03 · One sentence to Word and PPT
At a glance
| Solves | Notices, proposals, applications, policies and review material that take too long from scratch |
| Needs | The office document suite (docx / pptx); a template helps a lot |
| Takes | 3–5 minutes for a proposal; 5–10 for a 10-slide deck |
| Risk | Low — only generates new files |
The situation
Four o'clock on a Wednesday and your boss says: put something together for tomorrow morning's review.
You have scattered material — weekly reports, a data table, a few screenshots, minutes from the last review. There is an hour until you leave.
Preparation
Install the office document suite (pdf / docx / pptx / xlsx). It is the foundation for all office work — see Ten free Skills.
Put your material in the workspace. If you have an existing document, definitely include it — the next section explains why that is the highest-value step.
The prompt
A Word document
Produce a formal annual-party plan covering:
1. Objectives
2. Key facts (date, venue, headcount, total budget)
3. Schedule (as a timeline, to the half hour)
4. Programme
5. Budget breakdown (table: item / unit price / quantity / subtotal / notes)
6. Risk contingencies
Formal register, suitable for management sign-off.
Use [TBC] as a placeholder for anything undetermined — do not invent figures.
Output as a Word document saved to the workspace, named annual-party-plan.docx.From a template (recommended)
If you have a past document you were happy with, this route beats the one above by a distance:
last-quarter-review.docx in the workspace is our team's standard format.
Follow its structure, heading hierarchy, register and typical length, using
the content in Q3-data.xlsx and project-weekly-sept.md to write this quarter's.
Keep the same section order. Use the new data for the data sections and rewrite
the conclusions from that new data — do not carry over last quarter's judgements.
Output as Q3-review.docx.Showing an example beats writing ten rules
Language struggles to convey a feel. A sample you are happy with is an unambiguous anchor — register, structure, format and style, all delivered at once.
This is one of the official "ten tips": showing WorkBuddy an example works better than listing requirements.
A deck
Build a review deck from project-summary.md in the workspace.
Requirements:
- 10 slides maximum
- Clean and professional, for a business review
- Foreground the results, the numbers and the next steps
- Every slide title is a sentence stating a conclusion, not a noun phrase
- Data slides carry charts, not walls of text
- The final slide is an explicit ask — what support we need
Output as pptx saved to the workspace.Why it is written that way
"Every slide title is a sentence stating a conclusion." This single line lifts deck quality a level.
"Q3 data overview" is a noun phrase — having read it you still do not know the point. "Q3 signups grew 34%, but paid conversion fell" is a conclusion, understood at a glance.
"Use [TBC] as a placeholder — do not invent figures." The biggest risk in generation work is convincingly invented budgets, dates and headcounts. This line lets you scan for what you need to fill in yourself.
"The final slide is an explicit ask." The purpose of a review deck is usually not the review — it is resources, a decision, a green light. That slide is the one most often missing.
"Use the new data, rewrite the conclusions from it." The classic failure mode of template-based generation is copying the format correctly and copying the conclusions too. It has to be forbidden explicitly.
Refining: name the difference
Once the document exists you do not open the file to edit it — keep talking:
The budget section needs more detail, broken down by department.
Add one note per schedule item.
Make the register more formal, suitable for a board audience.
Section three is too long — halve it, keeping the key conclusions.It edits the existing content, without you rewriting the whole prompt.
Name the difference, do not restate the requirement
❌ "Produce an annual-party plan covering objectives, facts, schedule, programme and budget, formal register, and make the budget more detailed"
✅ "Break the budget down by department"
The second is faster, more precise, and does not risk undoing changes you already liked.
Using an expert
Invoking a document-oriented expert improves both speed and layout quality.
Without the Experts feature, writing the role into the prompt also works:
You are a consultant who has spent ten years preparing board material for
listed companies. Judging by the best board packs you have seen, assess this
deck:
1. Which slides could be cut
2. Which conclusion is least convincing, and what evidence it lacks
3. If only three slides survived, which three
Assessment only — do not change anything yet.That round produces nothing, and its feedback is usually better than reading it through yourself again.
Acceptance checklist
- [ ] Every figure has a source; no budgets, headcounts or dates appeared from nowhere
- [ ] [TBC] placeholders are marked so you know what to fill in
- [ ] Deck slide titles are conclusions, not noun phrases
- [ ] The section structure matches what you asked for
- [ ] For template-based work, the conclusions are new, not copied
- [ ] The file opens properly (try Word / PowerPoint / WPS)
- [ ] Tables are not misaligned and have no empty columns
Variations
One document, three versions
From this proposal, produce three more versions:
1. A one-page summary (for the boss, readable in 30 seconds)
2. A detailed version (for the delivery team, all details and assignments)
3. An external version (for partners, internal data and names removed)
Save as plan-summary.md / plan-detailed.docx / plan-external.docx.Producing three versions at once beats being chased for each of them separately.
Outline first for long documents
For anything over ten pages, do not generate in one go:
Give me the outline first: section titles, one sentence per section on what it
resolves, and an estimated length. Do not write the body.Confirm the outline, then expand section by section. That is the small steps principle applied to long documents.
Decks from design mode
If you want a deck that looks striking rather than one with rigorous content, use design mode: it integrates the Ardot canvas, so you can generate designs by conversation, jump into Ardot for pixel work, and export as PPTX or PDF.
Recommended flow: draft by conversation → refine in Ardot → export.
Improve an existing deck
Read review-old.pptx in the workspace and:
1. Summarise what each slide says
2. Point out which slides repeat and could be merged
3. Which have too much text and should be split
4. Suggest a better slide order
Analysis only — do not modify the file.FAQ
The generated file will not open.
Usually because the output file type was not specified. Next time say it: Word / Excel / PDF / Markdown / pptx.
The deck layout is ugly.
Three directions: give it a reference template; use design mode; or install a design-oriented Skill like frontend-design. The pptx Skill guarantees correct structure, not beauty.
Can it edit my existing Word file?
Yes — the docx Skill handles restructuring, tables of contents, page numbers, comments and tracked changes. But editing an existing file changes your files, so back it up first.
Can it produce charts inside Word?
Yes. The xlsx Skill handles the data and the chart goes into the docx. See Spreadsheet to visual report.