Skills-Driven Content Transformation

What This Tutorial Teaches

You have a meeting memo, work report, or resume on hand, and you want to use a Presto template to format it into a beautiful PDF. But you're not sure how to write the content in the format the template expects — what fields go in frontmatter? How should heading levels be used? Are there special markers? This tutorial teaches you to use AI to automate this conversion process: transform raw content into Markdown that the template can process directly, in one step.

• Estimated time: 15-20 minutes
• Final deliverable: Convert a raw meeting memo into Markdown formatted for the gongwen (official document) template, and generate a PDF
• Prerequisites: Completed Direct Template Invocation with AI + Skills tutorial

Ready? Let's begin.

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Part 1: Prepare the Raw Content

Below is a plain-text meeting memo that you can copy directly. This is the "raw material" we'll be converting:

Product Department Monthly Meeting Minutes

Date: April 10, 2025, 14:00-16:30
Location: Company Building 3F Conference Room
Chairperson: Li Ming (Product Director)
Attendees: Zhang Wei, Wang Fang, Liu Yang, Chen Jing, Zhao Qiang
Recorder: Wang Fang

I. Previous Month Review
1. Mobile app v2.3 launched successfully with positive user feedback
2. Backend management system overhaul 80% complete, expected to deliver by end of month
3. Customer complaint response time reduced from 48 hours to 24 hours

II. Key Tasks for This Month
1. Complete backend management system overhaul and go live
2. Kick off v3.0 requirements research
3. Conduct user satisfaction survey

III. Discussion Items
Regarding whether to introduce AI features in v3.0, the decision after
discussion is to conduct a technical feasibility study first and submit
a feasibility report next month.

IV. Resolutions
1. Backend system overhaul assigned to Liu Yang, due before April 25
2. v3.0 requirements research led by Zhang Wei, in coordination with Marketing
3. User satisfaction survey assigned to Chen Jing, questionnaire to be published before April 15

This content is well-structured, but it's just plain text — no frontmatter, no template markers. Presto templates can't process it directly.

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Part 2: Install the Content Transformation Skill

You already learned how to install Skills in the previous tutorial. This time we'll install presto-transform (the content transformation Skill). The steps are the same as before.

If you already installed Skills following the Direct Template Invocation with AI + Skills tutorial, you just need to place the presto-transform Skill directory in the corresponding location:

# Copy the presto-transform Skill to Claude Code's Skills directory
cp -r skills/presto-transform/ ~/.claude/skills/presto-transform/

If you're not sure where the Skills directory is, review the installation steps in Direct Template Invocation with AI + Skills tutorial.

Verify installation: Launch claude. AI should be able to recognize "content transformation" related requests.

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Part 3: Choose the Target Template

Launch Claude Code and tell AI what you want to do.

You:

I have a meeting memo that I want to format into a PDF using the gongwen template. First, help me check what format this template requires.

AI:

Sure, let me check the gongwen template's format requirements.

First, let's look at the template's example document:

~/.presto/templates/gongwen/presto-template-gongwen --example

And the template's metadata definition:

~/.presto/templates/gongwen/presto-template-gongwen --manifest

Here are the gongwen template's format requirements:

Frontmatter fields:

Field	Type	Description
title	string	Document title
author	string	Issuing department/author
date	string (YYYY-MM-DD)	Issue date
signature	boolean	Whether to display a signature block
template	string	Must be "gongwen"

Content structure requirements:

• Body starts with a salutation (e.g., "To all departments:")
• Use ## level-2 headings to divide major sections
• Use ### level-3 headings to divide subsections
• Supports ordered lists (1. 2. 3.) and unordered lists (-)
• Supports **bold** for emphasizing keywords
• End with a formal closing phrase like "This is hereby recorded."

Verification point: You can see that the gongwen template requires four frontmatter fields (title, author, date, signature) and a content structure using level-2/level-3 headings.

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Part 4: AI Auto-Transformation

Now hand the raw content to AI and let it transform automatically.

You:

Please convert the following meeting memo to gongwen template format:

Product Department Monthly Meeting Minutes

Date: April 10, 2025, 14:00-16:30 Location: Company Building 3F Conference Room Chairperson: Li Ming (Product Director) Attendees: Zhang Wei, Wang Fang, Liu Yang, Chen Jing, Zhao Qiang Recorder: Wang Fang

I. Previous Month Review

1. Mobile app v2.3 launched successfully with positive user feedback
2. Backend management system overhaul 80% complete, expected to deliver by end of month
3. Customer complaint response time reduced from 48 hours to 24 hours

II. Key Tasks for This Month

1. Complete backend management system overhaul and go live
2. Kick off v3.0 requirements research
3. Conduct user satisfaction survey

III. Discussion Items Regarding whether to introduce AI features in v3.0, the decision after discussion is to conduct a technical feasibility study first and submit a feasibility report next month.

IV. Resolutions

1. Backend system overhaul assigned to Liu Yang, due before April 25
2. v3.0 requirements research led by Zhang Wei, in coordination with Marketing
3. User satisfaction survey assigned to Chen Jing, questionnaire to be published before April 15

AI:

Let me analyze the structure of this meeting memo, then adapt it to the gongwen template format.

