The Slide Outline Generator

Top-Prompts

Notes to a deck skeleton in one pass

01 The Concept

Decks fail in the outline, not the design: 40 slides of everything instead of 10 slides of argument. This template turns raw material (notes, a doc, a braindump) into a presentation skeleton: one idea per slide, a headline that states the point (not the topic), three supporting bullets max, and a suggested visual — sized to the actual time slot.

The two rules that carry it: headlines are claims ('Churn is concentrated in month 2', never 'Churn overview'), and the slide count comes from the talk length, not from the material. Whatever doesn't fit the argument goes to a backup-slides list, which is where 30 of your 40 slides belonged all along.

02 Weak vs. Strong

EX 01The template

Turn the notes below into a slide outline for a 15-minute exec update (so ~10 slides max).

AUDIENCE: CFO + VP Sales — care about efficiency and risk, hate jargon. ARGUMENT TO LAND: support costs are flat while ticket volume doubled, but month-2 churn needs a dedicated fix.

PER SLIDE:

Headline that states the point as a claim (not a topic label)
≤3 bullets, each a fact or number from my notes supporting the headline
Suggested visual (chart type + what's on each axis, or 'big number')

STRUCTURE: open with the one-slide summary; end with the ask (headcount for a churn squad). Overflow → BACKUP SLIDES list with when-to-use notes. Finish with the skim test: all headlines in sequence as a paragraph — flag if the argument has a gap.

NOTES: [paste]

→ Why it works

Time-boxed count, named audience with named cares, an explicit argument to land, claim-headlines, evidence-bullets, visuals per slide, and the skim test as a built-in structural check.

EX 02Compression variant: 40 slides to 8

Below are the headlines+bullets of a 40-slide deck. The talk is now 10 minutes.

Extract the single argument this deck is trying to make (one sentence). If you find two competing arguments, say so — that's the real problem.
Rebuild as 8 slides max serving that argument: claim headlines, ≤3 bullets, visual each.
Every cut slide goes to BACKUP with a one-line reason it was cut (off-argument / duplicate / detail-for-questions).
Skim test on the new headline sequence.

DECK: [paste]

→ Why it works

Compression is argument-extraction, not summarization. Forcing 'the single argument first, slides second' — and making the model confess if there are two — fixes decks that trimming never fixes.

03 Key Points

01Slide count from time, not material: ~1 slide per 90 seconds of talk, and say the time slot in the prompt

02Headlines state the point: a reader skimming only headlines should get the whole argument

03One idea per slide, ≤3 bullets, bullets are evidence for the headline — not new topics

04Every slide gets a suggested visual: chart type, diagram, screenshot, or 'just the number, huge'

05Overflow goes to BACKUP SLIDES with a note on when each would be pulled out (likely question, deep-dive request)

06Ask for the 'skim test' at the end: the headline sequence read as one paragraph — if it doesn't argue, restructure

04 Model-Specific Notes

Claude writes genuinely claim-shaped headlines when the rule is explicit and is strong at the skim-test self-check — it will honestly flag argument gaps in its own outline.

05 For Your Role

Works for a wedding toast or a class presentation the same way: time slot in, claim-per-moment out, and the stuff you cut goes to 'if someone asks'.

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