PowerPoint

PPTX creation, editing, and analysis

A .pptx is a ZIP archive of XML files. Choose your approach by task:

Task	Approach
Create a new deck	Write a pptxgenjs script — see gotchas below
Edit an existing deck, or build from a template	unzip → edit ppt/slides/slideN.xml → zip
Read content	markitdown deck.pptx (one block per slide under <!-- Slide number: N --> markers); visual grid: python scripts/thumbnail.py deck.pptx

Scripts

Paths are relative to this skill's directory. Everything else is plain Python, node, or shell.

Script	What it does
scripts/thumbnail.py deck.pptx [prefix]	Labeled grid of every slide, for picking template layouts. .pptx only. Pass prefix — it defaults to thumbnails, which overwrites the grids of any other deck done in the same directory
scripts/add_slide.py unpacked/ slide2.xml [--after slideN.xml]	Duplicate a slide (or a slideLayoutN.xml) with all the package bookkeeping. Also takes a .pptx directly with -o out.pptx
scripts/clean.py unpacked/	Delete slides, media, and rels no longer referenced. Run after <p:sldIdLst> is final
scripts/office/validate.py deck.pptx [--original src.pptx]	Schema, relationship, content-type, chart and slide checks; each failure names its fix. Pass --original for any template-derived deck — it baselines the schema checks against the template, so the template's own XSD errors don't read as yours
scripts/office/soffice.py --headless --convert-to pdf deck.pptx	LibreOffice wrapper — bare soffice hangs in this sandbox

Creating with pptxgenjs — gotchas

pptxgenjs is preinstalled — do not run npm install first; write the script and require('pptxgenjs') directly. Only if that require fails: npm install pptxgenjs. The model knows the API; these are the footguns:

• Set pres.layout before adding slides. The default canvas is LAYOUT_16x9 = 10" × 5.625", not 13.3" wide. Coordinates past the edge are written, not clamped — the shape just isn't on the slide. (LAYOUT_WIDE is 13.3" × 7.5".)
• Hex colors: never #, never 8 digits. color: "FF0000". Both "#FF0000" and alpha baked into the hex ("00000020") corrupt the file. For translucency: transparency: 0-100 on fills and images, opacity: 0.0-1.0 on shadows — each is silently ignored on the other.
• pptxgenjs mutates option objects in place (converts values to EMU on first use). Never share one shadow/options object across two add* calls — build a fresh object each time.
• Shadow offset must be ≥ 0 — a negative offset corrupts the file. To cast a shadow upward, use angle: 270 with a positive offset.
• letterSpacing is silently ignored — the real option is charSpacing.
• Lists: bullet: true on each item, never a literal • (renders double bullets). Set breakLine: true on every array item except the last. Space bulleted paragraphs with paraSpaceAfter, not lineSpacing (huge gaps).
• One new pptxgen() per output file — never reuse an instance.
• rectRadius only works on ROUNDED_RECTANGLE, not RECTANGLE.
• Gradient fills aren't supported — use a gradient image as the background instead.
• Text boxes have built-in internal padding — set margin: 0 whenever text must align with a shape, line, or icon at the same x.
• Speaker notes go in slide.addNotes("...") (plain text, once per slide), never in a text box on the slide.
• Keep charts native. Use addChart() for everything PowerPoint can chart (pass an array of {type, data, options} for combos). For PowerPoint-native features the library doesn't expose (trendlines, error bars), compute the extra series yourself or post-process the generated OOXML — do not fall back to a rendered image. Only chart types PowerPoint has no native form for (Sankey, network, chord) go in as images.
• Default charts render bare — no title, no data labels, dated palette. Set showTitle + title, showValue: true + dataLabelPosition, chartColors: [...] from your palette, and quiet the frame (catAxisLabelColor/valAxisLabelColor, valGridLine: { color, size }, catGridLine: { style: "none" }, showLegend: false for a single series).
• On a stacked bar or column chart, dataLabelPosition must be ctr, inEnd, or inBase. outEnd corrupts the file.
• A combo series using secondaryValAxis/secondaryCatAxis needs both valAxes and catAxes on the chart options, two entries each. Without them pptxgenjs writes axis ids it never declares, and PowerPoint discards that chart and reports the file as corrupt. Supplying only valAxes is not enough.
• After writeFile(), run python scripts/office/validate.py deck.pptx. It reports the two chart faults above and the slide-XML defects PowerPoint refuses, and names the fix for each. Fix them in your generator, not by hand-editing the packed XML.
• Never reorder the children of <p:presentation>. pptxgenjs writes <p:notesMasterIdLst> right after <p:sldIdLst> and points both masters at one theme part. PowerPoint reads that ha