Analysis:

• Title -> frontmatter title
• "Product Department" -> frontmatter author (issuing department)
• Date -> frontmatter date (convert to YYYY-MM-DD format)
• "I, II, III, IV" -> convert to ## level-2 headings
• Meeting details (date, location, attendees) -> place at the beginning of the body
• Resolution content -> keep as ordered list

Converted result:

---
title: "Product Department Monthly Meeting Minutes"
author: "Product Department"
date: "2025-04-10"
signature: true
template: "gongwen"
---

Meeting date: April 10, 2025, 14:00-16:30. Location: Company Building 3F Conference Room. Chairperson: Li Ming (Product Director). Attendees: Zhang Wei, Wang Fang, Liu Yang, Chen Jing, Zhao Qiang. Recorder: Wang Fang.

## Previous Month Review

1. Mobile app v2.3 launched successfully with positive user feedback
2. Backend management system overhaul 80% complete, expected to deliver by end of month
3. Customer complaint response time reduced from 48 hours to 24 hours

## Key Tasks for This Month

1. Complete backend management system overhaul and go live
2. Kick off v3.0 requirements research
3. Conduct user satisfaction survey

## Discussion Items

Regarding whether to introduce AI features in v3.0, the decision after discussion is to conduct a technical feasibility study first and submit a feasibility report next month.

## Resolutions

1. Backend system overhaul assigned to **Liu Yang**, due before April 25
2. v3.0 requirements research led by **Zhang Wei**, in coordination with Marketing
3. User satisfaction survey assigned to **Chen Jing**, questionnaire to be published before April 15

This is hereby recorded.

Conversion notes:

• title taken directly from the original title
• author extracted as "Product Department" (the issuing department)
• date converted from "April 10, 2025" to 2025-04-10 format
• signature: true enables the signature block
• Meeting details (date, location, attendees) consolidated into an opening paragraph
• "I, II, III, IV" numbering replaced with ## level-2 headings
• Responsible persons in resolutions emphasized with **bold**
• "This is hereby recorded." added as the formal closing phrase

Please check if the content is accurate. Once confirmed, we can generate the PDF.

Verification point: The converted Markdown contains the correct template: "gongwen" frontmatter, the date format is YYYY-MM-DD, and the content structure uses ## level-2 headings.

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Part 5: Preview and Adjust

After the content transformation is complete, use the presto-convert Skill to generate a PDF preview.

You:

Content looks good. Save it as meeting-notes.md and generate the PDF.

AI:

Saved as meeting-notes.md. Now generating the PDF with the gongwen template:

cat meeting-notes.md | ~/.presto/templates/gongwen/presto-template-gongwen | typst compile - meeting-notes.pdf

PDF generated: meeting-notes.pdf.

Open the PDF and check the result. If adjustments are needed, just tell AI:

You:

The title is too long. Can you shorten it? Also, change "This is hereby recorded." to "This is hereby noted for the record."

AI:

Two changes made:

1. title changed to "Monthly Meeting Minutes"
2. Closing phrase changed to "This is hereby noted for the record."

Regenerating the PDF:

cat meeting-notes.md | ~/.presto/templates/gongwen/presto-template-gongwen | typst compile - meeting-notes.pdf

Updated. Please check the new PDF.

Verification point: The PDF shows the updated title and closing phrase, with correct formatting throughout.

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Part 6: Apply What You've Learned

Now that you've mastered the meeting memo conversion workflow, the same approach works for any combination of content and template.

Different Types of Content

You can convert all kinds of raw content:

• Resumes: Take resume text copied from Word and convert it to a resume template format
• Work reports: Take weekly/monthly report plain text and convert it to an official document template format
• Lesson plans: Take course outlines and teaching content and convert them to a lesson plan template format

Different Target Templates

The conversion workflow works with all templates. AI automatically reads the target template's format requirements through --example and --manifest, so you don't need to memorize the specific rules for each template.

You:

I have a course syllabus that I want to format with the jiaoan-shicao template.

AI will automatically check the jiaoan-shicao template's requirements and complete the conversion following the same workflow.

Custom Conversion Rules

If you have specific requirements for the conversion result, you can specify them in your request:

• "Bold all person names"
• "Use a consistent date format (e.g., April 10, 2025)"
• "Add a page break between each section"

AI will follow your rules during the conversion.

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Tutorial Series Summary

Congratulations on completing the entire tutorial series! Let's review the learning path across the four tutorials:

1. AI Programming Basics — Started from scratch, learned to write code and run programs with AI, mastered the fundamental principles of AI programming
2. AI-Assisted Template Development — Used AI to develop a Presto template from scratch, understood how templates work
3. Direct Template Invocation with AI + Skills — Installed Skills, enabled AI to directly call existing templates to generate PDFs
4. Skills-Driven Content Transformation (this tutorial) — Used AI to automatically adapt any raw content to template format

From "What is AI?" to "Using AI to turn my own content into beautiful PDFs," you've completed the full journey.

Related Documentation

• Template Developer Guide — Deep dive into technical details of template development
• AI Workflow Patterns — More AI collaboration techniques
• Binary Protocol Reference — Complete specification of the template binary interface
• Glossary — Detailed explanations of all terms