OfficeCLI PPTX Skill

Setup

If officecli is missing:

• macOS / Linux: curl -fsSL https://d.officecli.ai/install.sh | bash
• Windows (PowerShell): irm https://d.officecli.ai/install.ps1 | iex

Verify with officecli --version (open a new terminal if PATH hasn't picked up). If install fails, download a binary from https://github.com/iOfficeAI/OfficeCLI/releases.

⚠️ Help-First Rule

This skill teaches what good slides look like, not every command flag. When a property name, enum value, or alias is uncertain, consult help BEFORE guessing.

officecli help pptx                         # List all pptx elements
officecli help pptx <element>               # Full element schema (e.g. shape, chart, animation, connector, zoom, group)
officecli help pptx <verb> <element>        # Verb-scoped (e.g. add shape, set slide)
officecli help pptx <element> --json        # Machine-readable schema

Help reflects the installed CLI version. When skill and help disagree, help is authoritative. Triggers to run help immediately: UNSUPPORTED props: warning, unknown animation preset, connector.shape= enum drifts, prop-vs-alias (lineWidth vs line.width, color vs font.color).

Shell & Execution Discipline

Shell quoting (zsh / bash). ALWAYS quote element paths ("/slide[1]/...") — zsh globs unquoted [1] to no matches found. Escaping happens at three layers — keep them separate (the CLI handles the second for you):

1. Shell. $ in a value still belongs to the shell — single-quote the whole value: --prop text='$15M'. Double-quoted "$15M" gets expanded to M. The CLI does NOT unescape \$ for you.
2. CLI (text=). The two-char escapes \n and \t ARE interpreted, consistently across pptx / docx / xlsx — \n is a line / paragraph break, \t is a tab. To produce a literal backslash-n in text, double it (\\n); this is rarely what you want.
3. JSON (batch heredoc). The recipes below pipe cat <<EOF | officecli batch unquoted so $SLIDE / $FILE expand inside the body. That same unquoted heredoc also expands a literal $ in a value: "$1.42" silently becomes .42 and "$2.4B" becomes .4B ($1 / $2 are empty shell params). Escape currency as \$ — "text":"\$1.42" — which still lets $SLIDE expand. \n / \t inside the JSON work either way. A fully-quoted <<'EOF' protects every $ but then $SLIDE won't expand, so only use it when the body has no shell variables. After writing money values, view text and confirm the $ survived.

If in doubt, view text after writing and compare character-for-character.

Incremental execution. One command → check exit code → continue. A 50-command script that fails at command 3 cascades silently. After any structural op (new slide, chart, animation, connector) run get before stacking more.

Requirements for Outputs

These are the deliverable standards every deck MUST meet. Violating any one = not done, regardless of content quality.

All decks

One idea per slide. If a slide needs a second title to explain what it covers, split it. Dense "everything about X" slides lose the audience inside 3 seconds. Use a section divider to group related one-idea slides, not a mega-slide.

Explicit type hierarchy — do NOT rely on theme defaults. Theme defaults drift between masters. Set sizes explicitly on every text shape.

Rule of thumb: min shape height ≈ font_pt × 0.05cm. An 18pt sublabel in a 0.8cm-tall box will overflow — view annotated catches this.

Title must be ≥ 2× body size (36pt over 20pt works; 28pt over 20pt looks timid). Four legit exceptions to body ≥ 18pt: chart axis labels, legends, footer / page number, and ≤ 5-word KPI sublabels (e.g. "Active users"). Descriptive sentences must be ≥ 18pt. Left-align body; center only titles and hero numbers. If "the cards won't fit", drop cards instead of shrinking font.

Two fonts max, one palette. One heading font + one body font (e.g. Georgia + Calibri) — a third display face is fine only for big numerals or the cover title, as long as that heading+body pair stays intact. One dominant brand color (60–70% weight) + one supporting + one accent. Never mix 4+ colors in body content. The palettes and font pairings in Design Principles are a floor, not a menu: if the user gave brand colors/fonts or an existing template, match those first; otherwise the named sets are calibrated seeds — blend or diverge freely, as long as the result isn't worse than them and still clears the contrast floor.

Every slide carries a non-text visual — one that informs. Shape, chart, icon, gradient band that carries meaning, not decoration. A bullet-only deck is interchangeable with a Word doc. Exceptions: literal quote slides, code blocks, a single summary-table slide.

Less is more — every element earns its place. The visual rule above guards against bullet-walls; it is not licence to clutter. Don't pad with decorative stats, icons, or filler sections that don't inform ("data slop"). If a slide feels empty, fix it with layout and whitespace, not invented content — cut scope rather than bulk it up, and flag a larger addition instead of making it unprompted.

