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Guide

How to turn a text outline into slides

Most talks start as a list of points. DeckCraft turns a plain-text outline into slides in one step: every unindented line becomes a slide title and every indented line a bullet. Here is the format, two ways to bring it in, and how to finish the deck.

What does the outline look like?

One line per slide title, at the left margin. Under it, the slide’s bullets, each indented with one tab; indent with two tabs for a sub-bullet. Blank lines are ignored, and a leading -, * or • is dropped.

Composting at Work
	A practical start for our office
Why compost?
	A third of our bin is food waste
	Lower collection costs
		Fewer pickups each week
How it works
	One bin per kitchen
	Emptied every Friday
Next steps
	Pick a pilot floor
	Review after one month

That example makes four slides. “Why compost?” gets two bullets, the second with a sub-bullet underneath.

Steps to make slides from an outline

  1. Write the outline in any text editor, or in the dialog itself in step 3.
  2. Open the editor at deckcraft.run/editor. For a fresh deck, click the Home icon at the top left and choose a theme under New presentation.
  3. Insert the outline. On the Home tab, click the arrow under New Slide and choose Slides from Outline…. Paste the outline into the box and click Insert. The slides appear after the selected slide.
  4. Or drop a file. Save the outline as a .txt (or .md) file and drag it onto the DeckCraft window. It becomes slides the same way.
  5. Finish the deck. A new presentation starts with a title slide: fill it in, or delete it if your outline’s first slide does the job. Change the look on the Design tab, add pictures and notes, then export as PowerPoint or PDF (search icon › Export…).

Going the other way: slides to an outline

In the Export… dialog, Outline (.txt) writes every slide’s title and text in the same format, with body text indented by level. It is a quick way to review the flow of a deck, copy its text into a document, or reuse slides in another deck by dropping the file back in.

Let AI write the outline

The AI presentation maker on this site does steps 1 and 3 for you. Open AI tools in the editor’s top bar, describe the talk in the Outline tab and choose about how many slides you want. The panel shows the outline for you to check or edit, then Add slides to the deck drops it into DeckCraft in this exact format. It runs on your own OpenAI, Gemini or OpenRouter key.

If you already have a deck in PowerPoint format, open the .pptx in DeckCraft instead and edit it there.

FAQ

Can I use spaces instead of tabs?

Yes. DeckCraft counts two leading spaces as one level, so a line indented with two spaces is a bullet and four spaces is a sub-bullet. Tabs are the safer choice when you copy text between apps.

Can I start from a Markdown or Word outline?

Plain .txt and .md files work, but DeckCraft reads them as the outline format above: “# ” heading marks would stay in the slide titles, so remove them first. Word and RTF outlines need to be pasted as plain text.

Do speaker notes come in with the outline?

No. An outline makes slide titles and bullets only. Add notes in the area under each slide afterwards; the AI panel can draft them for every slide.

Where do the new slides go?

Right after the slide that is selected, using the Title and Content layout of the deck’s theme. One Undo (Ctrl/⌘ Z) takes the whole batch out again.

Paste your outline

Free, in your browser, nothing uploaded.

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