pptx-editorial

Editorial PPTX Deck

You will generate one .pptx file by writing a JavaScript program that uses pptxgenjs and runs it via the execute_javascript_code tool. Save the file to the workspace (use the output dir the tool returns), then report the path and a 1-line layout summary.

⚠️ Hard rules — NO exceptions

0. MATCH THE USER'S LANGUAGE. This is rule zero, the most violated rule. If the user prompt is in Chinese (中文), EVERY string in the deck — kickers, slide titles, body text, captions, kicker labels, folio prefixes, sample names, captions — must be in Chinese. NEVER copy English template phrases like THE PROBLEM, FEATURE STORY, RESEARCH BRIEF, THE BOTTOM LINE, BUILT BY BUILDERS into a Chinese deck. Translate them: e.g. THE PROBLEM → 问题所在, THE SOLUTION → 解决方案, MARKET OPPORTUNITY → 市场机会, THE TEAM → 团队, USE OF FUNDS → 资金用途, THE BOTTOM LINE → 一句话总结, RESEARCH BRIEF → 研究简报, CASE STUDY → 案例研究. Person names in a Chinese deck should be Chinese names (e.g. 张伟 · 陈琳), not transliterated English names. Folio reads 01 / 12 in either language (digits are universal). Same applies to other languages: match the prompt.
1. One palette only. Pick one of the 5 palettes below, use only its 4 hex values. Never invent new hex.
2. Two fonts only. Display = Georgia (serif, present on all OSes). Body = Calibri (sans, Office default). No custom fonts — .pptx recipients won't have them and the deck will fall back to Times. For Chinese decks: Georgia + Calibri both render Chinese via system fallback fonts (PingFang on macOS, Microsoft YaHei on Windows) — that's fine, do not switch to custom Chinese fonts. 2a. 🚫 NEVER apply charSpacing to CJK / non-Latin text. The trick of "tracked-out caps" only works for Latin letters (A B C D). On Chinese, Japanese, Korean characters — which are already full-square glyphs — charSpacing: 10 (0.10em) renders as 部　署　周　期 with huge gaps between every character. This looks broken on EVERY rendering platform. Rule: if the text contains ANY CJK character, set charSpacing: 0 (or omit the property entirely). Only apply charSpacing: 8-15 when the entire string is uppercase Latin (e.g. RESEARCH BRIEF, PART 02). For Chinese kickers, just use bold + small caps look via 11pt bold ink-tint text WITHOUT any character spacing.
3. Forbidden visual elements (PowerPoint defaults to these — you must actively avoid):
   • drop shadow / glow / reflection / soft edge / bevel / 3-D rotation
   • gradient backgrounds
   • rounded rectangles (use rectRadius: 0)
   • clipart, emoji as decoration, stock-photo placeholders
   • Comic Sans, Times New Roman default, Arial Black
   • smart-art with default styling
   • rainbow chart palettes (chart uses ink + paper-tint only)
4. Real content only. No lorem ipsum, no [Title here] placeholders, no fabricated statistics. If a slot has no user data, drop the slot.
   • Team slides especially: if the user did not provide team names, titles, or bios, DO NOT invent them. Don't make up 陈明远 · 前阿里 云智能平台总监 · 清华大学计算机硕士 — that's fabrication and looks fake to anyone in the industry. Either ask the user for team info OR drop the team slide entirely and note "团队信息待补充".
   • Same for fake financial metrics (MRR / ARR / growth rate), fake customer names, fake competitive comparisons. If you don't have it, don't ship it.
5. Slide count is driven by content. 6–12 short, 15–25 long. No padding.
6. Fill the slide. The 13.33 × 7.5 inch canvas is large. Do NOT cram everything into the left third. Use align: 'center' on hero text, place the body block across columns 1–11 (x: 0.7 to 12.6), use the full vertical range top-to-bottom. A slide that looks 60%+ empty is broken.
7. Sizing for Chinese text: Chinese characters take MORE horizontal space per char than Latin. Rules of thumb:
   • Hero title at fontSize 40-48: give the textbox at least w: 12 inches (the full content width). Title at w: 6 will overflow / wrap badly.
   • 1 Chinese character at 40pt ≈ 0.55 inch wide. Plan accordingly.
   • For section titles (24-28pt) keep w ≥ 8 inches.
   • For body text (14-16pt) w: 11+ is safe for full sentences.
8. No overlapping shapes. When you place a dark section header / banner on a slide, leave at least 0.3 inch of vertical clearance before any text shape. Banners at y: 1.2, h: 0.8 should not have a title block starting at y: 1.5 — that overlaps and clips text.

🎨 Palettes — pick ONE

Each: ink (text + dark surfaces), paper (slide background), paper-tint (card background / chart fill), ink-tint (kicker + dividers).

