Paper Slide Deck

Paper Slide Deck Generator

Transform academic papers and content into professional slide deck images with automatic figure extraction.

Usage

/paper-slide-deck path/to/paper.pdf
/paper-slide-deck path/to/paper.pdf --style academic-paper
/paper-slide-deck path/to/content.md --style sketch-notes
/paper-slide-deck path/to/content.md --audience executives
/paper-slide-deck path/to/content.md --lang zh
/paper-slide-deck path/to/content.md --slides 10
/paper-slide-deck path/to/content.md --outline-only
/paper-slide-deck  # Then paste content

Setup (one-time)

The TypeScript scripts (merge-to-*, detect-figures, extract-figure, apply-template) need Node dependencies. Install them once:

cd ${SKILL_DIR}/scripts && npm install

This installs canvas, pdfjs-dist, pptxgenjs, and pdf-lib (a package-lock.json pins versions). If a script exits with missing Node dependency "<name>", run the command above. The Python generator (generate-slides.py) auto-installs google-genai on first run.

Also install PyMuPDF (pip install pymupdf) — it is the reliable fallback for extracting figures from pages that embed bitmaps (X-rays, CAM heatmaps, photographs), where the pdfjs + canvas path in extract-figure.ts fails with Error: Image or Canvas expected. For medical-imaging papers this is the common case, not the exception, so treat PyMuPDF as required, not optional.

Image generation & no-API-key path

Image generation needs either a GOOGLE_API_KEY/GEMINI_API_KEY (Gemini API) or the Gemini Web skill. If no key and no web option is available, the skill still works in a degraded mode — do not abort:

1. Run with --outline-only to produce the outline + prompts (no images).
2. For a source PDF, extract real figures/tables with detect-figures.ts + extract-figure.ts + apply-template.ts (no API key needed — pure rendering).
3. Merge whatever slides exist (extract-sourced pages) into PPTX/PDF, and hand the prompts/ back to the user to generate images later when a key is available.

Script Directory

Important: All scripts are located in the scripts/ subdirectory of this skill.

Agent Execution Instructions:

1. Determine this SKILL.md file's directory path as SKILL_DIR
2. Script path = ${SKILL_DIR}/scripts/<script-name>.ts
3. Replace all ${SKILL_DIR} in this document with the actual path

Script Reference: | Script | Purpose | |--------|---------| | scripts/generate-slides.py | Generate AI slides via Gemini API (Python) | | scripts/merge-to-pptx.ts | Merge slides into PowerPoint | | scripts/merge-to-pdf.ts | Merge slides into PDF | | scripts/detect-figures.ts | Auto-detect figures/tables in PDF (heuristic; verify pages) | | scripts/extract-figure.ts | Render a full PDF page to PNG (optional --crop; PyMuPDF fallback) | | scripts/apply-template.ts | Apply figure container template |

Options

Style Gallery

Auto Style Selection

Academic-signal caution: When the content matches academic-paper signals (paper/thesis/neurips/cvpr/icml/…), this skill still bakes text into an image, so equations, result tables, and exact numbers may be garbled. Extract real figures/tables from the source PDF (Source: extract) rather than letting the model redraw them, and if the deck needs faithful, editable formulas/data, tell the user to use scholar-slides instead.

Layout Gallery

Optional layout hints for individual slides. Specify in outline's // LAYOUT section.

Slide-Specific Layouts

Infographic-Derived Layouts