lecture-slide-make for Claude Code and Codex: editable lecture decks from one JSON file

lecture-slide-make is a skill that turns a single content JSON file into an editable lecture pptx deck. It is a single skill with two scripts, published in the book author’s public repository, which has no license file. This post covers the problem it solves, who it suits, how to install it and make the first request, and the preparation that decides whether the finished deck looks complete.

What problem it solves

A lecture series needs many decks that look like they belong together. When an agent makes slides from scratch each session, font sizes and colors drift from one deck to the next, and diagrams often arrive as flat images you cannot fix in PowerPoint. A small copy change then means asking for the whole slide again.

This skill splits the work in two. content.json holds the copy and speaker notes, while the script and theme files hold font sizes and colors. When the copy changes, you edit only the JSON and rerun the script, so the appearance stays consistent across sessions. Diagrams are drawn with native python-pptx shapes, which means you can click a box in PowerPoint and change its text directly. Before it builds anything, the skill asks about the audience, venue, and slide count, then shows three sample slides for you to choose from.

Who it fits

The chapter rates four situations. These three cover most decisions.

Situation	Fit	Reason
Decks for a lecture series	Good fit	Appearance is fixed in code
Concept diagrams for internal training	Good fit	Decision tree and 14 presets
External proposals centered on a brand	Poor fit	The source recommends a designer’s template

If you need a single diagram for a blog post rather than a deck, diagram-design from this series is the closer match.

Install and first run

Download the claude-playbook repository from GitHub at ggplab/claude-playbook, install the dependencies, and copy the skill folder to the path your agent reads.

# Download the claude-playbook repository, then copy the skill folder and install dependencies
pip install python-pptx pillow

# Claude Code
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills
cp -R claude-playbook/02-skills/lecture-slide-make ~/.claude/skills/

# Codex (personal skills path from "How to use Codex skills and how they work")
mkdir -p ~/.agents/skills
cp -R claude-playbook/02-skills/lecture-slide-make ~/.agents/skills/

You do not need to call it by name. It activates when you ask for slides for a lecture or training material.

Create lecture slides for a seminar room from the outline below. No more than 12 slides, with one diagram per concept.

For each slide, three questions about real-world objects, underlying relationships, and the form of contrast guide the choice among the 14 presets. The script then writes a pptx made of shapes you can edit.

What trips people up

The script cannot invent your screenshots or fonts. Any screenshot missing from assets/shots/ appears in the deck as an empty dashed slot, so a deck built before you gather the captures will look unfinished. Fonts are the same story: the source says to use Malgun Gothic for decks that will be opened on Windows. Gather the captures and settle the font before the final build, not after.

Two smaller catches sit next to that one. The SKILL.md in the repository is written in Korean, so translate it before use. The execution command also assumes the Claude Code path ~/.claude/skills/lecture-slide-make/scripts/build_deck.py, so change it if you installed the skill under the Codex path.

Where this comes from

This post adapts part of chapter 04-06 of The Claude Code & Codex Skills Guidebook. The full chapter covers how compare_deck.py measures the gap between the generated deck and your hand-edited version to improve the generator, and what each file in the skill folder does, and the book has 52 more skills like this one. Read the full chapter in The Claude Code & Codex Skills Guidebook on Gumroad.