rich-document-creator

name

rich-document-creator

description

Use this skill whenever the user wants to create rich, visually compelling documents, presentations, or PDFs — especially when they mention images, charts, design quality, or need professional output. Triggers include: "create a presentation", "make slides", "build a deck", "write a report with images", "generate a PDF brochure", "make a Word document with visuals", "create a pitch deck", "make a professional presentation on X topic", "generate slides about Y", "create a document with good design", "make a pptx", "make a docx", "make a pdf". This skill is essential for multi-format document creation (PPTX, DOCX, PDF) with real images sourced from the web. It is also the go-to skill for any presentation with more than 5 slides, any document requiring images or charts, and any request explicitly mentioning visual quality. Always prefer this skill over individual pptx/docx/pdf skills when images, design quality, or multi-format output is involved.

Rich Document Creator

Creates professional, image-rich documents across PPTX, DOCX, and PDF formats.

Quick Decision Guide

What they want	Format	Guide
Slides / presentation / deck	PPTX	pptx-guide.md
Report / letter / memo / Word doc	DOCX	docx-guide.md
PDF brochure / handout / polished doc	PDF	pdf-guide.md
Multiple formats at once	All	Generate each in sequence

When to skip this skill. If the user just wants a plain document — markdown notes, a text-only report, a basic table-only doc — daemora's built-in create_document tool is faster (one call, no install). Use this skill only when the document needs real images, custom layouts, or visual design that markdown can't express.

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Step 1: Plan Content First

Before writing any code, plan the document structure:

1. Identify the topic — extract key subject matter, goals, and audience from the user's request
2. Decide slide/section count — use the table below as a baseline
3. List key themes — what major points need to be made?
4. Pick a visual style — color palette, font, image style (see design guide in each format file)

Slide / Section Count Guide

Document Type	Recommended Count
Short presentation (intro/overview)	8–12 slides
Standard presentation	12–18 slides
Comprehensive presentation	18–25 slides
Short report / memo (DOCX/PDF)	3–6 sections
Full report	6–12 sections

Always err on the side of MORE content, not less. A thin 5-slide deck looks unfinished.

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Step 2: Source Images

This is the key differentiator of this skill. Every document must include real images.

All downloads land under the project's data directory. Use ./data/images/ (create it once with mkdir -p ./data/images) so the artifacts survive the run and are easy to find.

Image Sourcing Workflow

There is no dedicated image-search tool — use one of these three paths, in this order:

Path 1 — Direct image URL (fastest, no API key). Some hosts return a real image straight from a keyword URL. Try first:

mkdir -p ./data/images

# Unsplash (keyword-driven, returns a real photo)
curl -L --max-time 20 --user-agent "Mozilla/5.0" \
  -o ./data/images/hero.jpg \
  "https://source.unsplash.com/1600x900/?renewable,energy,solar"

# Lorem Picsum (random, good for abstract / texture backgrounds)
curl -L --max-time 20 -o ./data/images/bg1.jpg \
  "https://picsum.photos/1600/900?random=1"

# Always verify the file is a real image, not an HTML error page
file ./data/images/hero.jpg     # expect "JPEG image data" or "PNG image data"
ls -lh ./data/images/hero.jpg   # expect > 20 KB

Path 2 — web_search then download. Use this when you want a specific image (a known landmark, branded product, news photo, etc.). web_search is text-only — it returns page URLs and descriptions, not images directly. So:

web_search({
  query: "<subject> <visual style> site:unsplash.com OR site:commons.wikimedia.org",
  count: 8
})

Good query patterns:

• "neural network visualization site:unsplash.com"
• "solar farm aerial photo site:commons.wikimedia.org"
• "open office team collaboration stock photo"
• "data dashboard screenshot site:pexels.com"

Then web_fetch the most promising result page, extract the actual image URL (look for og:image, the largest <img> src, or a download link), and curl it the same way as Path 1.

