How It Works

Pluslide's architecture is designed for simplicity and speed. This page explains the complete workflow from template design to PPTX generation.

Overview

The Pluslide workflow consists of three main steps:

┌─────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐
│  Design         │     │  Call           │     │  Download       │
│  Template       │ ──▶ │  API            │ ──▶ │  PPTX           │
│  (Once)         │     │  (Single Call)  │     │  (Instant)      │
└─────────────────┘     └─────────────────┘     └─────────────────┘

Step 1: Design Your Template

Templates are the foundation of your presentations. Using the Pluslide Editor, you can:

Create a Project

A Project is a container for your templates. Each project has:

A unique Project ID used in API calls
Multiple templates for different slide layouts

Add Templates

Each Template represents a slide layout. When designing templates:

Define the visual structure (title, content areas, images)
Add Fields as placeholders for dynamic data

Define Fields

Fields are the dynamic elements in your template:

Field Type	Description	Example Use
Text	Dynamic text content	Titles, paragraphs, labels
Image	Dynamic images	Logos, photos, diagrams
Shape	Vector shapes	Decorative elements
Group	Grid layout container	Responsive grids, card layouts
List	Repeatable items	Bullet points, numbered lists
Chart	Data visualizations	Bar, line, pie charts

Group is the key to adaptive layouts in Pluslide. It works like CSS grid, automatically arranging child elements based on the available space and data. This means your templates adapt gracefully when the data changes, without manual repositioning.

Step 2: Call the API

Once your template is ready, generating presentations is a single API call:

POST /v1/project/export
Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "projectId": "proj_123456",
  "presentation": {
    "slideList": [
      {
        "templateKey": "title-slide",
        "content": {
          "title": "Quarterly Report",
          "subtitle": "Q4 2024 Results"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Understanding slideList

The slideList array is where you compose your presentation. Each item pairs a template with a content object—the dynamic data you provide:

{
  "slideList": [
    { "templateKey": "title-slide", "content": { "title": "..." } },
    { "templateKey": "chart-slide", "content": { "chartData": [...] } },
    { "templateKey": "summary-slide", "content": { "bullets": [...] } }
  ]
}

Key concepts:

Reuse templates: Use the same template multiple times with different data
Mix and match: Combine different templates to build a complete deck
Dynamic length: Generate 5 slides or 20 slides—same API, same logic
Order matters: Slides appear in the order you define them

This design separates structure (templates you design once) from content (dynamic data you pass per request), making it trivial to generate presentations from databases, APIs, or user input.

Step 3: Download Your PPTX

The API response includes a direct download URL:

{
  "url": "https://storage.pluslide.com/presentations/abc123.pptx"
}