ppt-translator

Translate PowerPoint presentations while preserving formatting (fonts, colors, alignment, tables). Supports multiple LLM providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, Grok, Gemini). Use when translating .pptx files between languages, especially for CJK to/from English translations where text expansion/contraction is a concern.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/tristan-mcinnis/PPT-Translator-Formatting-Intact-with-LLMs

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

T=$(mktemp -d) && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/tristan-mcinnis/PPT-Translator-Formatting-Intact-with-LLMs "$T" && mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && cp -r "$T/.claude/skills/ppt-translator" ~/.claude/skills/tristan-mcinnis-ppt-translator-formatting-intact-with-llms-ppt-translator && rm -rf "$T"

manifest: .claude/skills/ppt-translator/SKILL.md

source content

PowerPoint Translation Skill

Translate PowerPoint presentations while preserving all formatting including fonts, colors, spacing, tables, and alignment.

When to Use This Skill

Translating
```
.pptx
```
files between languages
Batch translating multiple presentations in a directory
Preserving slide formatting during translation (especially CJK ↔ English)
When you need to inspect intermediate XML for debugging

Setup

Before first use, set up the environment:

# Navigate to the scripts directory
cd .claude/skills/ppt-translator/scripts

# Create virtual environment and install dependencies
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # macOS/Linux
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Configure API keys
cp example.env .env
# Edit .env with your provider API key(s)

Basic Usage

cd .claude/skills/ppt-translator/scripts
source .venv/bin/activate

python main.py /path/to/presentation.pptx \
  --provider openai \
  --source-lang zh \
  --target-lang en

Provider Configuration

Provider	Environment Variable	Default Model
openai	`OPENAI_API_KEY`	`gpt-5.2-2025-12-11`
anthropic	`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`	`claude-sonnet-4-5-20250514`
deepseek	`DEEPSEEK_API_KEY`	`deepseek-chat`
grok	`GROK_API_KEY`	`grok-4.1-fast`
gemini	`GEMINI_API_KEY`	`gemini-3-flash-preview`

CLI Reference

Option	Description	Default
`--provider`	LLM provider: `openai` , `anthropic` , `deepseek` , `grok` , `gemini`	`openai`
`--model`	Override default model for provider	Provider default
`--source-lang`	Source language ISO code	`zh`
`--target-lang`	Target language ISO code	`en`
`--max-chunk-size`	Characters per API request	`1000`
`--max-workers`	Threads for slide extraction	`4`
`--keep-intermediate`	Retain XML files for debugging	`false`

Output Files

For each input

presentation.pptx

, the tool generates:

presentation_original.xml

- Extracted source content (deleted unless

--keep-intermediate

)

presentation_translated.xml

- Translated content (deleted unless

--keep-intermediate

)

```
presentation_translated.pptx
```
- Final translated presentation with formatting intact

Common Workflows

Translate a Single File (Chinese → English)

python main.py deck.pptx --provider anthropic --source-lang zh --target-lang en

Batch Translate a Directory

python main.py /path/to/presentations/ --provider openai --source-lang ja --target-lang en

Debug Translation Issues

python main.py deck.pptx --keep-intermediate --provider deepseek
# Inspect the generated XML files to see extracted/translated content

Use a Specific Model

python main.py deck.pptx --provider openai --model gpt-5-mini

Translate with Gemini (Cost-Effective)

python main.py deck.pptx --provider gemini --source-lang ko --target-lang en

Supported Languages

Use standard ISO 639-1 language codes:

Code	Language
`zh`	Chinese (Simplified)
`en`	English
`ja`	Japanese
`ko`	Korean
`es`	Spanish
`fr`	French
`de`	German
`pt`	Portuguese
`ru`	Russian
`ar`	Arabic

Design Notes

Font Scaling

The tool automatically scales fonts down (70% for text, 80% for tables) to accommodate text expansion when translating from compact languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) to English. This prevents text overflow in fixed-size text boxes.

Caching

Repeated strings within a presentation are cached to avoid redundant API calls. This is especially useful for presentations with recurring headers, footers, or terminology.

Chunking

Long text blocks are intelligently split at sentence boundaries to stay within API limits while preserving translation quality.

Troubleshooting

"API key not found"

Ensure your

.env

file in the scripts directory contains the correct environment variable:

OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...

Formatting looks wrong

Use
```
--keep-intermediate
```
to inspect the XML files
Check if the source presentation has unusual formatting
Try a different provider

Translation incomplete

Check for API rate limits with your provider
Try reducing
```
--max-chunk-size
```
for very long text blocks
Ensure your API key has sufficient quota

Script Reference

The

scripts/

directory contains:

```
main.py
```
- Entry point
```
requirements.txt
```
- Python dependencies
```
example.env
```
- Environment variable template
```
ppt_translator/
```
- Core translation module
- ```
cli.py
```
  - CLI argument parsing
- ```
pipeline.py
```
  - PPT extraction and regeneration
- ```
translation.py
```
  - Chunking and caching
- ```
providers/
```
  - LLM provider implementations