PPTX Creation, Editing, and Analysis

Overview

Users may request the creation, editing, or content analysis of .pptx files. A .pptx file is essentially a ZIP archive containing XML files and other resources, which can be read and edited. Different tools and workflows are available depending on the task.

Content Reading and Analysis

Text Extraction

If you only need to read the text content of a presentation, convert the document to markdown:

bash

# Convert document to markdown
python -m markitdown path-to-file.pptx

Raw XML Access

Raw XML access is required for comments, presenter notes, slide layouts, animations, design elements, and complex formatting. These features require unpacking the presentation to read the raw XML content.

Unpacking Files

python ooxml/scripts/unpack.py <office_file> <output_dir>

Note: The unpack.py script is located at

skills/pptx/ooxml/scripts/unpack.py

relative to the project root. If the script does not exist at this path, use

find . -name "unpack.py"

to search for it.

Main File Structure

```
ppt/presentation.xml
```
- Main presentation metadata and slide references
```
ppt/slides/slide{N}.xml
```
- Individual slide content (slide1.xml, slide2.xml, etc.)
```
ppt/notesSlides/notesSlide{N}.xml
```
- Presenter notes for each slide
```
ppt/comments/modernComment_*.xml
```
- Comments on specific slides
```
ppt/slideLayouts/
```
- Slide layout templates
```
ppt/slideMasters/
```
- Master slide templates
```
ppt/theme/
```
- Theme and style information
```
ppt/media/
```
- Images and other media files

Typography and Color Extraction

If there is a design example to emulate: First analyze the presentation's typography and colors using the following methods:

Read the theme file: Check colors (
```
<a:clrScheme>
```
) and fonts (
```
<a:fontScheme>
```
) in
```
ppt/theme/theme1.xml
```
Sample slide content: Examine actual font usage (
```
<a:rPr>
```
) and colors in
```
ppt/slides/slide1.xml
```
Search for patterns: Use grep to search all XML files for colors (
```
<a:solidFill>
```
,
```
<a:srgbClr>
```
) and font references

Create a New PowerPoint Presentation Without a Template

When creating a new PowerPoint presentation from scratch, use the html2pptx workflow to convert HTML slides to PowerPoint with precise positioning.

Design Principles

Important: Before creating a presentation, analyze the content and select appropriate design elements:

Consider the topic: What is this presentation about? What tone, industry, or atmosphere does it suggest?
Check branding: If the user mentions a company/organization, consider its brand colors and identity
Match the palette to the content: Select colors that reflect the topic
Explain the approach: Explain design choices before writing code

Requirements:

✅ Explain the content-based design approach before writing code
✅ Use only web-safe fonts: Arial, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Georgia, Courier New, Verdana, Tahoma, Trebuchet MS, Impact
✅ Create a clear visual hierarchy with size, weight, and color
✅ Ensure readability: Strong contrast, appropriately sized text, clean placement
✅ Maintain consistency: Repeat patterns, spacing, and visual language across slides

Color Palette Selection

Choose colors creatively:

Think beyond defaults: What colors really suit this specific topic? Avoid automatic selections
Consider multiple angles: Topic, industry, atmosphere, energy level, audience, brand identity (if mentioned)
Be adventurous: Try unexpected combinations - a healthcare presentation doesn't have to be green, and a financial one doesn't have to be navy blue
Build a palette: Select 3-5 colors that work together (primary + supporting + accent)
Ensure contrast: Text must be clearly readable against the background

Color Palette Examples (use to stimulate creativity - choose one, adapt it, or create your own):

Classic Blue: Deep Navy (#1C2833), Slate Gray (#2E4053), Silver (#AAB7B8), Off-White (#F4F6F6)
Teal & Coral: Teal (#5EA8A7), Deep Teal (#277884), Coral (#FE4447), White (#FFFFFF)
Bold Red: Red (#C0392B), Bright Red (#E74C3C), Orange (#F39C12), Yellow (#F1C40F), Green (#2ECC71)
Warm Blush: Mauve (#A49393), Blush (#EED6D3), Rose (#E8B4B8), Cream (#FAF7F2)
Burgundy Luxury: Burgundy (#5D1D2E), Crimson (#951233), Rust (#C15937), Gold (#997929)

Visual Detail Options

Geometric Patterns:

