pencil-export

/pencil-export - Export a Pencil deck (WSL-safe)

Pencil writes an export to the wrong disk when it receives a WSL path. The app normalises \\wsl.localhost\<distro>\... to /<distro>/..., drops the prefix, and resolves the remainder from the root of C:. It then reports success. A requested write to /Ubuntu-24.04/home/me/deck.html lands at C:\Ubuntu-24.04\home\me\deck.html, and nothing warns you.

So this skill stages every export on C: and collects the result from /mnt/c. Never pass Pencil a WSL path for writing.

Pencil 42.5.0 exposes four MCP tools: execute, get_app_state, browser, and get_guidelines. Export runs inside execute:

Export(nodeIds, "png"|"jpeg"|"webp"|"pdf"|"html-tailwind"|"html-css", outputPath, options)

Native PNG and PDF are correct at 2x. Use them. The chromium renderer stays for the editable PPTX and the self-contained HTML, which Pencil cannot produce.

Background and full diagnosis: auto-memory pencil-export-nodes-broken-wsl.

Phase 0 - Context

• Open the target .pen as the active editor in the Pencil desktop app. execute fails with "wrong .pen file" when no document is active.
• Read the registered path with get_app_state({include_schema:false, include_canvas_design:false, include_scripts_and_shaders:false}). Pass that exact string as filePath on every execute call.
• The first get_app_state after a cold start can return no active editor. Retry it before you report a failure.
• Locate the deck directory. Output lands in <deck-dir>/export/.
• Brand fonts: GT Standard and 31C Horizontal. They live in the DATA overlay, under brand/fonts/ inside the datastore. Resolve that path in Phase 2. Never pass a bare datastore/brand/fonts to Bash. Bash resolves it against the engine root, where the datastore does not exist.

Phase 1 - Select the slides and export

1. Collect the top-level frames and their names:

   Print(JSON.stringify(Get((n,c)=>c.depth===0 && n.type==="frame"
     ? {id:n.id,name:n.name,x:n.x,y:n.y} : undefined)))