whiteboard-to-infographic

Whiteboard to Infographic

Turn a messy hand-drawn capture into a clean, branded one-page infographic — delivered as a single editable PowerPoint slide — that a consultant can put in front of a client. The hard, non-delegable work is reading the handwriting correctly and choosing the right structure; the styling and layout are codified here so every output looks consistent.

The discipline (do this in order — do not skip ahead to styling)

This is structure-first. Producing a polished deliverable from a misread sketch is the main failure mode, so confirm interpretation before building.

1. Read the source carefully. The photo is the source of truth. Zoom and crop aggressively — examine the image, then crop it into regions and re-examine at 2–3x so the handwriting is legible. Transcribe every box, label, arrow, annotation, and margin note. Do not silently drop anything you can't read — list it as a question.

2. Confirm interpretation and lock structure. Before building the slide, send the user a compact transcription: the nodes/steps, the connections/flows, and any side notes or requirements. Explicitly flag: ambiguous words, unexpanded acronyms, and anything you're inferring. Ask the questions that change the build (see "Questions to ask"). Wait for confirmation. Build only what's on the board — never invent steps, fields, or connections to make it look complete. If a relationship isn't drawn, don't draw it.

3. Get the color palette. The palette is client-specific and is NOT baked into this skill. If the user gave colors in the prompt or context, use them. Otherwise, ask before building. You need hex values for these roles:

   • ink — primary structure, dark text, node borders (e.g. a deep navy)
   • secondary — sub-heads, connectors, region boundaries (e.g. steel blue)
   • accent — sequence numbers, bullets, flags, emphasis (e.g. a signal red)
   • card — light fill for callout cards / cluster fills (e.g. pale blue-gray)
   • accent-tint — light wash behind accent-flagged items (e.g. pale red) Derive sensible text tints (e.g. a muted slate for sub-captions) from these. Offer to suggest a palette if the user has no preference, but don't assume.

4. Choose the archetype (state your choice and why):

   • Process rail — the sketch is a sequence/flow with a clear order (step 1 → step 2 → …). Read references/process-rail.md.
   • Network map — the sketch is locations/systems/actors connected by flows, with no single linear order (a topology). Read references/network-map.md. If it's genuinely both, lead with the dominant reading and ask.

5. Build, verify, iterate. Build the slide with python-pptx per the chosen archetype's reference. The layout is deterministic — code decides every coordinate — so verify structurally rather than by eye: every step/node present, columns/nodes evenly spaced, no shape overlapping another, every label inside its box, drop-lines landing on their cards, edges approaching nodes straight-on and not crossing through them. If your runtime can rasterize the slide, optionally do a visual critique pass; if it can't, lean entirely on the computed geometry. Fix in code and rebuild. Faithfulness beats polish — never add a step, field, or connection that wasn't on the board.

Building the slide (native python-pptx)

Build the infographic as a single editable slide with python-pptx, drawn natively as shapes — no HTML, no image rendering, no external render step. It runs inside the agent's Python container and returns a .pptx the client can open and edit.

The layout is deterministic — code decides every coordinate. Design on a fixed 1600×1000 grid mapped to a 13.333in slide (see each reference for the PX() scale helper), and compute every position from the step/node count and the canvas so the slide is correct by construction. Use the house-style system fonts (Arial Narrow for condensed display, Arial for body) so nothing depends on font downloads. Turn off the default autoshape shadow (shape.shadow.inherit = False) for the flat house look. Save the deck and return the single .pptx as the deliverable — no PNG/PDF/HTML side-artifacts.

Revisions: never reuse a filename. When the user asks for changes to an infographic you have already delivered, build the revision as a new file with a new name — infographic-v1.pptx, infographic-v2.pptx, infographic-v3.pptx, and so on — incrementing on every subsequent revision for the life of the conversation. Do not overwrite, re-save, or re-deliver an existing filename: a reused name can prevent the updated file from reaching the user, who then receives the earlier version or no file at all. One revision, one new filename, every time.

Conventions (shared by both archetypes)

These are the house style. Keep them consistent across a client engagement.

• Header band: condensed uppercase title + a thin small-caps subtitle, a full-width accent rule under it, and an optional right-aligned scope/context note. A short eyebrow label (e.g. "THE PROCESS", "SUPPLY NETWORK") sits above each major band.
• Accent flags encode meaning — don't decorate with them:
  • A solid accent "GAP" pill marks a gap between the standard system and the client's process (a fit/gap item). Use only where the user confirms a gap.
  • A hollow "need details" tag marks an open item to define in follow-up.
  • Include a one-line legend explaining any flag you use.
• Faithfulness: behaviors/notes with no home in the visual go in a list, not invented shapes. Keep the client's exact terms and acronyms; don't expand or rename acronyms the client already knows unless asked.
• Restraint: spend boldness on one signature device (the numbered chevron rail, or the region cluster), keep everything else quiet. Whitespace where the source is sparse is honest — don't pad it with invented detail.

Questions to ask before building

Ask only the ones that actually change the build; don't interrogate.

• Unreadable words / unexpanded acronyms (transcribe what you can, ask the rest).
• Archetype if ambiguous (rail vs. map).
• For a rail: is there a meaningful sequence number/priority on any step? What goes in the bottom band — principles, requirements, or nothing?
• For a map: which connections must be explicit vs. summarized in a legend; what each node/edge label means; does anything apply across all nodes.
• Whether a "detailed" companion version is wanted (dense capture of every margin note) in addition to a clean executive version.
• The color palette, if not already provided.

References

• references/process-rail.md — linear flow archetype: deterministic banded layout (header, numbered chevron rail with drop-lines, callout cards, principles/requirements bottom band), as a python-pptx skeleton with color placeholders.
• references/network-map.md — topology archetype: node/edge/cluster helpers (labeled edges with arrowheads, dashed region clusters, edge-label chips, flow legend, requirements band), as a python-pptx skeleton with color placeholders.