# ppt-master v4.8.0

- Product: ppt-master (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/ppt-master)
- Vendor: hugohe3
- Date: 2026-08-16
- Version: v4.8.0
- Original notes: https://github.com/hugohe3/ppt-master/releases/tag/v4.8.0
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/ppt-master/releases/v4.8.0

What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog.

Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'.

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- **added** — AI imagery becomes a composition system with coherent element families, transparent cut assets, and hand-rendered lettering that pages can build around
- **added** — Illustration assets are now composable across the deck, allowing both runtimes to plan coherent families of elements and reuse them across slides
- **added** — Decorative lettering is a first-class carrier, prepared as image assets and sliced to transparent elements
- **added** — Transparent slicing recovers clean alpha using explicit pure-RGB chroma keying with spill removal and antialiased edge preservation
- **added** — Three new composition patterns: curved panoramic photo wall from precomputed 2D contours, glyph-shaped picture defaulting to editable text picture fill, and registered device/frame mockup
- **added** — Four new composition recipes: ceremonial fan and arc strips, folded/louvered same-source strips, bento field combination, and staggered photo strip
- **added** — --strict-alpha flag validates complete cell boundary and fails closed for transparent slicing
- **added** — Per-image source is now a mandatory decision in both runtimes and never inherited
- **added** — Web image search reviews candidates on thumbnails in isolation with eight preview thumbnails saved per page
- **added** — --list-backends reports effective configuration and whether it came from process environment or file
- **added** — LaTeX profile now covers documented Microsoft 365 commands, environments, macros, colors, and normalizations including mhchem
- **added** — Superscript and subscript export as native text runs with DrawingML baseline offsets without changing font size
- **changed** — Eligibility for decorative lettering is now decided by criterion rather than page role, checking stability and artistic communication benefit
- **changed** — Image sourcing follows the task rather than tooling, with AI or keyed providers used proactively when serving planned visual jobs
- **changed** — AI capability is resolved at execution with per-runtime recovery instead of backend or host-tool preflight checks
- **changed** — Twelve image backends were realigned to current provider contracts with corrected size, ratio, endpoint, and payload handling
- **changed** — Formula compiler was split into focused modules: parser, AST, profile tables, OMML emitter, and run-property merger
- **fixed** — Out-of-profile LaTeX input now fails closed rather than degrading silently
- **fixed** — Incompatible model overrides are now rejected instead of silently applying the wrong schema

v4.7.0 went deep into PowerPoint's own object model. This release turns to the image path — where a deck's pictures come from, what they are allowed to be, and how they get composed into a page. AI imagery stops being a per-page spot illustration and becomes a composition system: coherent element families, transparent cut assets, and hand-rendered lettering that the page can build around. Alongside it, the formula profile grows from a hand-picked LaTeX subset to the documented Microsoft 365 one, and the PPTX → SVG direction learns to bring back motion and math instead of silently dropping them.

##### AI imagery as a composition system

- **Illustration assets are now composable across the deck.** Both runtimes can plan a coherent family of elements — chrome, anchors, figures, accents — batch-generate them on one sheet, and reuse them across any suitable slide, instead of treating each page's picture as an isolated spot.
- **Decorative lettering is a first-class carrier.** Artistic lettering is prepared as an image asset, batched by artistic treatment into sheets, and sliced to transparent elements. Native WordArt stays out of scope and ordinary editable text remains the fallback. A page that needs a real heading keeps its native title, with the lettering acting as its display layer — the two coexist rather than compete.
- **Eligibility is decided by criterion, not page role.** The trigger used to scan only cover and divider wording. A dish name, exhibit name, year, hero number, or pull quote on a content page is often the more stable string, and set over photography it is exactly where native type reads pasted-on. The rule is now the two questions that actually decide it — is the wording stable, and would an artistic treatment communicate better — with length, line count, and page role no longer filtering candidates. Use stays selective: one small coherent set per deck, never a coverage quota.
- **Transparent slicing recovers clean alpha.** Sheet slicing keys off an explicit pure-RGB chroma key, removing spill while preserving antialiased edges and translucent effects. `--strict-alpha` validates the complete cell boundary and fails closed; without it the legacy warning-only behavior is unchanged. When keying visibly did not take — corners still opaque after `--alpha`, or `--trim` removing nothing on either axis — the run names the sampled color and points at `--bg` / `--tolerance` rather than quietly shipping a visible box onto the slide.
- **Three new composition patterns and four recipes.** A curved panoramic photo wall built from precomputed 2D contours (never shear or skew), a glyph-shaped picture defaulting to the editable text picture fill, and a registered device/frame mockup — plus ceremonial fan and arc strips, folded/louvered same-source strips, the bento field combination, and a staggered photo strip. Every form stays natively editable.

##### Image sourcing follows the task, not the tooling

- **The resolved visual style no longer decides the image source.** In a dogfood run every image on the deck resolved to AI illustration because the style had already answered the source question — including externally verifiable heritage architecture. Per-image source is now a mandatory decision in both runtimes, never inherited, and a deliberate non-documentary choice for a verifiable subject has to be stated.
- **Availability no longer decides fit either.** Zero-config web acquisition stays active when AI or keyed providers are unavailable, and a callable generator is used proactively when it serves a planned visual job — the recommendation follows the communication need rather than which credentials happen to be present.
- **Web image search reviews candidates on thumbnails, in isolation.** Explicit query variants are aggregated and deduplicated across providers, eight preview thumbnails are saved per page, and originals are downloaded only after selection. The multimodal inspection runs as its own bounded stage so candida

_[Truncated at 4000 characters — full notes: https://github.com/hugohe3/ppt-master/releases/tag/v4.8.0]_