13 KiB
Preset: slides
Last updated: 2026-05-17 | Verified: research/03-prompt-patterns-intent-presets.md Evidence grade: Anthropic-documented + community-validated Captured-on date: 2026-05-16
The slides intent preset generates presentation decks — internal stakeholder updates, executive roadmaps, customer briefings, partner proposals, all-hands meetings. Output is HTML deck with per-slide layouts, optionally exportable to PPTX (with caveats — see Section e).
(a) What this preset is
Anthropic launch post (https://anthropic.com/news/claude-design-anthropic-labs) names slides as a destination-shaped preset: the artifact assumes the slide-deck format, not the dashboard / one-pager / prototype format. Output renders in the Claude Design canvas as a slide-by-slide thumbnail strip plus the active slide in full view.
Two Anthropic primary sources ground this preset:
- The dedicated tutorial
https://claude.com/resources/tutorials/using-claude-design-for-presentations-and-slide-deckspublishes five verbatim canonical prompts (Section c) and the slide-deck composition framework. - The PowerPoint-mode article
https://support.claude.com/en/articles/13521390-use-claude-for-powerpointpublishes the PPTX export conventions and the template-respecting guidance: Claude reads the slide master, layouts, fonts, and color scheme of an uploaded PPTX template and produces output that respects them.
The two sources compose: the tutorial covers the prompt patterns, the PowerPoint-mode article covers the export discipline.
(b) When to use it
Pick slides when the destination is a presentation surface. The decision matrix:
| Operator goal | Preset |
|---|---|
| Internal team update / project review | slides |
| Customer-prep briefing for a sales call | slides |
| Executive roadmap or quarterly business review (Q1/Q2/Q3/Q4 results) | slides |
| Partner proposal / co-development pitch | slides |
| All-hands or company-wide announcement | slides |
| External investor pitch deck | pitch-decks (separate preset — see preset file for the PPTX trap) |
| Single-page memo / one-pager | one-pagers |
The distinguishing question vs pitch-decks: is the audience internal or external? Internal → slides. External investor → pitch-decks (with explicit caveat about PPTX export, see pitch-decks.md).
(c) Anthropic-published prompt patterns
The Anthropic tutorial https://claude.com/resources/tutorials/using-claude-design-for-presentations-and-slide-decks publishes five verbatim canonical prompts:
Pattern 1 — Q1 results deck
For quarterly business review decks (Q1 / Q2 / Q3 / Q4 results). Pattern names the metrics in priority order, the audience seniority level, the narrative arc (where we started, what changed, where we are, what's next), and the supporting visualisations (charts, tables, callout numbers).
Pattern 2 — Executive roadmap
For multi-quarter roadmap decks. Pattern names the roadmap horizon (quarters or half-years), the workstreams (3-7 named tracks), the major milestones per workstream, the dependencies between workstreams, and the assumptions / risks per quarter.
Pattern 3 — Customer-prep briefing
For sales-call preparation decks. Pattern names the customer (company + named contacts), the meeting goal, the customer's known priorities, the value-prop alignment, the proof points (case studies, metrics), and the asks / next steps.
Pattern 4 — Partner proposal
For co-development or partnership proposals. Pattern names the proposed scope, the resourcing model, the timeline, the success metrics, the IP / licensing model, and the open questions.
Pattern 5 — All-hands announcement
For company-wide updates. Pattern names the announcement (one sentence), the why-now context, the impact on employees, the timeline, and the resources / Q&A links.
Refer to the tutorial URL for the verbatim prompt text. This plugin cites by URL rather than reproducing Anthropic's exact wording (per the brief's source-quality rule and the Apache-2.0/MIT compatibility note in ../04-handoff-and-scope.md).
Template-respecting guidance (verbatim from PowerPoint-mode article)
https://support.claude.com/en/articles/13521390-use-claude-for-powerpoint publishes the verbatim guidance about uploading an existing PPTX template:
Claude reads the slide master, layouts, fonts, and color scheme of an uploaded PowerPoint template and produces output that respects them.
