# Turn a working outline into a presentation.

Shape the story first. Let the deck give each idea room.

By Integrity team · 2026-09-26

Canonical: https://integrity.sh/articles/outline-to-presentation/

A presentation is an argument with an audience. If you start by arranging text boxes, it is easy to spend an afternoon polishing a story you have not decided to tell.

Integrity treats a presentation as a view of structured content. You can write or ask AI to draft an outline, then use the deck to present it. The outline stays editable rather than becoming a pile of flattened images.

## Decide what the audience should leave with

For a launch review, the goal might be agreement on the campaign direction. That is different from presenting every detail the team has collected.

Write the audience’s next decision at the top of your working outline. Then give the story a short sequence: the people we are trying to reach, the idea we want them to understand, the work that makes it tangible, and the decision we need today.

Move supporting research beneath those points. It is still useful context even when it does not belong on a slide.

## Ask for a deck-shaped draft

Mention the source material and give the assistant a clear brief:

> Make a short presentation from this launch outline. The audience is our project team. End with the decision on visual direction. Use one main point per slide and flag any missing evidence rather than inventing numbers.

Read the proposed story before focusing on its appearance. Do the headings make sense on their own? Does each slide advance the argument? A list of topics is not yet a narrative.

*Figure: A fictional launch slide rendered by the actual Integrity presentation component.*

## Edit for the screen

Slides need less text than working notes. Turn long explanations into a concise claim and the evidence someone needs to understand it. If a slide has two unrelated messages, split it.

Integrity’s presentation layouts arrange content within designed structures. This is not a freeform slide canvas where every text box can be placed anywhere. That constraint is useful when you want consistent rhythm, but it is worth knowing before planning a highly bespoke composition.

Keep a detailed explanation in the source document when it is valuable but does not fit the live presentation. You can share the supporting material alongside the deck.

## Choose a consistent visual direction

Pick a look that suits the subject, then review the whole deck rather than styling each slide as a separate poster. A strong title slide cannot rescue ten dense pages after it.

Use images where they explain an idea. If you generate illustrations, give them a shared art direction and review their details. Avoid using an attractive generated chart as evidence: the numbers need to come from your actual data.

## Present, then keep working

Review the deck at the size your audience will see. Check the longest heading, the densest slide, and the final decision. Publish the presentation when you want to share a public link, and check the published view before sending it.

The result is still connected to your working material. After the meeting, put the decision back into the project and update the next steps. The deck has done its job when the work can move forward.