How to Make a Presentation with Claude, from Notes to Slides

The short version

Get the story right before the slides. Ask Claude for an outline with one clear message per slide, fix it, then turn it into slides. Pretty slides with a muddled story still lose the room.

Step by step

1. Paste your notes (bullets, an old document, a report) and say who the audience is and how long you’ll speak.
2. Ask for an outline: a title per slide that states its message, plus 2-3 supporting points.
3. Fix the story: reorder, cut, merge. Ask “What would this audience push back on?”
4. Create the slides as an Artifact, starting from the Slides template if your plan shows it.
5. Ask for speaker notes for each slide.
6. Export to PowerPoint or Google Slides where available, or copy into your own template.

Prompts to copy

Outline first:

I'm presenting to [audience] for [10] minutes. Goal: [what they should decide or do].
My notes:
<notes>
[paste]
</notes>
Give me an outline: one slide per minute, each with a headline that states the message
(not a topic like "Background"), and 2-3 supporting points.

Stress-test it:

You're a skeptical member of this audience. Which slide is weakest, what would you ask, and what's missing?

Slides and notes:

Create these slides, clean and simple: big headlines, few words, one chart where we have numbers.
Add speaker notes for each slide, about 100 words.

Example

A café owner’s notes on a new loyalty program become 6 slides: “Regulars bring 60% of our sales” (with your real figure), “But we don’t know who they are”, “A simple stamp card in the app”, “What it costs”, “What we expect”, “What we need from the team”. Every headline is a sentence; the audience gets the story from headlines alone.

Mistakes to avoid

• Topic headlines. “Results” says nothing; “Sales rose 12% after the change” says everything.
• Walls of text. Ask for fewer words per slide; put the detail in speaker notes.
• Invented numbers. Give Claude your real figures, or use placeholders.

When not to use it

For investor pitches, legal or financial presentations, check every number and claim yourself. Claude helps you shape the story; you answer the questions.

Related: use Claude Artifacts.