PowerPoint Deck Customization

Customizing PowerPoint slide deck generation

Getting Started with PowerPoint

Ghostwriter uses template documents and the Jinja2 template language (https://jinja.palletsprojects.com/en/stable/) to give you as much control over document generation as possible.

Learn more about managing report templates here: Report Templates

You will need to upload at least one PowerPoint slide deck to use as a template. Once you have a template you can pick from, open your report and select the template from the dropdown menu under the Generate Reports section. You should see a notification when the template selection is saved. You can then click the PowerPoint icon to generate a report.

Depending on the size of your report and template, rendering can take a few seconds. Once the report is done, your browser will download a new PowerPoint document.

The default filename will be: YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_CLIENT-NAME_ASESSMENT-TYPE.pptx

PowerPoint Templates

There are fewer customization options for PowerPoint than Word. Your template slide deck controls how the generated slide deck looks, but the content will always be the same.

The PowerPoint template should be empty – i.e., should contain zero slides. Edit the master slides to control colors, layout, slide numbers, and other details.

To open your slide master view in PowerPoint: View » Slide Master

PowerPoint remembers if you closed the deck with the Slide Master view open or not and will re-open where you left off. To avoid every presentation opening on the view, close it before saving and uploading your template.

Your templates should include at least three slide layouts in your Slide Master view. Your first layout must be your title slide layout, the second layout must be your content layout, and your last layout must be your final/conclusion slide layout. Ghostwriter uses these three layouts, but you are welcome to include additional layouts between the content layout and the final slide layout. Just ensure the layout for your conclusion slide is last.

Ghostwriter will attempt to intelligently use the placeholders you include in your layouts. The slide’s title (type 1 placeholder) will go into the slide’s title placeholder. Likewise, when Ghostwriter adds a subtitle to the title slide, it will try to use a subtitle placeholder (type 4 placeholder), if present. Finally, you want a content placeholder (type 7 placeholder) for the slide’s main body.

Adding text boxes and other objects does not create placeholders. These are “shapes” that will always be present on slides created with the layout. If the expected placeholders are not present, Ghostwriter will try to fallback to using detected shapes. If there are no shapes, the reporting engine will create new shapes. Ghostwriter tries to make new shapes in the same position where title and content are often placed, but it’s a best guess on our part.

Make use of placeholders for the best output!

Title and subtitle are special placeholders. Each slide can contain one of each. You can verify you have these placeholders in a couple of different ways. You can see if you have a title placeholder by looking at your layout and verifying the Title checkbox is checked under the Slide Master section of the ribbon menu. It’s a good idea to toggle it off and on to verify the placeholder you expect to be the title is really the title. If someone manually moved the title to repurpose it (e.g., for content or as a footer placeholder), that placeholder is still the title for that layout.

Subtitles are trickier because PowerPoint actually offers no way to create these from the Insert Placeholder menu. There is also no checkbox to create one like there is for Title or Footers. Many default PowerPoint layouts include them, which is one way to get them. You can also copy and paste a subtitle placeholder from another slide. Finally, you can use a macro to insert a subtitle placeholder.

These two macros can be helpful for identifying the type of placeholder you have selected and inserting a subtitle placeholder on your title slide (for use or copy/pasting):

Sub InsertSubtitlePlaceholder()
  Dim oSlideMaster As Master
  Dim oLayout As CustomLayout
  Dim oSubtitleShape As Shape

  ' Reference the first slide master
  Set oSlideMaster = ActivePresentation.SlideMaster

  ' Reference the first layout (or specific layout)
  Set oLayout = oSlideMaster.CustomLayouts(1)

  ' Add a subtitle placeholder
  Set oSubtitleShape = oLayout.Shapes.AddPlaceholder(Type:=ppPlaceholderSubtitle, _
    Left:=100, Top:=300, Width:=500, Height:=100)

  oSubtitleShape.TextFrame.TextRange.Text = "Subtitle Placeholder"
End Sub

Sub ShowPlaceholderType()
  With ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange
    If .Type = msoPlaceholder Then
      Select Case .PlaceholderFormat.Type

        Case ppPlaceholderTitle
        MsgBox "Title Placeholder"

        Case ppPlaceholderCenterTitle
        MsgBox "Centered Title Placeholder"

        Case ppPlaceholderSubtitle
        MsgBox "Subtitle Placeholder"

        Case ppPlaceholderObject
        MsgBox "Content Placeholder"

      End Select
    End If
  End With
End Sub

For further reference: PowerPoint PpPlaceholderType Enumeration

PowerPoint Generation

Ghostwriter will add slides to your chosen template slide deck. The new slides include placeholders and dynamic project information.

Each slide is set to fit text to the size of the text field. This auto-resizing happens in PowerPoint’s rendering engine, so a slide’s text might extend beyond the slide’s lower boundary when you open your new presentation.

PowerPoint should activate auto-resizing when you save the presentation or edit any text.

Slide Type	Description
Title Slide	Includes your configured company name, selected project type, and client name
Agenda Slide	Placeholder for you to enter a meeting agenda
Introduction Slide	Placeholder for any presenter introductions
Methodology Slide	Placeholder for reviewing testing methodology
Attack Path Overview Slide	Placeholder for where you might discuss assessment narratives
Findings Overview Slide	Includes a two-column table showing all findings (full title and severity)
Findings Slides	One slide per finding that includes: • Finding title as the slide title • All image evidence files as inserted images • All text evidence files as new text blocks (styled with a fixed-width font) • Finding description as main slide content • All other finding information in the slide’s notes field
Observations Slide	Placeholder for any additional observations
Recommendations Slide	Placeholder for any recommendations
Conclusion Slide	Placeholder for closing statements or next steps
Final Slide	Closing title slide that includes your configured company name, social media account, and email address