Diagonal section dividers instead of horizontal
Asymmetric column widths (30/70, 40/60, 25/75)
Text headers rotated at 90° or 270°
Circular/hexagonal frames for images
Triangle accent shapes at corners
Overlapping shapes for depth

Border & Frame Treatments:

Thick solid-color border on only one side (10-20pt)
Double-line border with contrasting colors
Corner brackets instead of full frames
L-shaped borders (top+left or bottom+right)
Underline accent below headers (3-5pt thickness)

Typography Treatments:

Extreme size contrast (72pt headline vs 11pt body)
All-caps headers with wide letter spacing
Oversized display-type numbered sections
Monospace (Courier New) for data/statistical/technical content
Condensed font (Arial Narrow) for dense information
Outline text for emphasis

Layout Tips

When creating slides with charts or tables:

2-column layout (recommended): Use a full-width header, with two columns below it - one for text/bullet points and the other for featured content. This provides better balance and makes charts/tables more readable. Use flexbox with unequal column widths (e.g., 40%/60% split) to optimize space for each content type
Full-slide layout: Display featured content (chart/table) across the entire slide for maximum impact and readability
Don't stack vertically: Avoid placing charts/tables in a single column below text - this causes readability and layout issues

Workflow

Required - Read the entire file: Read
```
html2pptx.md
```
from start to finish. Do not set scope limits when reading this file. Read the entire file for detailed syntax, important formatting rules, and best practices before proceeding with presentation creation.
Create HTML files for each slide with appropriate dimensions (e.g., 720pt × 405pt for 16:9)
- Use
```
<p>
```
  ,
```
<h1>
```
  -
```
<h6>
```
  ,
```
<ul>
```
  ,
```
<ol>
```
  for all text content
- Use
```
class="placeholder"
```
  for areas where charts/tables will be added (rendered with a gray background for visibility)
- Important: First use Sharp to rasterize gradients and icons into PNG images, then reference them in HTML
- Layout: Use full-slide or 2-column layouts for slides containing charts/tables/images for better readability
Create and execute a JavaScript file that uses the
```
html2pptx.js
```
library to convert HTML slides to PowerPoint and save the presentation
- Use the
```
html2pptx()
```
  function to process each HTML file
- Use the PptxGenJS API to add charts and tables to placeholder areas
- Use
```
pptx.writeFile()
```
  to save the presentation
Visual Validation: Generate thumbnails to check for layout issues
- Create a thumbnail grid:
```
python scripts/thumbnail.py output.pptx workspace/thumbnails --cols 4
```
- Read the thumbnail images and carefully check for:
  - Text clipping: Text cut off by header bars, shapes, or slide edges
  - Text overlapping: Text overlapping with other text or shapes
  - Positioning issues: Content too close to slide boundaries or other elements
  - Contrast issues: Insufficient contrast between text and background
- If issues are found, adjust HTML margins/spacing/colors and regenerate the presentation
- Repeat until all slides are visually correct

Edit Existing PowerPoint Presentations

When editing slides in an existing PowerPoint presentation, you must work with the Raw Office Open XML (OOXML) format. This requires unpacking the .pptx file, editing the XML content, and repacking it.

Workflow

Required - Read the entire file: Read
```
ooxml.md
```
(about 500 lines) from start to finish. Do not set scope limits when reading this file. Read the entire file for detailed guidance on OOXML structure and editing workflows before editing the presentation.

Unpack the presentation:

python ooxml/scripts/unpack.py <office_file> <output_dir>

Edit XML files (mainly
```
ppt/slides/slide{N}.xml
```
and related files)
Important: Validate immediately after each edit and fix validation errors before proceeding:
```
python ooxml/scripts/validate.py <dir> --original <file>
```

Pack the final presentation:

python ooxml/scripts/pack.py <input_directory> <office_file>

Create a New PowerPoint Presentation Using a Template

When you need to create a presentation that follows the design of an existing template, duplicate and rearrange template slides, then replace placeholder content.