• Monocle (default / business / tech) ink 0A0A0B · paper F1EFEA · paper-tint E8E5DE · ink-tint 18181A
• Indigo Porcelain (data / research) ink 0A1F3D · paper F1F3F5 · paper-tint E4E8EC · ink-tint 152A4A
• Forest Ink (sustainability / culture) ink 1A2E1F · paper F5F1E8 · paper-tint ECE7DA · ink-tint 253D2C
• Kraft Paper (humanities / literature) ink 2A1E13 · paper EEDFC7 · paper-tint E0D0B6 · ink-tint 3A2A1D
• Dune (art / design / fashion) ink 1F1A14 · paper F0E6D2 · paper-tint E3D7BF · ink-tint 2D2620

(pptxgenjs takes hex without the # prefix.)

✒️ Typography rules (use exactly these sizes)

• Slide title (display): Georgia, 48pt, ink color, bold: false
• Body: Calibri, 16pt, ink, line spacing 1.4
• Kicker (small uppercase label above title): Calibri, 10pt, ink-tint, bold: true, charSpacing: 10 ⚠️ pptxgenjs charSpacing units are hundredths of an em (relative to font size), NOT 1/100 pt. CSS standard for "tracked-out caps" is letter-spacing: 0.08em–0.12em → use charSpacing: 8 to 12.
  • charSpacing: 10 = 0.10em (DEFAULT for kicker — tight, readable)
  • charSpacing: 15 = 0.15em (max for kicker)
  • charSpacing: 30 = 0.30em (already visibly too wide — letters drift apart)
  • charSpacing: 50 = 0.5em = very airy, don't use anywhere
  • charSpacing: 100 = 1em = one full character gap (DON'T USE)
  • charSpacing: 200+ = letters split into separate columns (DESTROYED)
  • HARD CAP: never use charSpacing > 15. No exceptions for any text element — bigger values always look broken in PPT.
• Folio (01 / 12 bottom-right): Calibri, 10pt, ink-tint
• Big number (L03): Georgia, 80pt, ink
• Big quote (L08): Georgia italic, 36pt, ink

🏷️ Kicker semantics — READ CAREFULLY

The kicker is a STANDALONE section label, not a fragment of the title. It's the magazine equivalent of a department tag (NYT-style).

✅ Correct kickers (short, 1–4 words, all caps, semantic label):

• FEATURE STORY
• THE NEXT PARADIGM
• RESEARCH BRIEF
• POINT 02
• CASE STUDY
• THE BOTTOM LINE
• INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

❌ NEVER do this (splitting the title across kicker + display):

• Kicker THE RISE OF REMOTE-FIRST + Title Engineering Teams — WRONG. The title must read as one complete phrase.

✅ Correct version of above:

• Kicker RESEARCH BRIEF (or THE FUTURE OF WORK)
• Title The Rise of Remote-First Engineering Teams (complete, one block)

🔣 Punctuation rules

• Meta rows and bylines: separate items with middle dot · (Unicode U+00B7), NOT hyphen - or em-dash —. Example: Remote Work Research · May 2026 (NOT Remote Work Research - May 2026)
• Citations: — Author Name, Role · Source, Year (em-dash before name)
• En-dash – for number ranges (2019–2024), hyphen - only inside compound words (remote-first).

📐 10 layouts

Each slide should set background to paper (or ink for L02 inverted). Standard slide is 13.33 × 7.5 inches (16:9).

🛠️ pptxgenjs implementation pattern

⚠️ Top-level await is FORBIDDEN. The JavaScript executor runtime runs the script as node script.js with NO package.json in the exec dir, so top-level await makes Node guess ESM mode and require() then throws require is not defined in ES module scope. Wrap everything in an async IIFE so the await lives inside a function:

const pptxgen = require('pptxgenjs');

(async () => {
  const pres = new pptxgen();
  pres.layout = 'LAYOUT_WIDE';  // 13.33 × 7.5

// Define palette ONCE at top, reference everywhere
const palette = { ink: '0A0A0B', paper: 'F1EFEA', paperTint: 'E8E5DE', inkTint: '18181A' };
const fonts = { display: 'Georgia', body: 'Calibri' };

// L01 Cover (centered hero — fills the slide)
// NOTE on language: if the user prompt is Chinese, kicker / title / meta MUST be Chinese.
// Examples below are English for illustration; substitute your language.
const s1 = pres.addSlide();
s1.background = { color: palette.paper };
// Kicker — small, centered, only ~10 chars tracked-out
s1.addText('RESEARCH BRIEF', {
  x: 0.7, y: 2.4, w: 12, h: 0.4,
  fontFace: fonts.body, fontSize: 11, color: palette.inkTint,
  bold: true, charSpacing: 10, align: 'center',
});
// Display title — centered, wide enough to wrap on 2 lines if needed
s1.addText('Why AI Agents Will Change Software Development', {
  x: 0.7, y: 2.9, w: 12, h: 1.8,
  fontFace: fonts.display, fontSize: 48, color: palette.ink, align: 'center',
});
// Lead body (optional one-liner subtitle)
s1.addText('A 2026 research brief on agent infrastructure, market shape, and the shift to production-grade systems.', {
  x: 1.5, y: 4.8, w: 10.3, h: 1.0,
  fontFace: fonts.body, fontSize: 14, color: palette.ink, align: 'center',
});
// Meta row — bottom center
s1.addText('Xagent Team · May 2026', {
  x: 0.7, y: 6.6, w: 12, h: 0.3,
  fontFace: fonts.body, fontSize: 11, color: palette.inkTint, align: 'center',
});
// Folio bottom-right
s1.addText('01 / 06', { x: 11.5, y: 7.0, w: 1.5, h: 0.3,
  fontFace: fonts.body, fontSize: 10, color: palette.inkTint, align: 'right' });