Speaker notes on every content slide. --type notes --prop text="...". The speaker needs a script; the audience shouldn't read the slide verbatim.

Copy reads human, not AI. Titles orient on content, not punchline. No "It's not X. It's Y.", no manufactured tension, no faux-insight ("The magic moment"), no one-word drama ("Momentum."). Cut hype adjectives (seamless, robust, game-changing) — let the number carry it.

Preserve existing templates. When a file already has a theme and masters, match them. Existing conventions override these guidelines.

Visual delivery floor (applies to EVERY deck)

Before declaring done, the per-slide render (see QA) MUST satisfy:

• No placeholder tokens rendered as content. {{name}}, $fy$24, <TODO>, lorem, xxxx, empty ()/[] in chart titles never appear.
• No overflow off-edge, no clipped text in shapes. view issues flags both (shape_off_slide + a text-fit hint). To fix a clip: grow the box or shorten the value — never trim content to fit.
• Cover carries its orienting elements. Title + subtitle + presenter/client + date + a brand band or key-takeaway strap — a title-only cover reads as a stub. Generous whitespace around them is still right; rich ≠ crowded.
• Contrast. view issues auto-flags the common case — opaque dark text on a shape's own dark fill (low_contrast). It can't see the rest: icon / chart-series fills, scheme/inherited colors, or text over a separate background shape. So on any fill with brightness < 30% (1E2761, 36454F, deep forest / berry / cherry), still confirm every body run, card body, chart series, and icon is FFFFFF or brightness > 80% — mid-gray (6B7B8D ≈ 44%) reads on a laptop and vanishes on projection. Spot-check via view html after the dark-fill pass.

If any fails, STOP and fix before declaring done.

Design Principles

A deck is not a document. The audience has 3 seconds to get each slide. Before adding anything, ask: "If the audience reads only the biggest element and glances once, do they get the point?" If they have to read the bullets, the biggest element is wrong.

Grid, margins, negative space

Standard widescreen is 33.87 × 19.05cm. Treat it as a 12-column grid internally:

• Edge margin ≥ 1.27cm (0.5") on all sides.
• Inter-block gap ≥ 0.76cm (0.3") between cards / columns / rows — pick one value (0.76 or 1.27cm) and use it everywhere; mixed gaps look unfinished.
• ≥ 20% negative space per slide. Filling every pixel reads as amateur.
• Compose, don't web-center. Whitespace is structural: a slide top-weighted with open space in the lower third is correct composition, not an empty defect. Intentional asymmetry (content left, breathing room right) reads more designed than centering everything — don't fill a gap just because it's there.
• For card grids: usable = 33.87 − 2·margin − (N−1)·gap, then col_width = usable / N. Don't hand-pick x coordinates.

Font pairings

Pair by document register, not by novelty. "Best For" is a prompt, not a decree; a pairing outside this table is fine if it fits — these 8 are seeds, not the set.

Set both fonts explicitly on every shape (--prop font=Georgia on titles, --prop font=Calibri on body), not via theme inheritance.

Color and contrast

The columns: Primary (dominant — 60–70% of weight, the color you see first), Secondary (supporting tone), Accent (sparing, one-hit emphasis), Text (body on light fills), Muted (captions / axis labels / footer).

Pick by topic, not by default — finance reads Midnight Executive, a product launch reads Coral Energy, safety / LOTO reads Cherry Bold. If the closest named theme is not quite right, blend (e.g. Forest primary + gold D4A843 accent). Use Text on light fills, Muted for captions / axis / footer, FFFFFF or Secondary for body on dark fills.

On dark backgrounds, text and chart series follow the Hard rules contrast floor above.

Chart-choice decision table

Wrong chart type kills the 3-second test:

Rule of thumb: if > 3 series and > 8 categories, split into two charts or switch to a table.

Animation

Use as much or as little as the brand and content call for — a formal finance deck trends to near-zero, a product launch can be more expressive. Animation is a tool, not décor. Three floors keep it from hurting the deck (none caps how much you use):

• Purposeful — each one reveals or emphasizes (progressive bullet reveal, a build-up chart), never decorates. If it doesn't aid comprehension, cut it.
• Degrades gracefully — pptx animation renders inconsistently across viewers (Keynote / Slides / web / mobile) and may not play at all, so every slide must read correctly as a static frame. Never hide essential content behind a reveal.
• Verify live — animation is runtime-only; view html and screenshots can't see it, so confirm in a real presentation viewer before shipping.

Taste steer (not a ban): fade / appear / a single zoom-entrance with snappy durations (~hundreds of ms) fit most decks; bounce / swivel / spin / fly-from-edge / dense multi-object choreography usually read amateur — reach for them only when the brand is deliberately playful.

