Transcript to Slides in 20 Minutes

Had a 2-hour workshop recording. Needed slides for a talk. Didn't want to spend my weekend on it.

So I automated it.

The Setup

Whisper for transcription. Claude for summarizing and structuring. Python script to generate the markdown. Marp to turn it into actual slides.

Total time from recording to finished deck: about 20 minutes. Most of that was the transcription.

What Actually Worked

The trick is giving Claude good instructions. Tell it exactly what format you want. How many slides. What to emphasize.

Don't ask it to "make slides." Ask it to "extract 8-10 key points, each with a headline and 2-3 bullet points, suitable for a technical audience."

What Didn't Work

First attempt was garbage. Claude tried to include everything. 47 slides from a 2-hour workshop. Nobody wants that.

Had to add constraints. "Maximum 12 slides. Skip the introductions. Focus on actionable takeaways."

The Result

Good enough to present. Not perfect, but 80% there. The remaining 20% took maybe 30 minutes of manual tweaking.

Compare that to 4-6 hours of watching the recording and writing slides from scratch.

Worth it? Yeah.