  // Save — `await` is INSIDE the async IIFE, this is fine
  await pres.writeFile({ fileName: 'editorial-deck.pptx' });
  console.log('Done: editorial-deck.pptx');
})();  // ← critical: close + invoke the async IIFE

⚠️ About the layout numbers above: the cover places hero text in the center of the slide, not the left edge. Common mistake from earlier templates was x: 0.7, y: 1.8 with no align: 'center' — that pins title to the upper-left and leaves ~60% of the slide empty. Don't repeat that.

⚠️ Don't forget the packages arg. When calling execute_javascript_code, pass packages: "pptxgenjs" (string) so the executor npm installs it before running. Without it the script crashes with Cannot find module 'pptxgenjs'.

pptxgenjs is not preinstalled in the sandbox — supplying it via packages is what makes it available for the run. Always pass it through packages, even on repeated runs in the same task.

📝 Output checklist (verify before running)

• JS is wrapped in (async () => { ... })() IIFE — no top-level await (Node will pick ESM mode and require() will throw).
• packages: "pptxgenjs" is passed to execute_javascript_code so the executor installs it before running.
• LANGUAGE matches the user's prompt (Chinese prompt → Chinese deck; NO English template phrases like THE PROBLEM leaking through). Check every addText call before running.
• Hero/cover text is centered (align: 'center') and uses the full slide width (w: 12+), not pinned to x: 0.7 with no alignment.
• Palette: exactly ONE chosen, all 4 hex values match
• Fonts: ONLY Georgia + Calibri (no Playfair Display etc — those won't render in PPT)
• No shadow:, no glow:, no gradient:, no rectRadius: > 0
• charSpacing ≤ 15 for English uppercase kickers (units are 1/100 em). For Chinese / CJK text: charSpacing: 0 ALWAYS (no exceptions). Anything > 0 on CJK looks broken with huge gaps between every character.
• Kicker is a SEPARATE section label (e.g. RESEARCH BRIEF for EN decks, 研究简报 for ZH decks), NOT a fragment of the slide title. Title is one complete phrase by itself.
• Meta rows use middle dot · between items (not - or —)
• Slide count 6–25 driven by user content
• L01 cover on slide 1, L10 closing on last slide
• Folio "NN / TT" on every slide except L10
• All numbers / quotes from user content (or clearly attributed sources)
• No fabricated team / customer / financial data. If user didn't give team names, drop the team slide (or use "团队信息待补充").
• Chinese hero titles use w: 12 (not w: 6). Chinese chars are ~0.55" each at 40pt — narrow textboxes overflow / wrap broken.
• No overlapping shapes (banner blocks vs. title blocks). Allow at least 0.3" vertical clearance between adjacent y-positioned shapes.
• Final answer FIRST LINE is [filename](file:UUID) as bare markdown (not in code fences, not as "file_id: UUID" text). Otherwise the chip won't render — the user can't click anything.

Run via execute_javascript_code (with packages: "pptxgenjs"), then:

1. Read the tool's response. When the JS run succeeds and produces a .pptx in the workspace, the tool result includes a markdown_link field (e.g. when there's one output file) or a file_refs array whose entries each carry file_id + filename + markdown_link. Use the returned markdown_link string verbatim.

2. In your final answer, the first line MUST be that chip link (literal markdown syntax, NOT wrapped in backticks, NOT presented as "here's the UUID"):

   ✅ CORRECT (renders as clickable chip):

   [editorial-deck.pptx](file:20fae785-3823-4906-b385-d0e8a7807dc8)
   

   That is, the message body literally starts with [filename](file:UUID) on its own line — NOT inside ``` code fences. The exact UUID comes from the tool response; never fabricate one.

   ❌ WRONG — common failure mode that renders as plain text:

   已获取文件信息：
   - 文件名: `editorial-deck.pptx`
   - file_id: `20fae785-3823-4906-b385-d0e8a7807dc8`
   

   This shows the UUID as decoration and the user can't click anything. The chat UI looks for [name](file:UUID) markdown specifically.

   ❌ ALSO WRONG: putting the chip link inside a code block:

   Code blocks suppress markdown — the link won't render as a chip.

   ❌ ALSO WRONG: calling get_file_info(...) to "fetch" the file_id — its FileInfo return shape does not include file_id. The chip reference is in the executor's own response, not a separate metadata call.

3. After the chip link line, report:

   • Palette chosen
   • Layout sequence (e.g. L01 cover → L03 stats → L06 pipeline → L08 quote → L10 closing)
   • Page count and file size