Marsman Excel-to-PPT Analysis Report

The Problem

Analysis notes often get stuck between a clear write-up and a presentable deck: manual template edits can break layouts, while scripted PPTX generation can introduce out-of-bounds shapes, broken charts, or invalid OOXML. This skill treats PPTX as a package of editable XML and gives a more reliable workflow for creating, editing, and reading presentations.

How It Works and Where to Be Careful

• Creating new decks: prefer pptxgenjs, with careful handling of pres.layout, hex colors, shadow objects, list line breaks, and chart dataLabelPosition values that can corrupt files.
• Editing existing templates: unzip the package, update ppt/slides/slideN.xml, then repack; do structural add/delete/reorder work before content replacement, and use add_slide.py, clean.py, and validate.py to reduce manual XML risk.
• Reading and layout selection: use markitdown for text extraction and scripts/thumbnail.py for labeled layout grids, making it easier to map content onto suitable template slides.
• Design guardrails: every slide should include a chart, icon, shape, or image; prefer fonts that ship with Office; avoid repeated layouts, centered body text, and plain color-bar decoration.
  It is well suited for automated .pptx generation and template-based reporting. It is less appropriate for complex interactive decks, heavy animation, or advanced PowerPoint-native features that still need human review.