Powerpoint / PPTX

When to Use#

Use when the main artifact is a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation or .pptx deck, especially when layouts, templates, placeholders, notes, comments, charts, extraction, editing, or final visual quality matter.

Core Rules#

1. Choose the workflow before touching the deck#

• Reading text, editing an existing deck, rebuilding from a template, and creating from scratch are different jobs with different failure modes.
• For text extraction or inspection, read the deck before editing it.
• Text extraction plus thumbnail-style visual inspection is safer than editing from shape assumptions alone.
• For template-driven work, inventory the deck before replacing content.
• For deep edits, remember a .pptx file is OOXML with separate parts for slides, layouts, masters, media, notes, and comments.
• If a template exists, template fidelity beats generic slide-design instincts.
• Reusing or duplicating a good existing slide is often safer than rebuilding it and hoping the theme still matches.

2. Inventory the deck before replacing content#

• Count the reusable layouts, real placeholders, notes, comments, media, and recurring typography or color patterns first.
• Placeholder indexes and layout indexes are not portable assumptions.
• Inspect the actual slide or template before targeting title, body, chart, or image shapes.
• Speaker notes, comments, and linked assets can live outside the visible slide surface.
• A missing or wrong placeholder target can silently land content in the wrong box or wrong layer.
• Master and layout settings can override local slide edits, so the visible problem is not always on the slide you are editing.

3. Match content to the actual placeholders#

• Count the actual content pieces before choosing a layout.
• Pick layouts based on the real number of ideas, columns, images, or charts the slide needs.
• Do not force two ideas into a three-column slide or cram dense text under a chart.
• Category counts and data series lengths must match or charts will break in ugly ways.
• Explicit sizing beats wishful thinking: text boxes, images, and charts need real space, not "it should fit".
• Do not choose a layout with more placeholders than the content can meaningfully fill.
• Quote layouts are for real quotes, and image-led layouts are for slides that actually have images.
• For chart-, table-, or image-heavy slides, full-slide or two-column layouts are usually safer than stacking dense text above the visual.

4. Preserve the deck's visual language#

• Theme, master, and layout files usually decide fonts, colors, and hierarchy more than any one slide does.
• Start from the deck's actual theme, fonts, spacing, and aspect ratio instead of improvising a new style.
• Reuse the deck's own alignment and spacing system instead of inventing a second visual language.
• Use common fonts for portability and strong contrast for readability.
• Preserve the template's visual logic first; originality matters less than not breaking the deck's existing language.
• Combining slides from multiple sources requires normalizing themes, masters, and alignment afterward.

5. Run content QA and visual QA separately#

• Text overflow, bad alignment, clipped shapes, weak contrast, and placeholder leftovers are normal first-pass failures.
• Run both content QA and visual QA; missing text and broken layout are different failure classes.
• Render or inspect the actual deck output before delivery when layout matters.
• Search for leftover template junk, sample labels, and placeholder text before calling the deck finished.
• Check notes, comments, labels, legends, and chart/table semantics separately from the visual pass.
• A deck can pass text extraction and still fail on overlap, clipping, wrong theme inheritance, or broken notes.
• Thumbnail grids and rendered slides usually reveal layout bugs faster than code or text inspection.
• Assume the first render is wrong and do at least one fix-and-verify cycle before calling the deck finished.
• Re-check affected slides after each fix because one spacing change often creates another issue.

6. Keep decks portable and review-safe#

• Template masters can override direct edits in surprising ways.
• Complex effects may degrade across PowerPoint, LibreOffice, and conversion pipelines, so keep important content robust without them.
• Image sizing, font substitution, and placeholder mismatch are common reasons a deck looks good in code and bad on screen.
• Notes, comments, linked media, and merged decks can stay broken even when the visible slide looks fine.

Common Traps#

• Placeholder text and sample charts often survive template reuse if not explicitly replaced.
• Directly editing one slide can fail if the real issue lives in the master or layout.
• Charts, icons, and text boxes need enough space; near-collisions are usually visible only after rendering.
• Layout indexes vary by template, so built-in assumptions from one deck often break in another.
• A missing placeholder or wrong shape target can silently put content in the wrong place.
• Counting the text ideas after choosing the layout usually leads to empty placeholders, weak hierarchy, or leftover template junk.
• Font substitution can move line breaks and wreck careful spacing.
• Speaker notes, comments, and linked media can stay broken even when the visible slide looks fine.
• A deck can pass text inspection and still fail visually because of overlap, contrast, or edge clipping.
• Editing from one slide alone can miss the real source of truth in the theme, master, or layout definitions.
• Choosing a quote, comparison, or multi-column layout without matching content usually makes the deck look templated rather than intentional.
• Combining or duplicating slides without checking masters and themes can create subtle inconsistency slide by slide.
• Aspect-ratio mismatches like 16:9 versus 4:3 can shift every placement decision even when each slide looks locally reasonable.

Related Skills#

Install with clawhub install <slug> if user confirms:

• documents — Document workflows that often feed presentation content.
• design — Visual direction and layout decisions.
• brief — Concise business messaging for slide narratives.

Feedback#

• If useful: clawhub star powerpoint-pptx
• Stay updated: clawhub sync