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Work with office files

PowerPoint (pptx) skill for Claude

Builds PowerPoint decks from scratch or from your template, then checks every slide for problems.

Source-availableby Anthropicdocument-skills
  • Claude Code
  • Claude apps
  • Claude API
  • Excel, Word & PowerPoint
How to installView on GitHub

Reviewed by Sophie Filer · Updated 1 Nov 2026

This is the skill behind slide decks on claude.ai. New decks are written with pptxgenjs, a JavaScript library, while existing decks and company templates are edited at the XML level so their layouts survive.

It brings firm views on design (a palette chosen for the topic, one dominant colour, no walls of bullets) and a required quality pass: Claude reads the text back out of the deck, renders the slides as images and fixes overlaps or overflow before it calls the work done.

Pea-sy Does It

Try asking

Copy one of these into Claude once the skill is on.

  • Make a ten-slide pitch deck from this one-page summary, with speaker notes on every slide.

  • Use our template.pptx to build a quarterly update with these numbers. Keep the template layouts.

  • Pull the text and speaker notes out of training.pptx into a Markdown outline.

Ripe for the Picking

When Claude reaches for it

  • Making a pitch deck, report deck or training slides
  • Filling in or extending a company template
  • Reading the text and speaker notes out of a .pptx file
  • Combining or reordering slides from several decks

Shelling It Out

What is in the pod

pptx/

  • Guidance on when to build from scratch and when to work from a template
  • A list of pptxgenjs pitfalls that quietly corrupt files, such as colour formats and shadow offsets
  • Scripts to make a thumbnail grid of every slide, duplicate slides, clear out unused media and validate the file
  • Design ideas and a quality checklist to run before the deck goes back to you

Planting It

How to install PowerPoint (pptx)

Pick the app you use. Each route takes a couple of minutes.

Claude Code

The quickest route if you code in the terminal.

  1. Add the Anthropic skills marketplace

    You only do this once. It registers the anthropics/skills repo as a plugin source.

    pptx Claude Code, step 1
    /plugin marketplace add anthropics/skills

  2. Install the document-skills plugin

    pptx ships inside it. You can also pick it from the /plugin menu under Browse and install plugins.

    pptx Claude Code, step 2
    /plugin install document-skills@anthropic-agent-skills

  3. Start a new session and ask

    Claude loads the skill on its own when a task matches. To be sure, name it: "Use the PowerPoint (pptx) skill to ..."

Claude apps

Web, desktop and mobile, with no install at all.

  1. Turn on code execution

    Open Settings, then Capabilities, and switch on Code execution and file creation (called Create and edit files in the newer layout). Skills need it to run.

  2. Open Customize, then Skills

    pptx is one of Anthropic's own skills, so it is already in the list.

  3. Switch on pptx

    Team and Enterprise members may need an owner to allow skills first, under Organization settings, Plugins & skills. Skills you switch on also sync to Claude Code when you sign in with the same account.

This skill is source-available, so there is no copy-it-yourself route: install it through the plugin or the Claude apps.

Pod Compatible

Works with

  • Claude CodeInstall from the plugin marketplace or drop the folder in .claude/skills.
  • Claude appsWeb, desktop and mobile: switch it on under Customize, then Skills.
  • Claude APIUse the pre-built document skills, or upload any skill folder as a custom skill.
  • Excel, Word & PowerPointSkills you switch on in Claude also load in the Claude add-ins for Office.

Pea-requisites

What it needs

  • Node.js with the pptxgenjs package
  • Python 3 with markitdown, Pillow, defusedxml and lxml
  • LibreOffice and Poppler, to render slides as images

Notes from the Pea Patch

Tips from using it

  • If you have a template, hand it over first. The skill makes a thumbnail grid of its layouts and builds from those instead of inventing its own.
  • Ask for speaker notes if you want them. The skill puts them in the notes field, where presenters expect them, not on the slide.

Pea-fect Partners

MCP servers that pair well

Tavily MCPGathers sources and figures from the web before Claude starts on the slides.draw.io MCPDraws a diagram you can keep editing, ready to export and place on a slide.

More from the Pod

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