Practical implication: if the operator has an existing brand-compliant PPTX template, upload it as a Claude Design project asset before prompting. The generated deck will respect the template's typography, color palette, and layout conventions. Without an uploaded template, the model defaults to its convergent middle-ground deck aesthetic.
(d) Community uplift
Three community-converged patterns extend Anthropic's material for slides.
Outline-first narrative scaffolding
Community pattern (research/03): brief the deck as an outline first (turn 1: produce the slide-by-slide outline as a markdown bullet list), then expand to full slides (turn 2: generate the deck from the approved outline). This forks the conversation but produces tighter narrative arcs than briefing the full deck in one turn.
The outline-first pattern composes with Anthropic's GLCA framework (../01-prompt-fundamentals.md Layer 1) — Goal becomes the deck's takeaway, Layout becomes the outline, Content becomes the per-slide bullets, Audience becomes the seniority + context match.
Single-job-per-slide constraint
Community pattern (research/03): each slide should communicate exactly one idea. Slides with two or more ideas leak comprehension. Brief the constraint explicitly:
Each slide does one job. If a slide is trying to communicate two ideas,
split it into two slides. The takeaway from each slide should be
nameable in one sentence.
Audience translation matrix
Community pattern (research/03): brief the audience translation explicitly when the deck spans seniority levels. For example, a roadmap deck shared with both engineering leads and executive sponsors needs to translate technical decisions into business outcomes for the exec audience without losing fidelity for the engineering audience. The pattern:
For each slide, write two versions of the takeaway:
- The technical-detail version (for the engineering audience)
- The business-outcome version (for the executive audience)
Use the business-outcome version on the slide and the technical-detail
version in the speaker notes.
(e) Critical caveats
Three caveats specific to slides.
HTML → PPTX export is lossy for richly-styled text
Community-documented at https://moda.app/blog/claude-design-for-pitch-decks (cited in research/03) and https://claudedesign.substack.com: when the operator exports an HTML-rendered slide deck to PPTX, richly-styled text (custom typography, mixed weights, inline color variations) can flatten to images. PowerPoint loses the editability — the text becomes a rasterised picture.
The mitigation:
- If the destination is final PPTX delivery, validate the rendered PPTX text-as-text count before assuming editability survived
- If text-as-text is critical (legal review, copy-edit-after-the-fact), keep the typographic styling simple in the brief — single typeface, two weights, no inline color variation, no inline highlighting
- For the
pitch-deckspreset specifically, this caveat is severe enough that the recommendation is "do not use Claude Design for external pitch decks where PPTX is required" — seepitch-decks.md
Don't trust the canvas as ground truth if destination is PPTX
The Claude Design canvas renders the deck in HTML. The PPTX export converts to PowerPoint format. Some aesthetic decisions that look correct in the canvas do not survive the export:
- Custom backgrounds with gradients can rasterize
- Inline icons positioned via CSS can shift
- Multi-column slide layouts can collapse
- Speaker-notes-equivalent annotations may not round-trip
Validate by opening the exported PPTX in PowerPoint before stakeholder delivery, especially for high-stakes decks.
Quota burn on long decks
Multi-slide decks (10+ slides) compound context faster than single-page artifacts. The 4-screen inflection in ../03-iteration-and-session.md applies — long decks reach the inflection within 2-3 chat turns. Plan to break the deck into outline → first 5 slides → next 5 slides if the deck is large, using the context-reset prompt between sessions.
(f) One end-to-end worked prompt — layers 1 + 2a + 3 composed
Goal: a 12-slide internal-team Q1 results deck, audience is engineering leadership + cross-functional partners.
