Deck Refresh
Update numbers across the deck. The deck is the source of truth for formatting; you're only changing values.
Environment check
This skill works in both the PowerPoint add-in and chat. Identify which you're in before starting — the edit mechanism differs, the intent doesn't:
- **Add-in** — the deck is open live; edit text runs, table cells, and chart data directly.
- **Chat** — the deck is an uploaded file; edit it by regenerating the affected slides with the new values and writing the result back.
Either way: smallest possible change, existing formatting stays intact.
This is a four-phase process and the third phase is an approval gate. Don't edit until the user has seen the plan.
Phase 1 — Get the data
Use `ask_user_question` to find out how the new numbers are arriving:
- **Pasted mapping** — user types or pastes "revenue $485M → $512M, EBITDA $120M → $135M." The clearest case.
- **Uploaded Excel** — old/new columns, or a fresh output sheet the user wants pulled from. Read it, confirm which column is which before you trust it.
- **Just the new values** — "Q4 revenue was $512M, margins were 22%." You figure out what each one replaces. Workable, but confirm the mapping before you touch anything — a "$512M" that you map to revenue but the user meant for gross profit is a quiet disaster.
Also ask about **derived numbers**: if revenue moves, does the user want growth rates and share percentages recalculated, or left alone? Most decks have "+15% YoY" baked in somewhere that's now stale. Whether to touch those is a judgment call the user should make, not you.
Phase 2 — Read everything, find everything
Read every slide. For each old value, find every instance — including the ones that don't look the same:
| Variant | Example | |---|---| | Scale | `$485M`, `$0.485B`, `$485,000,000` | | Precision | `$485M`, `$485.0M`, `~$485M` | | Unit style | `$485M`, `$485MM`, `$485 million`, `485M` | | Embedded | "revenue grew to $485M", "a $485M business", axis labels |
A deck that says `$485M` on slide 3, `485` on slide 8's chart axis, and `$485.0 million` in a footnote on slide 15 has three instances of the same number. Find-replace misses two of them. You shouldn't.
**Where numbers hide:**
- Text boxes (obvious)
- Table cells
- Chart data labels and axis labels
- Chart source data — the numbers driving the bars, not just the labels on them
- Footnotes, source lines, small print
- Speaker notes, if the user cares about those
Build a list: for each old value, every location it appears, the exact text it appears as, and what it'll become. This list is the plan.
Phase 3 — Present the plan, get approval
**This is a destructive operation on a deck someone spent time on.** Show the full change list before editing a single thing. Format it so it's scannable:
$485M → $512M (Revenue)
Slide 3 — Title box: "Revenue grew to $485M"
Slide 8 — Chart axis label: "485"
Slide 15 — Footnote: "$485.0 million in FY24 revenue"
$120M → $135M (Adj. EBITDA)
Slide 3 — Table cell
Slide 11 — Body text: "$120M of Adj. EBITDA"
FLAGGED — possibly derived, not in your mapping:
Slide 3 — "+15% YoY" (growth rate — stale if base year didn't change?)
Slide 7 — "12% market share" (was this computed from $485M / market size?)The flagged section matters. You're not just executing a find-replace — you're catching the second-order effects the user would've missed at 11pm. If the mapping says `$485M → $512M` and slide 3 also has `+15% YoY` right next to it, that growth rate is probably wrong now. Flag it; don't silent
<!-- truncated -->
