Slide decks
Claude will build the deck. Your job moves from making slides to judging them.
Almost nobody I teach starts from a blank deck. It is a deck that already exists and has to be better by Thursday.
This page is the deck. The sibling lesson is the look: Claude Design →
Slides
Ask for a deck without leaving the conversation
Ask for a deck in any conversation and it opens beside it.
Built from your notes, your report, or the work already in that chat.
- What is the one decision this deck has to get?
- Who is in the room, and what do they already know?
- How many slides will they actually sit through?
Claude Slides is in beta, on paid plans. On by default on Pro, Max and Team; off on Enterprise until an owner turns it on. Edit any slide directly, present without leaving Claude, and export to PowerPoint or PDF.
Nothing offered when you ask for a deck? Artifacts need Code execution and file creation enabled: Settings, then Capabilities, or Organization settings on Team and Enterprise.
The file
Get a real .pptx, not a picture of one
Say “Convert this document into a PowerPoint presentation” and a file comes back.
Download it, or save it straight to Google Drive.
- Which document already holds the content?
- Have you described the structure, the content and the formatting you want?
- Who has to edit it after you?
Code execution and file creation is available to all Claude users, on the web, Claude Desktop and Claude Mobile. It makes .pptx, .xlsx, .docx and PDF. Maximum 30MB per file, up or down.
Your template
Work inside the deck you already have
The add-in puts Claude in PowerPoint itself, in your own deck.
It reads the slide master, layouts, fonts and colours, and builds to them.
- Is the corporate template already applied before you ask?
- Which slides must not be touched?
- Are you naming the slide, or waving at the whole deck?
- Did the file come from outside? Only use it with files you trust.
Claude for PowerPoint is generally available to Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise. It runs on PowerPoint on the web, and on recent builds for Windows with a Microsoft 365 subscription and for Mac. Not on iPad or Android.
Outline first, slides second
The wasted hour is always the one spent restyling a deck that was in the wrong order.
- 1
Bring the source. The report, the notes, last year’s deck. Do not make it invent your content.
- 2
Say the job. Who is in the room, what they must decide, how many slides.
- 3
Ask for the outline only. Fix the order as a list, before anything gets designed.
- 4
Read every slide. Anthropic says the PowerPoint add-in is not recommended for final client deliverables without human review.
Same deck every month? Store the style and the structure once as a skill → and stop retyping it.
Pick the route, not the tool
Claude Slides
in the chat- The content is already in the conversation.
- Present from Claude, or export.
A .pptx file
hand it on- Someone else will edit it next.
- Download it, or save it to Drive.
The add-in
your template- The brand deck is the constraint.
- Edits to one slide, not the lot.
Claude Design
the look- A one-pager, a mockup, a prototype.
- Exports as PPTX when you need it.
The honest limit, and every student meets it: the first pass gets the structure close and the polish wrong. Alignment, spacing and tone are where your time goes.
A full deck also uses more of your plan’s limit than a typical message.
- Claude Slides: a deck beside the conversation, beta, paid plans.
- The file: a real .pptx to download or save to Drive.
- The add-in: Claude inside your own template, one slide at a time.
- The habit: outline first, slides second, read every one.
This week: take the deck you are dreading and ask for the outline only.
When the look is the job, not the slides: Claude Design → Everything else that opens beside the chat: Artifacts →
Do it with someone. Everything here is free and you can run it alone. If you would rather work through it with me, one to one, book a free 30-minute chat. No pitch.