SMF·GAMMA
Can a prompt replace Gamma?
Presentations — AI decks/docs/webpages
Exhibit tracking slip
Verdict
An outline-to-slides pipeline — ask an LLM for structure, render it into a themed deck, export to PDF — is a real weekend build on top of an open-source slide tool. What's missing is Gamma's polished editing model, its responsive card layouts, and hosted share links with analytics.
Exhibit A — The prompt
Received on30.07.2026Build a command-line slide-deck generator on top of an open-source presentation tool (Slidev is a good fit, since it renders Markdown to slides). Given a topic, call an LLM API for an outline, then generate per-slide content as structured data (title, bullets, speaker notes, a layout name chosen from a small fixed set — title slide, bullet list, two-column, big quote, image-and-text). Render that structured content into the tool's slide format, and support both a live preview and export to PDF. Keep a single theme file for fonts and colors so decks stay visually consistent without redesigning each one. Support regenerating a single slide by number without touching the rest of the deck. Keep decks as plain files on disk, not a database, so they're easy to hand-edit after generation and to keep in version control. If an image-generation API key is present, offer generated images per slide; if it's absent, skip images cleanly rather than failing.
Do not build a web-based visual editor, shareable links with analytics, or real-time collaboration — editing the generated slide file directly is the editor here, and that's the trade for not paying for the hosted product.
Opening prefills the prompt — press enter to run it.
Exhibit B — What you lose
- B.1 the polished visual editor
- B.2 Gamma's responsive card layout model
- B.3 hosted share links with analytics
- B.4 custom domains
- B.5 the breadth of their template library
Prior art
Exhibit C — Why people still pay: editor/templates/hosting
People pay because the output looks acceptable immediately, without wrestling with slide software — the generation step is the easy part, the layout and export polish is not.
Questions
Can I import my existing Gamma decks?
Not directly — Gamma exports to PDF and PPTX, which are fine for viewing but not for re-editing here. Bringing a deck in means re-outlining it as input to the generator, not a structural import.
Will it work on my phone?
Viewing an exported PDF, yes. Generating or editing a deck is a command-line and text-editor workflow, which isn't realistically a phone task.
What does it cost to run?
LLM API usage per deck, typically a few cents to generate an outline and slide content; hosting isn't needed if you only ever export to PDF locally.
What's the one thing that doesn't survive the rebuild?
The responsive card layout Gamma actually renders — text and images that auto-resize to keep a slide balanced regardless of content length. This build uses a small fixed set of layouts, not that adaptive engine.
Related tools
Receipt