Goal: A 12-slide Q1 2026 results deck covering platform-team delivery,
reliability metrics, headcount and hiring, top 3 themes for Q2,
and one slide on a major incident retrospective
Layout (outline):
1. Title — "Platform team Q1 2026 results"
2. TL;DR — three bullet takeaways
3. Delivery — features shipped, % of roadmap completed
4. Reliability — uptime, MTTR, incident count
5. Latency — p95/p99 trend
6. Hiring — headcount delta, key hires, open roles
7. Top theme 1 for Q2 — name + one-sentence framing
8. Top theme 2 for Q2 — name + one-sentence framing
9. Top theme 3 for Q2 — name + one-sentence framing
10. Incident retrospective — what happened, what we learned
11. Asks — explicit asks of leadership and partners
12. Q&A / Discussion prompt
Content: Real numbers throughout — actual % completion, real MTTR
minutes, real headcount, real names for hires (or named
placeholders); each slide's takeaway nameable in one sentence
Audience: VP of Engineering, peer Eng-leadership, partner-team PMs,
partner-team Eng-leads — mixed seniority, mixed technical
depth, ages 30-55
Aesthetic family: editorial-confident — like The New York Times opinion
section meets Linear's design language. Clean,
authoritative, no flourish. Each slide reads like a
well-edited paragraph.
Color palette (CSS hex):
--color-bg: #FAFAF8
--color-surface: #FFFFFF
--color-muted: #6B6B6B
--color-fg: #2A2A2A
--color-ink: #0A0A0A
--color-accent: #3D5C8A
--color-success: #2D6356
--color-warning: #C89B3F
--color-error: #B23A48
Typography: Söhne or Inter Variable; modular scale 1.333 (perfect
fourth — slides scale up); weight palette 400 body / 600
emphasized / 700 slide titles
Corner radius: 4px on any card-like containers; slides themselves
have no corner radius (full-bleed)
Motion: none on static slides; ease-out 240ms on slide transitions
Density: comfortable — generous spacing, one job per slide
Surface: flat — full-bleed slides, no shadows, single subtle accent
line under slide title
Slide composition rules:
- Each slide does one job
- Slide titles are claims, not topics ("We shipped 87% of roadmap"
not "Roadmap delivery")
- Body text is 2-3 lines max per slide
- One number, chart, or visual element per slide max
- Speaker notes carry the depth; slides carry the takeaway
Negative constraints — do not produce any of:
- Inter, Roboto, Arial, Space Grotesk as primary typeface
- Purple gradients on white backgrounds
- Three-bullet-and-image generic slide template
- Pulse animations or fly-in transitions
- Generic "corporate deck" template defaults (centered title-and-
subtitle on every slide)
- Multi-column slides with more than two ideas per slide
If the destination is PPTX, ensure text-heavy slides keep text as text
(not rasterized). Keep typography simple to maximise text-as-text
survival in export.
Expected follow-up turns:
- Turn 2: outline-first review — confirm the 12-slide structure, adjust ordering, swap titles if needed
- Turn 3: add audience translation per slide (speaker notes vs slide takeaway)
- Turn 4: render full deck against the approved outline
- Turn 5+: Tweak panel for typography scale and spacing; comments for slide-by-slide refinements
- Export validation: open PPTX in PowerPoint and audit text-as-text vs rasterized
Sources
https://anthropic.com/news/claude-design-anthropic-labs— preset enumerationhttps://claude.com/resources/tutorials/using-claude-design-for-presentations-and-slide-decks— verbatim canonical prompts (5 patterns), slide-deck composition frameworkhttps://support.claude.com/en/articles/13521390-use-claude-for-powerpoint— PowerPoint-mode conventions, template-respecting guidancehttps://support.claude.com/en/articles/14604416-get-started-with-claude-design— GLCA frameworkhttps://moda.app/blog/claude-design-for-pitch-decks— community-documented PPTX export caveat (cited)https://anthropic.com/engineering/harness-design-long-running-apps— design grading criteria
Re-research trigger: Anthropic updating the slides tutorial; new canonical pattern added; PowerPoint-mode conventions revised; PPTX export behaviour changing materially.