narrating-pptx

Narrating PPTX (ElevenLabs → per-slide autoplay)

Overview

Turn any deck into a self-presenting one: write presenter-style narration scripts (any language), generate one clip per slide with ElevenLabs, and make each clip play on slide entry — in a pptx (steps 3-5) or in Google Slides (its own section below). Where the deck will be watched decides which; ask if it isn't clear. A Google Slides copy pushed from a pptx loses its audio every time, so narrating the pptx does not narrate the Slides copy.

REQUIRED SUB-SKILL: elevenlabs-tts — owns everything about the voice: model (eleven_v4), audio tags, stability, voices, the batch generator, leak checks, and timings. This skill owns what is specific to a deck: what the narration says, and getting the audio into PowerPoint without corrupting the file.

The iron rule (paid for in blood): NEVER hand-write <p:timing> autoplay XML. Hand-rolled timing XML corrupts the file — PowerPoint shows "found a problem… Repair". The only reliable method is letting real PowerPoint author the XML itself via AppleScript play-settings (scripts/set_autoplay.sh). If you're tempted to inject timing XML "just this once" — that's the exact failure this skill exists to prevent.

Requirements: an ElevenLabs key and a voice ID (elevenlabs-tts covers both). For a pptx: macOS + Microsoft PowerPoint (the autoplay step) and python-pptx. For Google Slides: ffmpeg, google-auth, and the service account the gslides-sync skill uses.

Pipeline (5 steps, in order)

1. Write the narration scripts → scripts.json

{"01": "text…", "02": "text…", …} — keys are 1-based slide positions, zero-padded.

Language: exactly what the user asks for. Hebrew, English, or mixed. For Hebrew (or any non-English), write like a native presenter in that language who naturally keeps technical terms in English (e.g., Israeli hi-tech register: "ה-agent מנתח את הדאטה וכותב manifest"). Don't translate terms the audience uses in English.