Layout patterns & data display

Vary layout across slides — repeating the same pattern makes every slide feel identical. These are common building blocks, not the full set — pick one per slide, or build a layout outside the table when the content calls for it:

Data display quick rules:

• Comparison columns (before/after, A vs B) beat a table for 2-3 options.
• Timelines and process flows: numbered step shapes + connectors, not a bullet list.

Image treatment (only when a slide uses a photo / screenshot / logo)

Read the image first (open the file) and choose treatment from what you see — don't place blind from a filename.

• Full-bleed photo → size to COVER the region (crop edges), no border.
• Screenshot / diagram / logo → size to FIT (never crop content). A transparent or fit image sits on a contrasting fill — drop a colored rectangle behind it, don't let it float on white.
• Text over a photo → never raw on the image. Put it on a card, or lay a protection scrim between image and text (a dark rectangle at ~50–60% opacity, or a gradient fading from the text edge).
• Never stretch (distort the aspect ratio); don't overlay text on a busy screenshot.
• Prefer user-provided images / brand assets; no emoji or self-drawn art unless asked.

Visual motif commitment

Pick ONE distinctive element (rounded image frames, section numbers in filled circles, single-side border band, diagonal accent strips) and carry it to every slide — commit across the whole deck; styling one slide and leaving the rest plain reads as abandoned. A secondary motif is fine only if it doesn't compete with the primary. Declare it in your build plan first: ## Motif: numbered circles in brand color.

Visual AI-tells to avoid

• No decorative underline under slide titles. A stripe / rule below a heading is the single most common AI-slide tell — use whitespace or a background-color change instead.
• No rounded-corner card with a colored left-border accent stripe. The other classic AI-slide tell — use a solid fill, a top accent band, or whitespace separation instead.
• No emoji as iconography unless the brand uses them — use a shape or a real icon asset.

Copy-level tells live in "Copy reads human".

Common Workflow

1. Open/save lifecycle. officecli open <file> at the start, officecli save <file> at the end to flush your edits to disk. save only writes — it leaves the resident warm for any follow-up edit; reach for officecli close <file> only when you want to release the resident immediately (a one-shot handoff). Both are always safe — they never error or lose work. Use batch for repetitive shape grids. Flush only at the non-officecli boundary: officecli's own reads always see your edits; run save/close only before a non-officecli program reads the file (python-pptx, PowerPoint, a renderer, delivery).
2. Orient. New deck: officecli create "$FILE". Existing: officecli view "$FILE" outline first. Never edit blind.
3. Title sequence first (plan, don't build yet). Before creating any slide or shape, write out the full ordered list of slide titles. If someone reading ONLY the titles can't follow the argument, fix the arc now — cheaper in a list than after 14 slides. Pick ONE title grammar — all topic noun-phrases or all action statements, never a mix — and hold it throughout (see "Copy reads human").
4. Build in display order. Add slides in audience-view order: cover → agenda → section-1 divider → section-1 content → section-2 divider → … → closing. --index on slide add works, but linear append keeps the build script readable and avoids index-arithmetic bugs. Before final delivery, confirm slide count + narrative arc match your build plan. Gate 3's order-sanity check catches cases where the cover ends up as slide 11 of 14 instead of slide 1.
5. Incremental per slide. Create slide + background, then title, then supporting shapes / charts / connectors. Always layout=blank for custom designs. After each structural op, get /slide[N] --depth 1 to confirm shape IDs.
6. Format to spec. Per the Requirements table; formatting is deliverable, not polish.
7. Save + verify. officecli save flushes the file to disk (or officecli close to flush and also end the session). Always open in the target presentation viewer before shipping — chart colors, animations, fonts, and zoom are runtime features view html can't render. Full verification in QA below.
8. QA — assume there are problems. Fix-and-verify until a cycle finds zero new issues.

Quick Start

Minimal viable deck: cover + one content slide + notes. $FILE stands in for your filename.

FILE="deck.pptx"
officecli create "$FILE"
officecli open "$FILE"

# Cover — dark fill, centered title
officecli add "$FILE" / --type slide --prop layout=blank --prop background=1E2761
officecli add "$FILE" /slide[1] --type shape --prop text="FY26 Strategic Review" \
  --prop x=2cm --prop y=7cm --prop width=29.87cm --prop height=3cm \
  --prop font=Georgia --prop size=44 --prop bold=true --prop color=FFFFFF --prop align=center

# Content — white fill, title + body + notes
officecli add "$FILE" / --type slide --prop layout=blank --prop background=FFFFFF
officecli add "$FILE" /slide[2] --type shape --prop text="Revenue grew 18% YoY" \
  --prop x=1.5cm --prop y=1.2cm --prop width=30cm --prop height=2cm \
  --prop font=Georgia --prop size=36 --prop bold=true --prop color=1E2761
officecli add "$FILE" /slide[2] --type shape --prop text="Enterprise renewals + new EMEA region drove the beat; NRR held at 118%." \
  --prop x=1.5cm --prop y=4cm --prop width=30cm --prop height=3cm \
  --prop font=Calibri --prop size=20 --prop color=333333
officecli add "$FILE" /slide[2] --type notes --prop text="Lead with the 18% beat, preview EMEA."

officecli save "$FILE"
officecli validate "$FILE"

Shape of every build: open → slide+background → title → body → notes → save → validate.

