academic-visual-slides

Academic Visual Slides

Build a presentation that helps someone teach: enough explanation to follow the reasoning, illustrations that clarify the situation, and a calm but visibly structured layout. This is a visual and editorial workflow, not a dependency on a particular slide engine.

Establish the source and visual direction

Read the user's script, comments and the paragraphs they refer to. If the PDF has annotation objects, use scripts/extract_pdf_annotations.py; also inspect rendered pages because red lines, highlights and comments can be flattened into the page. Proximity is a clue, not a reliable annotation-to-paragraph match. Preserve existing files and create a versioned revision unless the user asks to overwrite.

Read the design system, then view the two bundled reference images in assets/references/. Use them for visual language, not their subject matter or claims. Read the workflow when building or revising a deck. The pictures in assets/examples/ illustrate successful compositions, not mandatory templates for every page.

User-supplied templates, audience, language, page counts and later corrections take precedence. Do not silently change the requested destination. Use the presentation tools available in the current environment and their required authoring/export workflow. Do not assume a private runtime, fixed installation path or cloud account exists.

Content and structure

• Build a source-to-slide map before designing: source paragraph or comment, teaching purpose, on-slide message, visual, speaker notes, interaction and reveal. Cover all substantive content across slides and notes; do not hide essential teaching explanations only in notes.
• Include a standalone opening title page before the first activity. Normally end with a separate Takeaways page followed by a dedicated Thank you for listening page. The closing page contains the requested team/speaker identity, not another takeaway list. Use actual supplied group names; Group 8 in the examples is not a default identity.
• Alternate concise prompts with explanatory pages. Keep representative full sentences, examples, contrasts and reasons where they help learners. Do not reduce every page to keywords. For a worked example, display the example alongside its interpretation.
• Preserve terminology, answer labels, numbers, activity order and the distinction between a question and its answer. Put answer reveals after audience participation. Preserve conditional presenter cues; never invent live responses or claim a QR placeholder works.
• Use notes for original speech, timing, handovers and facilitation cues. Update slide numbers when adding a cover or separating reveals.

Visual execution

Use editable text, shapes, color regions, connectors and diagrams. Keep generated scenes and icons as independently movable images. Avoid full-slide raster generation unless requested or truly needed; textual learning content should remain editable.

The default palette is navy text on warm white with pale mint, powder blue and muted apricot. Use color to group meaning, for example situation versus consequence or judgment versus observation. Vary the composition with two-region contrasts, colored sentence strips, an illustrated scenario, a radial diagram and an explanation column. Do not turn every slide into the same three-card grid.

Use the built-in image generation capability when available for requested cartoon scenes and visual modules. Ask for real alpha transparency for isolated artwork, verify it, and preserve it. If generation is unavailable, state that limitation and use existing authorized assets or editable diagrams; do not quietly substitute emoji for requested illustration. See image prompting and assets.

For a central topic with four related situations, use a semicircular fan when it expresses the relationship: center the main topic at the base, arrange four distinct icons on the arc, and give each a short title and concrete description. Use editable sectors and labels. Do not omit an icon or use a generic symbol for all four. The diagram is categorical, so do not imply measured percentages.

Review and deliver

Render all pages and inspect at readable size. Check image-to-label alignment, text within color regions, visual density, color contrast and source coverage. For revisions, inspect changed pages closely and scan the rest for unintended changes. A contact sheet alone cannot prove text fits. See the focused review checklist.

If delivering PPTX, scripts/check_pptx_structure.py checks package-level page count, opening/closing wording and editable text counts. It does not replace visual review or native PowerPoint testing. Deliver the requested saved artifact and briefly identify material pending setup, such as a real polling URL. Keep unpublished scripts, private comments, credentials and personal filesystem paths out of public packages.