Imagegen PPT Workflow

Use this skill to produce PPT decks where every final slide is a raster image and the .pptx is only the final container.

Overview

Follow 4 phases in order:

Plan the deck from user materials and requirements.
Confirm the plan and visual direction with a style preview and then a whole-deck thumbnail sheet.
Generate each final slide as a complete PNG.
Package the ordered PNGs into a .pptx.

Treat slides_plan.md as the source of truth. Do not skip approval gates.

Inputs To Collect

Collect or infer these anchors before writing the plan:

Source content: paper, report, notes, thesis, outline, transcript, or existing slides.
Deck goal: defense, research report, creative pitch, class talk, investor deck, product intro, or other presentation scenario.
Audience and speaking context.
Page count target or approximate duration.
Required utility pages: cover, agenda, chapter divider, summary, outlook, appendix, thank-you page.
Style intent: creative, defense, research, business, editorial, or another clear direction.
Any style reference images, templates, school or brand identity, and required colors.
Whether the user wants strict chapter naming, speaker-friendly phrasing, or visual-heavy condensed text.

If some anchors are missing, make reasonable assumptions and state them in the plan summary.

Phase 1: Outline And Style Preview

1. Write the outline first

Create slides_plan.md in the working directory before generating the deck.

Read references/outline-format.md before writing it.

The plan must include:

Slide order and count.
Page type for each slide.
Exact chapter or section titles.
The intended purpose of each slide.
The visible text hierarchy to show on the slide.
Any image or figure requirement.
Notes about whether the slide is a utility page such as agenda or chapter cover.

Keep the plan concise and presentation-facing. Do not dump raw paper text into every slide.

2. Generate a single style preview image

Use $imagegen to produce one preview image that expresses the confirmed direction.

The preview should usually be one of these:

a cover slide preview,
a chapter divider preview,
or a body slide preview that best shows the intended style.

Read references/prompt-recipes.md before writing the prompt.

Always show the user:

the concise deck structure,
the main assumptions,
the style preview image,
and the parts that still need confirmation.

Stop for confirmation after this phase.

Phase 2: Revision Loop And Whole-Deck Thumbnail

1. Revise until the user is satisfied

If the user requests changes:

update slides_plan.md,
regenerate the style preview if the style changed,
and summarize what changed.

Repeat until the user explicitly approves both content structure and style direction.

2. Generate a whole-deck thumbnail sheet

After plan approval, generate a low-fidelity review surface that shows nearly the whole deck at once.

Use one of these patterns:

Generate low-fidelity slide previews first, then assemble them into one board.
Generate a single storyboard-style board directly if that is faster and still readable enough.

The review board is for rhythm, density, and style consistency only. It does not need final-quality text or figures.

If you generate individual low-fidelity previews, assemble them with scripts/make_contact_sheet.py.

Expected output:

preview_slides/slide-01.png ... rough previews when needed
deck_overview.png or another clearly named overview board

Show the overview board to the user and ask for one more approval before final slide generation.

Phase 3: Final Slide Image Generation

After the user approves the overview, generate the final slide images.

Hard rules

Every final slide must be a complete PNG image.
Do not rely on native PPT text boxes, shape construction, HTML screenshots, or code-drawn slide layouts as the main output path.
Keep the visual system consistent across slides: typography, spacing, color, banner treatment, and chart style should remain coherent.
Use imagegen prompts that contain both the fixed global style block and the slide-specific content block.
Generate in slide order and save with stable filenames such as final_slides/slide-01.png.

Quality guidance

Prefer concise visible text, especially for research and defense decks.
Convert long prose into presentation language instead of copying paragraphs.
When a slide is figure-heavy, prioritize clarity and layout over decoration.
If the user provided must-keep figures or screenshots, either use them as image references during generation or clearly separate those pages so the user can replace them later.
If Chinese text fidelity is critical, keep wording short and grouped into clear title or card structures rather than dense paragraphs.

Phase 4: PPTX Packaging

Once the final PNG slides are approved, package them into a .pptx.

Use scripts/images_to_pptx.py to place each ordered image on a full-slide blank layout.

Expected output:

final_slides/slide-01.png ... slide-NN.png
deck-name-images-only.pptx

The .pptx is a delivery container for the rendered images. It is not the primary editing surface.

Standard File Set

Use these names unless the user has a better convention:

slides_plan.md
style_preview.png when you copy the chosen preview into the workspace
preview_slides/ for rough deck previews
deck_overview.png
final_slides/slide-01.png onward
<deck-name>-images-only.pptx

Resource Loading

Read these files only when needed:

references/outline-format.md: read before writing or revising slides_plan.md
references/prompt-recipes.md: read before prompting style previews, overview boards, or final slides
scripts/make_contact_sheet.py: use when assembling many preview PNGs into one overview board
scripts/images_to_pptx.py: use when packaging final PNGs into a .pptx

Completion Checklist

Before finishing, confirm that you have:

a reviewed slides_plan.md,
an approved style preview,
an approved whole-deck overview board,
final slide PNGs in stable order,
and a packaged .pptx.