Reading & Analysis

Start wide, then narrow. outline first, view text / get / query once you know where to look.

officecli view "$FILE" outline          # slide count + titles
officecli view "$FILE" annotated        # complete per-slide breakdown with fonts, sizes, tables, charts
officecli view "$FILE" text --start 1 --end 5   # text dump (includes table cell text)
officecli view "$FILE" issues           # empty slides, overflow hints
officecli view "$FILE" stats            # counts + totals (incl. pictures missing alt)

Inspect one element. XPath-style paths, 1-based. ALWAYS quote. Prefer @name= / @id= selectors over positional [N] (stable across reorderings). [last()] works. Add --json for machine output.

officecli get "$FILE" "/slide[1]" --depth 1              # shape list with IDs and names
officecli get "$FILE" "/slide[1]/shape[@name=Title]"
officecli get "$FILE" "/slide[1]/table[1]" --depth 3     # table rows / cells

Query across the deck. CSS-like selectors; operators =, !=, ~=, >=, <=, [attr], :contains(), :no-alt. help pptx query lists queryable element types.

officecli query "$FILE" 'shape:contains("Revenue")'
officecli query "$FILE" 'picture:no-alt'                 # accessibility gap
officecli query "$FILE" 'shape[fill=1E2761]'             # color match
officecli query "$FILE" 'shape[width>=10cm]'             # numeric

query --json output schema. Results wrap in .data.results[] — jq -r '.data.results[0].format.id', NOT .[0].id. Shape name is .name; fill is .format.fill; textColor is .format.textColor.

Visual preview (LEAD).

officecli view "$FILE" html                # prints an HTML preview path; Read it for per-slide visual audit (best structural ground truth)
officecli view "$FILE" svg --start 3 --end 3   # single slide SVG (charts + gradients do NOT render in SVG)

Reading the output — an expected non-defect:

• layout=blank has no title placeholder. Titles are plain shape elements, so view outline reporting (untitled) is expected, not a defect. Use layout=title + placeholder[title] only when screen-reader outline compatibility matters.

Creating & Editing

Verbs: add / set / remove / move / swap / batch / raw-set. Ninety percent of a deck is slides, shapes, text, a few charts, pictures, connectors.

Slides and backgrounds

A slide is /slide[N]. Always pass layout=blank for custom designs. Background: solid, gradient, or image.

officecli add "$FILE" / --type slide --prop layout=blank --prop background=1E2761                 # solid
officecli add "$FILE" / --type slide --prop layout=blank --prop "background=1E2761-CADCFC-180"   # gradient (start-end-angle)
officecli add "$FILE" / --type slide --prop layout=blank --prop background=image:/path/to/hero.jpg  # image background (LEAD)

Shapes

A shape holds text, fill, border, position, and optional animation / link.

officecli add "$FILE" /slide[2] --type shape --prop name=Title --prop text="Key Insight" \
  --prop x=2cm --prop y=2cm --prop width=20cm --prop height=3cm \
  --prop font=Georgia --prop size=36 --prop bold=true --prop color=1E2761 --prop fill=none

Positioning is explicit — no layout engine, you own the grid math. --prop preset= picks geometry (rect, roundRect, ellipse, triangle, arrow, star5, ...); custom M...Z paths are not supported — pick a preset. Name shapes at creation (--prop name=HeroTitle) and address later with "/slide[N]/shape[@name=HeroTitle]" — names survive z-order / remove-then-add, whereas positional /shape[3] (and even @id=) shift. Re-get --depth 1 after any structural change before using positional indexes.

Text inside shapes (paragraphs, runs, styling)

A shape has paragraphs (paragraph[K]) and runs (run[K]). For one-line text, --prop text= on the shape is enough; a \n in the text makes a paragraph break, \t a tab (see Shell & Execution Discipline; double \\n for a literal). add --type paragraph takes the same style props as a shape (text, align, bold, italic, size, color, font). For mixed styling within a line, append a styled run:

officecli add "$FILE" "/slide[2]/shape[@name=Card1]/paragraph[1]" --type run \
  --prop text=" (inline detail)" --prop size=14 --prop italic=true --prop color=8899BB

Charts

Pick chart type per the Desi