Claude Keynote Skill

claude-keynote-skill

A [Claude Code](https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code) skill for reading, rendering and editing Apple Keynote decks on macOS — including the LaTeX of every equation, which no AppleScript interface exposes.

Two layers, used together:

	scripts/keynote.py	scripts/keynote_iwa.py
mechanism	AppleScript/JXA against the running Keynote	edits the .key package directly (via keynote-parser)
reads	text, presenter notes, layouts, images, geometry; renders slides to JPEG	text with inline $latex$, every equation's source
writes	notes, plain text, text boxes, images, slides (add / move / delete / rebuild), sizes	equation LaTeX (edit and create), text that contains math, paragraph/list styles
needs Keynote	open (opens it for you)	closed — refuses to run otherwise

Why the package layer: each Keynote equation is a rendered PDF plus its LaTeX source; Keynote re-typesets from the source on open, so editing math is editing a string, and new equations need no PDF. Details in `SKILL.md`.

Install

git clone https://github.com/aperrault/claude-keynote-skill ~/.claude/skills/keynote

Requirements: macOS with Keynote (tested on Keynote 15.1.1; keynote-parser officially supports ≤ 14.5 but round-trips 15.x decks), Python 3.11+, and [`uv`](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/) (the package layer runs as `uv run --with keynote-parser --with pyyaml python scripts/keynote_iwa.py …`). The first AppleScript call prompts for Automation permission.

Safety

This tool rewrites presentation files, so it is built around not losing work:

• every package edit backs the deck up first; mutating AppleScript commands keep a rolling backup (keynote.py backups DECK lists them);
• save/close wait until the bytes are on disk and fail loudly if Keynote did not write (Keynote's save is asynchronous — a close right after a save can cancel the wri