/slides-polish

name: slides-polish
description: "Per-page Codex review + targeted python-pptx / Beamer fixes for academic talk slides. Use AFTER /paper-slides (or any externally generated PPTX/Beamer) when the deck looks 'mostly OK' but the user wants a final pass that aligns visual weight with a reference, bumps PPTX fonts to projector-readable size, kills italic style leaks, fixes text-frame overflow, and catches per-slide layout drift. Trigger phrases: \"polish slides\", \"slides 排版不对\", \"PPTX 字体太小\", \"和 Beamer 比一下\", \"per-page review\", \"和 codex 一页一页过\"."
argument-hint: "[slides-dir-or-pptx] — reference: <ref-pdf> [— style: generic | why-rf | neurips | icml | iclr | cvpr] [— effort: lite | balanced | max | beast] [— interactive]"
allowed-tools: Bash(*), Read, Write, Edit, Grep, Glob, mcp__codex__codex

Slides Polish: Per-Page Codex Review + Targeted Layout Fixes

Polish a generated slide deck — Beamer (`.tex` + `.pdf`) and/or PPTX — by running **per-page Codex review** against a reference visual and applying surgical fixes (font scaling, text-frame resize, callout-box style, em-dash spacing, anonymity placeholders, Chinese-font hints, italic style leaks) until each slide reads at the same visual weight as the reference.

Polish: **$ARGUMENTS**

What This Skill Is — and Is NOT

**This skill polishes layout and typography only.** It is the post-generation visual pass for an existing deck.

**Hard scope rules** (load-bearing — see Hard Invariants):

• It **does not** rewrite content, claims, numbers, citations, URLs, author

names, affiliations, or experiment results.

• It **does not** add, remove, or reorder slides unless the user explicitly

asks (e.g., `— add-slide` / `— drop-slide` flags).

• It **does not** generate outlines, speaker scripts, or new Beamer/PPTX from

paper source. That is `/paper-slides`'s job.

• It **does not** change figures or equations content.

If you do not yet have a deck, run `/paper-slides` first. If you want to change content, go back to `/paper-slides` Phases 1-2 (or rewrite the outline manually) — do not run `/slides-polish` for that.

Constants

• **REVIEWER_MODEL = `gpt-5.6-sol`** — Codex MCP model for per-page review. xhigh reasoning is non-negotiable (see `../shared-references/effort-contract.md`). If the account has no `gpt-5.6-sol` access, follow the capability fallback chain in `../shared-references/reviewer-routing.md` (`gpt-5.5`+`xhigh`; `gpt-5.4` only as an explicit user override).
• **REVIEWER_REASONING = `xhigh`** — Hard invariant; the effort knob does **not** change this.
• **CONTEXT_POLICY = `fresh`** — Each per-page review uses a **fresh** Codex thread (`mcp__codex__codex`, never `codex-reply`). See `../shared-references/reviewer-independence.md`. This prevents the reviewer from anchoring on prior fixes.
• **REFERENCE_VISUAL** — Path to a PDF the user wants the polished deck to **align with** in visual weight (typography proportion, color discipline, callout density). Required input. If polishing PPTX only, the **Beamer compile of the same talk** is the ideal reference. If no reference exists yet, ask the user; do not silently default to "Why-RF" or any preset.
• **STYLE_PRESET = `generic`** — Default style anchor. Other options: `why-rf` (academic-minimalist, derived from a 2025 academic talk), `neurips`, `icml`, `iclr`, `cvpr`. Presets influence color discipline + element library; the **reference PDF is the visual ground truth**, not the preset.
• **PPTX_SCALE_HINT = `1.6×`** — Heuristic multiplier from Beamer point sizes to PPTX point sizes for matched visual weight on 13.33"×7.5" PowerPoint at 16:9. Range 1.5-1.8×. The actual scale is **always** validated by visual review, never blindly applied.
• **INTERACTIVE = false** — When false, applies the recommended fix automatically and continues to the next slide. When true (`— interactive`), pauses for user confirmation before each fix.
• **OUTPUT_VERSIONING = on** — Output is a versioned file named `<input-stem>_polished.<ext>` (or `_polished_v2`, `_v3`, …). Snapshot of the input is preserved as `<input-stem>_pre_polish.<ext>`. **The original is never overwritten.** All edit operations target the `_polished` working copy.

> 💡 Override examples > > - `/slides-polish talk_pptx/talk.pptx — reference: talk_beamer/main.pdf — style: why-rf` > - `/slides-polish talk_beamer/ — reference: ./reference_talk.pdf — style: generic — effort: max` > - `/slides-polish talk.pptx — reference: ./why_rf_2025.pdf — interactive`

Prerequisites

The skill discovers and reports missing prerequisites at Phase 0; it does not auto-install. Required:

• **Python**: `python3` with `python-pptx>=0.6` (`pip install python-pptx`).
• **PDF inspection**: `pdfinfo` and either `pdftoppm` (poppler, preferred) or `mutool draw` (mupdf) for rendering slides to PNG. Required so the per-page Codex call sees actual slide pixels, not text extraction alone. Render command: `pdftoppm -r 150 -png <pdf> <out-stem>` (or `mutool draw -o <out-stem>-%d.png -r 150 <pdf>`).
• **PPTX → PDF rendering**: `soffice` (LibreOffice headless) preferred; otherwise the user must export PDF manually from PowerPoint/Keynote.
• **LaTeX** (Beamer side only): `xelatex` (CJK) or `pdflatex`, plus `latexmk` for clean recompiles. The Beamer fix patterns in Phase 2 may require these LaTeX packages: `microtype` (letter-spacing in section labels), `array` (raggedright p-columns), `tcolorbox` (banners and callouts), `ctex` or `xeCJK` (CJK), `tikz` + `tikz-cd` (diagrams).
• **Codex MCP**: `mcp__codex__codex` must be available (the user must be signed in to Codex MCP). The skill aborts at Phase 0 if Codex MCP cannot be reached.

Fallback rules:

• If `pdftoppm`/`mutool` missing → ask user to install, do not proceed (visual review without rendered pages produces low-confidence Codex feedback).
• If `soffice` missing and PPTX is the input → ask user to export PDF from their slide tool; resume after.

Inputs

Discovered automatically from `$ARGUMENTS` and