/ppt-editing-skill

name: ppt-editing-skill
description: "Edit existing PowerPoint files or templates with XML-safe workflows. Use for template-based deck updates: analyze layouts, map content to slides, duplicate/reorder/delete slides safely, edit slide XML in parallel, clean orphaned assets, and repack validated PPTX output."
license: Proprietary. LICENSE.txt has complete terms

Editing Presentations

Template-Based Workflow

When using an existing presentation as a template:

1. **Copy and analyze**:

   cp /path/to/user-provided.pptx template.pptx
   python -m markitdown template.pptx > template.md

Review `template.md` to see placeholder text and slide structure.

2. **Plan slide mapping**: For each content section, choose a template slide.

⚠️ **USE VARIED LAYOUTS** — monotonous presentations are a common failure mode. Don't default to basic title + bullet slides. Actively seek out:

• Multi-column layouts (2-column, 3-column)
• Image + text combinations
• Full-bleed images with text overlay
• Quote or callout slides
• Section dividers
• Stat/number callouts
• Icon grids or icon + text rows

**Avoid:** Repeating the same text-heavy layout for every slide.

Match content type to layout style (e.g., key points → bullet slide, team info → multi-column, testimonials → quote slide).

3. **Unpack**

4. **Build presentation** (do this yourself, not with subagents):

• Delete unwanted slides (remove from `<p:sldIdLst>`)
• Duplicate slides you want to reuse (`add_slide.py`)
• Reorder slides in `<p:sldIdLst>`
• **Complete all structural changes before step 5**

5. **Edit content**: Update text in each `slide{N}.xml`. **Use subagents here if available** — slides are separate XML files, so subagents can edit in parallel.

6. **Clean**

7. **Pack**

Output Structure

Copy the user-provided file to `template.pptx` in cwd. This preserves the original and gives a predictable name for all downstream scripts.

cp /path/to/user-provided.pptx template.pptx

./
├── template.pptx               # Copy of user-provided file (never modified)
├── template.md                 # markitdown extraction
├── unpacked/                   # Editable XML tree
└── edited.pptx                 # Final repacked deck

Minimum expected deliverable: `edited.pptx`.

---

Scripts

| Script | Purpose | |--------|---------| | `unpack.py` | Extract and pretty-print PPTX | | `add_slide.py` | Duplicate slide or create from layout | | `clean.py` | Remove orphaned files | | `pack.py` | Repack with validation |

Removes slides not in `<p:sldIdLst>`, unreferenced media, orphaned rels.

Always write to `/tmp/` first, then copy to the final path. Python's `zipfile` module uses `seek` internally, which fails on some volume mounts (e.g. Docker bind mounts). Writing to a local temp path avoids this.

Validates, repairs, condenses XML, re-encodes smart quotes.

---

Slide Operations

Slide order is in `ppt/presentation.xml` → `<p:sldIdLst>`.

**Reorder**: Rearrange `<p:sldId>` elements.

**Delete**: Remove `<p:sldId>`, then run `clean.py`.

**Add**: Use `add_slide.py`. Never manually copy slide files—the script handles notes references, Content_Types.xml, and relationship IDs that manual copying misses.

---

Editing Content

**Subagents:** If available, use them here (after completing step 4). Each slide is a separate XML file, so subagents can edit in parallel. In your prompt to subagents, include:

• The slide file path(s) to edit
• **"Use the Edit tool for all changes"**
• The formatting rules and common pitfalls below

For each slide: 1. Read the slide's XML 2. Identify ALL placeholder content—text, images, charts, icons, captions 3. Replace each placeholder with final content

**Use the Edit tool, not sed or Python scripts.** The Edit tool forces specificity about what to replace and where, yielding better reliability.

Formatting Rules

• **Bold all headers, subheadings, and inline labels**: Use `b="1"` on `<a:rPr>`. This includes:
• Slide titles
• Section headers within a slide
• Inline labels like (e.g.: "Status:", "Description:") at the start of a line
• **Never use unicode bullets (•)**: Use proper list formatting with `<a:buChar>` or `<a:buAutoNum>`
• **Bullet consistency**: Let bullets inherit from the layout. Only specify `<a:buChar>` or `<a:buNone>`.

---

Common Pitfalls

Template Adaptation

When source content has fewer items than the template:

• **Remove excess elements entirely** (images, shapes, text boxes), don't just clear text
• Check for orphaned visuals after clearing text content
• Run content QA with `markitdown` to catch mismatched counts

When replacing text with different length content:

• **Shorter replacements**: Usually safe
• **Longer replacements**: May overflow or wrap unexpectedly
• Verify with `markitdown` after text changes
• Consider truncating or splitting content to fit the template's design constraints

**Template slots ≠ Source items**: If template has 4 team members but source has 3 users, delete the 4th member's entire group (image + text boxes), not just the text.

Multi-Item Content

If source has multiple items (numbered lists, multiple sections), create separate `<a:p>` elements for each — **never concatenate into one string**.

**❌ WRONG** — all items in one paragraph:

<a:p>
  <a:r><a:rPr .../><a:t>Step 1: Do the first thing. Step 2: Do the second thing.</a:t></a:r>
</a:p>

**✅ CORRECT** — separate paragraphs with bold headers:

<a:p>
  <a:pPr algn="l"><a:lnSpc><a:spcPts val="3919"/></a:lnSpc></a:pPr>
  <a:r><a:rPr lang="en-US" sz="2799" b="1" .../><a:t>Step 1</a:t></a:r>
</a:p>
<a:p>
  <a:pPr algn="l"><a:lnSpc><a:spcPts val="3919"/></a:lnSpc></a:pPr>
  <a:r><a:rPr lang="en-US" sz="2799" .../><a:t>Do the first thing.</a:t></a:r>
</a:p>
<a:p>
  <a:pPr algn="l"><a:lnSpc><a:spcPts val="3919"/></a:lnSpc></a:pPr>
  <a:r><a:rPr lang="en-US" sz="2799" b="1" .../><a:t>St