Path 3 — Generated placeholder (fallback). If both paths above fail or the image is purely decorative, generate one with Pillow via execute_command:

from PIL import Image, ImageDraw

def create_placeholder(width, height, text, color1, color2, output_path):
    img = Image.new('RGB', (width, height), color1)
    draw = ImageDraw.Draw(img)
    for y in range(height):
        ratio = y / height
        r = int(int(color1[1:3], 16) * (1-ratio) + int(color2[1:3], 16) * ratio)
        g = int(int(color1[3:5], 16) * (1-ratio) + int(color2[3:5], 16) * ratio)
        b = int(int(color1[5:7], 16) * (1-ratio) + int(color2[5:7], 16) * ratio)
        draw.line([(0, y), (width, y)], fill=(r, g, b))
    draw.text((width//2, height//2), text, fill="white", anchor="mm")
    img.save(output_path)
    return output_path

create_placeholder(1280, 720, "Section Visual", "#1a3a5c", "#0d7377", "./data/images/hero.jpg")

Image Rules

• Always try Path 1 first — it's a single curl, no extra search/fetch steps.
• Each major slide/section needs at least one image — never ship a deck with no visuals.
• Match image content to slide topic — keywords in the URL or query should reflect the slide's actual subject.
• Always verify with file ./data/images/<name>.jpg before embedding — a 200-byte HTML error page silently breaks pptxgenjs/docx/reportlab.
• Download before embedding — every renderer below loads from a local path, not a URL.
• Resize if needed using Pillow before embedding (target ≤ 1600 px on the long edge).

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Step 3: Generate the Document

Read the format-specific guide:

• PPTX: Read references/pptx-guide.md — uses pptxgenjs
• DOCX: Read references/docx-guide.md — uses docx npm package
• PDF: Read references/pdf-guide.md — uses reportlab + WeasyPrint

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Step 4: QA and Polish

After generating, render each page to a JPEG and eyeball it. Use soffice (LibreOffice's CLI) directly — no helper script needed:

# PPTX → PDF → per-slide JPEGs
soffice --headless --convert-to pdf ./data/output.pptx --outdir ./data/
pdftoppm -jpeg -r 120 ./data/output.pdf ./data/slide
ls ./data/slide-*.jpg

# DOCX → PDF → per-page JPEGs
soffice --headless --convert-to pdf ./data/output.docx --outdir ./data/
pdftoppm -jpeg -r 120 ./data/output.pdf ./data/page

# PDFs are already PDFs — go straight to pdftoppm
pdftoppm -jpeg -r 120 ./data/output.pdf ./data/page

If soffice isn't on PATH, try libreoffice (same flags) or install via the package manager (brew install --cask libreoffice on macOS, apt install libreoffice on Debian/Ubuntu). On macOS the binary may also live at /Applications/LibreOffice.app/Contents/MacOS/soffice.

View the resulting images and check for:

• Text overflow or cut-off
• Images not loading (404 / broken / placeholder boxes where a photo should be)
• Visual hierarchy issues
• Consistent styling across pages

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Design Principles (Apply to ALL formats)

Color Strategy

• Choose ONE dominant color (60–70% of visual space)
• ONE supporting color (20–30%)
• ONE accent color for highlights (10%)
• Dark backgrounds for title/cover pages, light for content

Typography

• Title text: 36–44pt, bold
• Subheadings: 20–28pt
• Body text: 12–16pt
• Never mix more than 2 font families

Layouts to Use

• Hero layout: Full-bleed image with text overlay (great for title slides)
• Two-column: Text on left, image on right (or vice versa)
• Card grid: 2×2 or 3×2 grid of content blocks
• Full-bleed image: Image fills the slide, sparse text overlay
• Stat callout: Large numbers (60–80pt) with small label below

Things to NEVER Do

• Text-only slides with no visual element
• Default blue/white color scheme without thinking
• All slides with the same layout
• Bullet-point dumps without hierarchy
• Missing images (always add something visual per section)

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Dependencies

Install once per machine. All three formats share these:

# Node packages (PPTX + DOCX renderers)
npm install -g pptxgenjs docx

# Python packages (PDF renderers + Pillow for image ops)
pip install Pillow reportlab WeasyPrint pypdf pdfplumber --break-system-packages

# System binaries (for QA: rendering output back to images)
# macOS:
brew install --cask libreoffice
brew install poppler          # provides pdftoppm
# Debian/Ubuntu:
# apt install libreoffice poppler-utils

Run each install via execute_command. If a package is already present npm / pip / brew are no-ops, so it's safe to run on every fresh session.