown

# Talk Script: [Paper Title]

**Venue**: [VENUE] [YEAR]
**Talk type**: [TALK_TYPE] ([TALK_MINUTES] min)
**Total slides**: [N]

---

## Slide 1: Title [0:00 - 0:15]

*[Wait for chair introduction]*

"Thank you [chair name]. I'm [author] from [affiliation], and today I'll be talking about [short title]."

---

## Slide 2: Motivation [0:15 - 1:30]

"Let me start with the problem. [Describe the real-world motivation in accessible terms]. This matters because [impact statement].

The current state of the art approaches this with [brief existing approach]. But there's a fundamental limitation: [gap statement]."

→ *Transition*: "So what's our key insight?"

---

## Slide 3: Key Insight [1:30 - 2:30]

"Our key observation is that [core insight in one sentence].

This leads us to propose [method name], which [one-sentence description]."

→ *Transition*: "Let me walk you through how this works."

---

## Slide 4-N: [Continue for each slide...]

...

---

## Slide [N]: Thank You [TALK_MINUTES:00]

"To summarize: we've shown that [main result]. The key takeaway is [memorable final message].

The paper and code are available at the QR code on screen. I'm happy to take questions."

---

## Time Budget Summary

| Slide | Topic | Duration | Cumulative |
|:-----:|-------|:--------:|:----------:|
| 1 | Title | 0:15 | 0:15 |
| 2 | Motivation | 1:15 | 1:30 |
| 3 | Key Insight | 1:00 | 2:30 |
| ... | ... | ... | ... |
| N | Thank You | 0:15 | [TALK_MINUTES]:00 |

**Total**: [sum] min (target: [TALK_MINUTES] min)

---

## Anticipated Q&A

### Q1: How does this compare to [strongest baseline]?
**A**: "[Specific comparison with numbers]. Our advantage is particularly clear in [specific scenario], where we see [X%] improvement."

### Q2: What are the main limitations?
**A**: "[Honest answer]. We see this as [future work direction]."

### Q3: How computationally expensive is this?
**A**: "[Training/inference cost]. Compared to [baseline], our method requires [comparison]."

### Q4: Does this generalize to [related domain]?
**A**: "[Answer based on paper's discussion section]."

### Q5: What's the most surprising finding?
**A**: "[Interesting insight from the experiments]."

### Q6: How sensitive is the method to [hyperparameter/design choice]?
**A**: "[Reference ablation study if available]."

### Q7: What's the next step for this research?
**A**: "[Future work from conclusion]."

### Q8: [Domain-specific question]
**A**: "[Answer]."

Final Output Summary

📊 Slide generation complete:
- Talk type: [TALK_TYPE] ([TALK_MINUTES] min) for [VENUE]
- Files:
  slides/
  ├── main.tex              # Beamer LaTeX source
  ├── main.pdf              # Compiled slides (primary output)
  ├── presentation.pptx     # Editable PowerPoint
  ├── SLIDE_OUTLINE.md      # Slide-by-slide outline
  ├── SLIDES_REVIEW.md      # GPT-5.4 review feedback
  ├── speaker_notes.md      # Per-slide speaker notes
  ├── TALK_SCRIPT.md        # Full word-for-word talk script + Q&A
  ├── SLIDES_STATE.json     # State persistence
  ├── generate_pptx.py      # PPTX generation script
  └── figures/              # Symlinked from paper/figures/

Next steps:
1. Practice with TALK_SCRIPT.md (read aloud, time yourself)
2. Edit presentation.pptx for visual tweaks (animations, custom graphics)
3. Review Anticipated Q&A section before the talk
4. Do a dry run with a colleague

State: Write

SLIDES_STATE.json

with

phase: 8, status: "completed"

Key Rules

Large file handling: If the Write tool fails due to file size, immediately retry using Bash (
```
cat << 'EOF' > file
```
) to write in chunks. Do NOT ask the user for permission — just do it silently.
One message per slide. If a slide has two ideas, split it into two slides.
Do NOT fabricate data. All numbers must come from
```
paper/sections/*.tex
```
.
Bullet points only — never full sentences on slides. Sentence fragments are fine.
Figure slides: figure ≥60% of slide area. The figure IS the content.
Progressive disclosure: Use
```
\pause
```
or
```
\onslide
```
for complex method slides.
De-AI polish: Remove watch words from all slide text and talk script.
Do NOT hallucinate citations. Reference only papers cited in the paper.
Opening hook matters: Never start with "In this paper, we..." — start with the problem or a provocative question.
Font size minimums: Title ≥28pt, body ≥20pt, footnotes ≥14pt.
Feishu notifications are optional. If
```
~/.claude/feishu.json
```
exists, send notifications. If absent, skip.

Parameter Pass-Through

/paper-slides "paper/" — talk_type: oral, venue: ICML, minutes: 20, aspect: 4:3, notes: false

Parameter	Default	Description
`venue`	NeurIPS	Conference for color scheme
`talk_type`	spotlight	oral/spotlight/poster-talk/invited
`minutes`	15	Talk duration
`aspect`	16:9	Aspect ratio (16:9 / 4:3)
`notes`	true	Generate speaker notes
`engine`	pdflatex	LaTeX engine
`auto proceed`	false	Skip checkpoints

paper-slides

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content

Paper Slides: From Paper to Conference Talk

Context

Constants

Talk Type → Slide Count

Venue Color Schemes

State Persistence (Compact Recovery)

Workflow

Phase 0: Input Validation & Setup

Phase 1: Content Extraction & Slide Outline

Oral (15-22 slides)

Spotlight (8-12 slides)

Poster-talk (5-8 slides)

Phase 2: Slide-by-Slide Content Drafting

Phase 3: Generate Slides LaTeX

Phase 4: Compile Slides

Phase 5: Codex MCP Review

Phase 6: Speaker Notes

Phase 7: PowerPoint Export

Phase 8: Full Talk Script

Final Output Summary

Key Rules

Parameter Pass-Through