| name | pptx |
| description | Use this Canvas-owned clean-room skill whenever a PowerPoint `.pptx` deck is an input or output. Trigger for creating, editing, reviewing, repairing, templating, combining, splitting, rendering, or extracting slide decks, including pitch decks, reports, speaker notes, template-following, and Google Slides-targeted handoff. |
| license | Canvas Notebook Sustainable Use License |
PPTX Presentations
This skill covers editable PowerPoint-compatible presentation work in Canvas
Notebook. It is a clean-room Canvas skill; do not copy vendor skill material,
hidden prompts, or proprietary helper code into this folder.
Core Contract
- Deliver editable slides: use PowerPoint-native text, shapes, tables, charts,
images, speaker notes, and layouts. Full-slide bitmaps are acceptable only
when the user explicitly asks for image-only slides.
- Preserve source deck styling for targeted edits and template-following tasks.
- For new decks, choose a coherent visual system before building: type scale,
palette, grid, slide rhythm, image treatment, chart style, and footer/page
conventions.
- Keep scratch exports, thumbnails, notes, and QA images out of the final
response unless requested.
- Use stable descriptive filenames and write final decks to the requested path
or the workspace.
Recommended Tools
python-pptx for creating and editing many deck structures.
zipfile plus lxml for narrow OOXML repairs that python-pptx cannot
express.
- LibreOffice or another local renderer when available for deck to PDF/PNG
visual checks.
- Poppler tools for rendering exported PDFs to images.
Workflow
- Pick a mode: create, template-following, targeted edit, extract/review, or
repair.
- For existing decks, inspect slide count, dimensions, layouts, theme fonts,
masters, images, charts, notes, and repeated brand elements before editing.
- Build or edit with native objects. Avoid layout drift by using consistent
coordinates, margins, and alignment rules.
- Render or thumbnail the result when possible. Inspect every slide for clipped
text, overlap, illegible contrast, broken charts, missing images, and bad
placeholder text.
- Fix visible issues and render again. If rendering is unavailable, perform
structural checks and disclose the limitation.
Slide Quality Rules
- Start with the content structure, not decoration.
- Use fewer, clearer slide objects rather than dense unmanaged fragments.
- Keep titles short and scannable.
- Align objects to a consistent grid and keep repeated elements stable.
- Charts must include readable labels, units, and source notes when relevant.
- Speaker notes should be concise and tied to the visible slide.
Final Checks
- Deck opens without repair warnings.
- Slide count, dimensions, order, and section flow match the request.
- No empty placeholders, internal notes, or unresolved TODOs remain.
- Visual QA has passed or any rendering limitation is clearly reported.