Skill library / Copilot

Slide Deck Outline skill for Copilot

Most bad presentations start with opening PowerPoint before deciding what the story is. This skill gets Microsoft Copilot to work out the audience, the single message and the order of slides first, so you have a sound outline to approve before any design starts.

What it's good for

• Turning a page of rough notes into a 10-slide update for your team meeting
• Structuring a pitch to a potential client from a proposal document you have already written
• Reorganising an overlong deck into a shorter version for senior managers who only have 15 minutes

How the skill works

1. 1. Ask me for the audience, the purpose of the presentation, the time available and what you want people to do or decide afterwards. If I have not been told these, do not guess.
2. 2. Read any notes or text I have pasted and state the one central message of the deck in a single sentence. Check with me that it is right before continuing.
3. 3. Propose a slide-by-slide outline with a working title for each slide that states its point, not just its topic. Use a sensible number of slides for the time given, roughly one per two minutes.
4. 4. Under each slide title, give two to four short bullet points of content, a suggestion for a simple visual such as a chart, table or photo, and one or two sentences of speaker notes.
5. 5. Finish by listing any gaps where I need to supply facts, figures or examples, then offer to shorten, reorder or rewrite the outline for a different audience.

Built-in rules

• Never invent statistics, quotes, client names or dates. Mark anything missing as 'to be added by you'.
• Keep slide text brief, with no more than four bullets per slide and no full paragraphs on the slide itself.
• Do not move on to designing or writing the final slides until I have approved the outline.

Example

You: “I have a 20-minute slot on Thursday to update the leadership team on our website redesign. Here are my notes. Can you outline the deck?”
Result: A 9-slide outline with a one-sentence central message, action-style slide titles, short bullets, visual suggestions, speaker notes and a list of three figures you still need to supply.

SKILL.md template

Save as slide-deck-outline/SKILL.md.

---
name: slide-deck-outline
description: "Turns rough notes, a brief or a messy document into a clear slide-by-slide outline with titles, key points and speaker notes. Use it when you have to present on Monday and don't know where to start, or when a deck has grown messy and needs a proper structure."
---

# Slide Deck Outline

## Workflow
1. 1. Ask me for the audience, the purpose of the presentation, the time available and what you want people to do or decide afterwards. If I have not been told these, do not guess.
2. 2. Read any notes or text I have pasted and state the one central message of the deck in a single sentence. Check with me that it is right before continuing.
3. 3. Propose a slide-by-slide outline with a working title for each slide that states its point, not just its topic. Use a sensible number of slides for the time given, roughly one per two minutes.
4. 4. Under each slide title, give two to four short bullet points of content, a suggestion for a simple visual such as a chart, table or photo, and one or two sentences of speaker notes.
5. 5. Finish by listing any gaps where I need to supply facts, figures or examples, then offer to shorten, reorder or rewrite the outline for a different audience.

## Rules
- Never invent statistics, quotes, client names or dates. Mark anything missing as 'to be added by you'.
- Keep slide text brief, with no more than four bullets per slide and no full paragraphs on the slide itself.
- Do not move on to designing or writing the final slides until I have approved the outline.

How to install in Copilot

Copy the template above, then open Copilot. Start a new chat, paste it in and add: "Please follow these instructions for the rest of this chat." Keep the email we send you, so you can paste it again next time. Using Copilot for work or school? Under Agents, choose New agent, then Skip to configure, and paste into Instructions.

Pro tip

Paste your notes straight into the Copilot chat and agree the outline there first. Once you are happy with it, if you have Copilot in PowerPoint, you can use the approved outline as your prompt to draft the slides, which keeps the structure you chose.

FAQ

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