Presentations: Getting Started
OpenCharts includes a full AI-powered slide deck editor. Create polished presentations from a text prompt, build slides manually, or convert existing flowcharts and notes into presentation decks.
What are Presentations?
Presentations are a project type alongside flowcharts, whiteboards, and notes. The established Creator and legacy editor includes:
- Structured slides with layouts, themes, and transitions
- Rich elements: text, images, shapes, charts, code blocks, icons
- Speaker notes with rich formatting
- AI generation from a single prompt
- Multiple presentation modes including rehearsal with AI coaching
- Publishing to the web with custom URLs and SEO
Creator & Editable Preview
Editable Preview
Where available, start a separate editable deck with native text, shapes, tables, images and charts. Review an outline or build manually. This preview is not the old Content mode.
- • Edit objects, table cells and chart values
- • Object locks, undo/redo and free positioning
- • Seven layouts, including comparison and timeline
- • Supported native PowerPoint export where enabled
Creator Mode
The default creation workflow. Each slide is a full-bleed AI-generated image. The AI creates slides with integrated text. Best for creative, visual-first presentations.
- • AI-generated full-image slides
- • 24 visual styles across four families
- • Per-slide regeneration and style overrides
- • Text is baked into the image by AI
Start an Editable Deck
If Start an editable deck appears in the new-presentation wizard, choose it and enter your brief, audience, goal and theme. Click Propose an outline, edit the titles and main points, then Approve and create editable deck. Those reviewed words become editable objects. Or choose Start manually.
Use the filmstrip, canvas and inspector to edit objects, notes and data. Layouts include narrative, comparison, metrics, timeline, process, chart and free placement. Locks protect objects from edits; undo/redo lets you reverse changes. The web editor's History keeps up to 20 previous cloud revisions; restoring creates a new revision.
The preview is optional and may not appear in your workspace. It does not convert existing decks automatically. See reviewed AI editing and editable file formats for its other tools.
Creating Your First Deck
The default Creator wizard walks you through the flow step by step, with a progress pill up top so you always know where you are. Start by typing a prompt — or pick a visual template from the gallery band (pitch decks, reports, training, marketing, creative) to prefill the prompt, theme, slide count, and visual style in one click.
Describe — or Import
Describe your topic in plain language and choose a deck length, or switch to Import to stage up to 5 sources (PDFs, PowerPoints, or existing OpenCharts decks) and tell Theo exactly what to do with them — condense, translate, restructure, or merge. One source rebuilds that document; two or more merge into a single deck.
Focus (optional)
Tell the wizard what kind of deck this is — investor pitch, sales proposal, report, and more — plus your audience and tone. Adding a company URL lets Theo research and even extract your brand colors automatically.
Pick your look
Browse 30 built-in themes with search and category filters — your own themes lead the gallery. Use the Create Your Own builder for brand colors, fonts, and logo (or extract them from your website), and drop your logo into the “Your brand” card to see it live on the slide preview. It ships on every generated slide.
Outline & Generate
Review the AI-generated outline. Reorder, edit titles, add or remove cards. Choose a visual style for Creator mode. Hit the Generate Presentation button and slides stream in one by one.
The Creator Editor Interface
Slide Thumbnails
Left sidebar with draggable slide reordering, add/duplicate/delete controls, and per-slide comment counts.
Slide Stage
The main canvas. Click elements to select, drag to reposition, double-click text to edit inline.
Properties Panel
Right sidebar with layout picker, theme switcher, background picker, transition selector, and element properties.
Speaker Notes
Collapsible rich-text editor at the bottom. Expand to a full modal for longer notes.
AI Prompt Bar
Floating bar below the stage. Type a prompt or use presets to AI-edit the current slide.
Toolbar
Top bar with project name, undo/redo, present, export, share, publish, comments, and global AI.
OpenCharts Presentations on Desktop
Desktop builds offering the preview include a local Presentations library, editor and presenter inside OpenCharts Desktop. Open or import a deck, pin it for later, edit locally and present in a separate window. Locally available decks and supported exports work without a connection; linked images must be cached first, and custom fonts may differ.
Local recovery saves are not cloud saves or exported files. Export an editable file for a portable backup, and use the explicit cloud synchronization action when online. A conflict keeps your local recovery copy instead of overwriting newer cloud work. AI, source refresh and cloud synchronization still require a connection.
Related Articles
Presentations: Slides & Layouts
Slide layouts, element types, backgrounds, transitions, and working with slide content.
Presentations: AI Features
AI slide generation and image editing, plus reviewed proposals and selected-source snapshots in the editable preview.
Presentations: Themes & Styling
Built-in themes, custom theme builder with brand extraction, logos, and 1,500+ fonts.