How to use

This wiki teaches slide craft: principles, families, patterns, Rules, and user recipes. Product how-to for the editor lives on deckspec.dev/docs.

Reading a pattern

1. Pick a style family first — the visual language of the room.
2. Pick a pattern for the job of the slide.
3. Read When to use and Guidelines.
4. Study the mockup (the light board, not the dark wiki chrome).
5. Follow the Rules. They are the contract.
6. Use the User recipe as a checklist for the objects on the slide.

Objects on the board

A professional slide is a document. Patterns assemble these pieces so you can revise one without redrawing the rest:

• Text — kickers, titles, source lines, labels
• Table — rows stay tables
• Metric card — value + label tiles
• Finding list — numbered findings
• Comparison column — side-by-side options
• Panel — dashed-border groups
• Connector — arrows that attach objects
• Junction — branch/merge points
• Swimlane — horizontal function lanes

Build path

Insert objects. Connectors attach. Theme is data (status colors, board family). A room copy (PDF, PowerPoint) is downstream — do not regenerate the artwork.

Alignment rule

If a reader follows the recipe and the result is a different kind of slide, the Rules block is wrong — not the CSS.