PowerPoint with Python

A finished deck must look rich and professional: every slide carries a real visual, not just a title and bullets. Read this whole file before building.

Runtime

Install Python packages into the current Context's isolated ./agent project (create it with uv init --bare ./agent if it does not exist):

uv --directory ./agent add python-pptx pillow

Run scripts with uv --directory ./agent run python .... Convert script and document paths to absolute paths first; --directory changes the working directory. Keep work under ./playground/<scope>/.

Workflow

1. Read the brief. Keep the slide order and the meaning of each headline; take numbers only from sources you can cite.
2. Find the Human's existing material first (required for every new deck). Before any web research, use your workspace tools (the documents and files available to you, and the Human's knowledge search; see the teamhub-files skill and your instructions) to check what the Human already has:
   • documents, spreadsheets, slides and PDFs about the same project, team, company or period, including any named in the brief;
   • facts recorded in their chats, meetings and documents, searched from several angles (results, causes, plans, asks, people);
   • images, logos, brand files, team or office photos of the company. Knowledge search covers text only, so look for these among the files. Count content only if it is about the same project and period; the company's own logo, brand images and team or office photos count for any deck about that company. Read what you can; for relevant items you cannot read yet, request access with the reason and keep working while the Human decides. Write the inventory (found / used / not accessible, with IDs) to ./playground/<scope>/material.md.
3. Research the gaps on the web, citing every source.
4. Plan every slide before coding: its claim headline, its layout, and its visual (which image, chart or diagram). Write the plan to ./playground/<scope>/plan.md.
5. Collect images (see Images) into ./playground/<scope>/img/, recording each source.
6. Build with one python-pptx script. Define the style (colors, fonts, margins, title position) once at the top and reuse small functions for repeated elements (title, source line, image with credit, card, chart) so every slide looks the same.
7. Render and inspect every slide (see Check), fix, and render again.
8. Report: file path, one line per slide, the Human's material found / used / not accessible, other sources used, every assumption, every missing fact, and any check you could not run.

Design rules

Story on the slide

• Every content slide's title is a claim (a sentence stating its point), not a label. Reading the titles in order tells the story.
• Keep each title to one line (about 60 Latin characters or 30 CJK characters at 28 pt); shorten the wording rather than wrapping.
• One point per slide. At most ~40 words of body text on a presented slide; put detail in speaker notes.
• Every fact has a short source line at the bottom of its slide.

Visual first

• Every slide has one visual anchor: a photo, a native chart, a diagram (flow, timeline, matrix, structure), KPI tiles or a big number. A slide that is only a title and bullets is a defect, except a short agenda.
• Pick the visual from the content: numbers that compare or change → chart; a sequence or mechanism → flow or timeline; options or trade-offs → cards or matrix; one striking figure → big number; people, products, places, mood → photo. A deck usually mixes all of these; there is no fixed ratio, but a deck without photos, without charts where there are numbers, or without a diagram where there is a process is not finished.
• Vary the layouts: never three slides in a row with the same layout. Use a full-bleed photo cover, section dividers for decks over ~8 slides, half-slide image beside text, cards and full-width charts.
• Speaker notes on every slide when the brief asks for them.

Images

• Every deck has real photos: the cover, and image-beside-text, section and card slides wherever they fit; beyond the cover, about every third or fourth slide carries a photo.
• Find them in this order:
  1. the Human's own images, logos and photos found in step 2 (use the company logo on the cover or footer when there is one);
  2. official sources about the topic (company newsroom or press kit, product pages, official logos);
  3. free photo libraries with a clear license (Unsplash, Pexels, Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons), searching for the topic;
  4. if nothing on-topic fits, neutral photos from those libraries (architecture, city skyline, office or meeting scenes, landscapes, abstract textures) matching the deck's mood and colors. Never leave an empty image area, and never use a tiny or blurry image stretched up.
• Always credit the source: a small caption on the image ("Image: / ") and the full URL in that slide's speaker notes; list all credits on the sources slide or in the notes.
• Download the largest reasonable size (≥1600 px wide for full-bleed). Crop to fill the frame (python-pptx crop_left/right/top/bottom from the aspect ratios); never distort. Put text over a photo only on a translucent dark overlay (a rectangle whose fill has an a:alpha of about 50%).

Charts

• Native, editable charts only (CategoryChartData + add_chart), never chart screenshots.
• Highlight what the headline claims in the accent color and keep the rest neutral grey; label values on the bars and remove gridlines and needless legends.
• One message per chart; the title says what the chart proves; source below.

Diagrams

• Draw them with native shapes and connectors: flows of 3–6 steps, timelines, 2×2 matrices only for two real dimensions, structure charts, cards, KPI tiles. Consistent corners, line weights and colors; highlight the step the slide is about.

Look

• One style per deck: the one in the brief. Turn its name and description into exact colors, fonts and layout habits once at the top of the script, and use one accent color only for what the audience must notice. With no style given, use white, near-black text and one dark-blue accent.

• 16:9 (13.333 × 7.5 in), 0.6 in margins; nothing touches the edge except full-bleed photos.

• Type: titles 28–44 pt, body 16–20 pt, captions and sources 9–12 pt; never body text under 14 pt, including text in cards and tiles.

• Size every text box to its content: estimate lines from characters per line at the chosen size, and give the box room for them; size cards to their text instead of leaving large empty areas. Keep footers to one short line.

• Chinese text: set an East Asian font on every run (a:ea typeface, e.g. PingFang SC or Microsoft YaHei).

Edit an existing deck

Open with Presentation(path), change only the requested slides and shapes, edit runs so fonts and emphasis survive, and keep the deck's own theme and master. Inspect OOXML in the ZIP for features python-pptx does not expose.

Check (every slide)

Render to images:

soffice --headless --convert-to pdf --outdir <dir> <deck.pptx>   # LibreOffice
pdftoppm -png -r 80 <dir>/<deck>.pdf <dir>/slide

If soffice is missing, try micromamba install --yes --override-channels --channel conda-forge --prefix ./agent/conda libreoffice and run it with micromamba run --prefix ./agent/conda soffice .... If no renderer works, say so in the report.

Check in two levels, so slide images do not fill your context:

1. Overview: tile the slide images into contact sheets (e.g. with Pillow, 4 per row, about 400 px wide each, up to 12 slides per sheet), open the sheets, and list the slides that look wrong or uncertain against the checklist below.
2. Detail: open the single-slide image only for those slides, fix them, re-render, and re-check only the slides you changed.

The checklist:

1. The title is a claim on one line; titles in order tell the story; order matches the brief.
2. The slide has a visual anchor; no three consecutive slides share a layout.
3. No text overflows its box, is cut off, overlaps, or touches the edge; footers stay on one line.
4. No card, tile or text box is mostly empty; content fills its frame.
5. Images are sharp, not distorted, credited on the slide and in the notes.
6. Charts are native, labeled, and highlight what the title claims.
7. Body text ≥ 14 pt everywhere and within the word budget.
8. One style throughout: fonts, colors, title position, footer.
9. Every number has a source; nothing invented; gaps are marked visibly. Relevant material the Human already has is used, or the report says why not (not accessible, off-topic).
10. Chinese text renders in a CJK font.
11. Speaker notes present when asked; the last slide states the ask or next step.

Fix every failure and render again before reporting.