Docs · Create a deck
Writing great prompts
How to talk to Agent so it builds the deck you pictured, with examples that work.
You build by describing. The clearer the brief, the closer the first draft. The good news: you don't need any tricks. Just tell Agent what a great version of this deck would be.
The five things worth saying
A strong prompt usually answers some of these. None are required, but each one sharpens the result.
| Say this | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Topic | What the deck is actually about. |
| Audience | Who's reading changes the tone, density, and which points land. |
| Goal | What you want the audience to think or do by the end. |
| Structure | The arc, or any must-include slides, in the order you want them. |
| Tone | Confident, playful, technical, warm. Pick a feel. |
Vague vs. specific
A vague prompt forces Agent to guess, and it averages out into something generic.
Too vague:
sales deck
Specific and useful:
A 12-slide sales deck for a B2B analytics platform. Audience:
VPs of Engineering evaluating observability tools. Lead with the
cost of downtime, then our differentiators, then pricing. Crisp,
technical, confident.
Be concrete about changes
When you ask for something, say what you actually want. Specific beats fuzzy every time.
| Instead of | Try |
|---|---|
| "make it look better" | "tighten the headlines and use a single accent color" |
| "add some data" | "add a slide with three KPIs: ARR, churn, and NPS" |
| "shorter" | "cut each slide to one headline and three bullets" |
Don't cram everything into one prompt
The better loop is draft, then steer:
- Edit by hand for small fixes. Click any text or image and change it. See Editing slides.
- Ask Agent for bigger moves, like "redo slide 4 as a comparison table," or a whole-deck change like "make the tone more casual." See Editing with Agent.
Use reference material
You can attach images, PDFs, Word docs, spreadsheets, or notes with Add references on the Create page. Agent treats images as taste direction and documents as source content, which is great for matching a look you like or turning rough notes into a polished deck. (To rebuild an existing slide deck, use Beautify instead.)
Spreadsheets are read properly, not skimmed: Agent finds the real header row even when the sheet starts with a title, keeps your number formatting ($1,240,500 stays currency, 12% stays a percentage), summarizes every column, and reads the data behind any charts in the file so it can redraw them from your actual numbers. Excel (.xlsx, .xls, .xlsb), OpenDocument (.ods), Apple Numbers, and CSV all work.
For a Google Sheet, you don't need to download it first. Pick Paste a Google link and drop in the share link (the sheet has to be set to "anyone with the link can view"). Google Docs and Slides links work the same way. If the file is private, connect Google Drive instead and pick it from there.
A few more tips
- Match length to substance. Ask for the number of slides the content can actually fill. A thin topic stretched to 30 slides gets padded. Or leave it on Auto and let Agent size it.
- Lead with what matters. Tell Agent the most important takeaway; it'll build the deck to land it.
- Say what to avoid. "No stock-photo clichés," "skip the agenda slide." Exclusions help.
Next steps
Creating a deck The options behind every generation.
Editing with Agent Refine the deck just by asking.