Workflow

Extract template text and create a visual thumbnail grid:
- Extract text:
```
python -m markitdown template.pptx > template-content.md
```
- Read
```
template-content.md
```
  : Read the entire file to understand the content of the template presentation. Do not set scope limits when reading this file.
- Create a thumbnail grid:
```
python scripts/thumbnail.py template.pptx
```
- Refer to the Creating Thumbnail Grids section for details

Analyze the template and save an inventory to a file:

Visual analysis: Review the thumbnail grid to understand slide layouts, design patterns, and visual structure

Create and save a template inventory file in

template-inventory.md

markdown

# Template Inventory Analysis
**Total slides: [Number]**
**Important: Slides are 0-indexed (first slide = 0, last slide = count-1)**

## [Category Name]
- Slide 0: [Layout code if available] - Description/purpose
- Slide 1: [Layout code] - Description/purpose
- Slide 2: [Layout code] - Description/purpose
[... List all slides individually with indexes ...]

Create a presentation outline based on the template inventory:
- Review the available templates from step 2
- Select an intro or title template for the first slide
- Select safe text-based layouts for other slides
- Important: Match the layout structure to the actual content
- Save the selected layout with content mapping in
```
outline.md
```

Duplicate, rearrange, and delete slides using
rearrange.py
:

bash

python scripts/rearrange.py template.pptx working.pptx 0,34,34,50,52

Extract all text using the
inventory.py
script:
bash
```
python scripts/inventory.py working.pptx text-inventory.json
```
- Read text-inventory.json: Read the entire text-inventory.json file to understand all shapes and their properties.
Generate replacement text and save data to a JSON file
- Generate replacement content based on the text inventory from the previous step
- Save the updated inventory to
```
replacement-text.json
```

Apply replacements using the
replace.py
script

bash

python scripts/replace.py working.pptx replacement-text.json output.pptx

Creating Thumbnail Grids

To create a visual thumbnail grid of PowerPoint slides for quick analysis and reference:

bash

python scripts/thumbnail.py template.pptx [output_prefix]

Features:

Creates:

thumbnails.jpg

(or

thumbnails-1.jpg

thumbnails-2.jpg

, etc. for large decks)

Default: 5 columns, maximum 30 slides per grid (5×6)

Custom prefix:

python scripts/thumbnail.py template.pptx my-grid

Adjust columns:
```
--cols 4
```
(range: 3-6, affects number of slides per grid)
Grid limits: 3 columns = 12 slides/grid, 4 columns = 20, 5 columns = 30, 6 columns = 42
Slides are 0-indexed (slide 0, slide 1, etc.)

Convert Slides to Images

To visually analyze PowerPoint slides, convert them to images using a two-step process:

Convert PPTX to PDF:

bash

soffice --headless --convert-to pdf template.pptx

Convert PDF pages to JPEG images:
bash
```
pdftoppm -jpeg -r 150 template.pdf slide
```
This creates files like
```
slide-1.jpg
```
,
```
slide-2.jpg
```
, etc.

Code Style Guidelines

Important: When generating code for PPTX operations:

Write concise code
Avoid redundant variable names and duplicate operations
Avoid unnecessary print statements

Dependencies

Required dependencies (should already be installed):

markitdown:
```
pip install "markitdown[pptx]"
```
(for text extraction from presentations)
pptxgenjs:
```
npm install -g pptxgenjs
```
(for creating presentations with html2pptx)
playwright:
```
npm install -g playwright
```
(for HTML rendering in html2pptx)

react-icons:

npm install -g react-icons react react-dom

(for icons)

sharp:
```
npm install -g sharp
```
(for SVG rasterization and image processing)
LibreOffice:
```
sudo apt-get install libreoffice
```
(for PDF conversion)
Poppler:
```
sudo apt-get install poppler-utils
```
(for converting PDF to images with pdftoppm)
defusedxml:
```
pip install defusedxml
```
(for safe XML parsing)

pptx

NPX Install

Tags

SKILL.md Content (Chinese)

PPTX Creation, Editing, and Analysis

Overview

Content Reading and Analysis

Text Extraction

Raw XML Access

Unpacking Files

Main File Structure

Typography and Color Extraction

Create a New PowerPoint Presentation Without a Template

Design Principles

Color Palette Selection

Visual Detail Options

Layout Tips

Workflow

Edit Existing PowerPoint Presentations

Workflow

Create a New PowerPoint Presentation Using a Template

Workflow

Creating Thumbnail Grids

Convert Slides to Images

Code Style Guidelines

Dependencies