Element Operations

Your AI assistant uses these tools to add, modify, and remove the shapes, text, and lines that make up each slide — or each layout. You don't call them directly — just describe what you want and your assistant handles the rest.

Every slide is made of elements — the individual pieces of content your audience sees. There are five element types you can create:

• Shape — rectangle, ellipse, diamond, triangle, arrow (pointing right), leftArrow, upArrow, downArrow, hexagon, star, pie, arc, or donut. Rectangles take an optional cornerRadius; pie, arc and donut take angles. Shapes support text directly inside them — use the text property on a shape instead of layering a separate text element on top.
• Text — a standalone text block for titles, body content, captions, or any text that doesn't need a background shape.
• Line — a connector between two points, with optional arrow heads. Lines can anchor to other elements so they stay connected when elements move.
• Chart — data visualizations (bar, line, pie, scatter, and more). Placed with elementType: "chart" like any other element, then populated with element_update_chart.
• Table — a grid of cells in a table style. Created empty with elementType: "table", rows and columns, then filled, restructured and restyled with element_update_table.

Tables live on slides only, and a table imported from PowerPoint keeps its merged cells, cell text and table style. element_bulk_update moves, resizes or restacks a table, and element_delete, element_duplicate, element_group and slide_duplicate work on it; its cells, rows, columns and style change through element_update_table. slide_get shows its rows.

Images need a tool of their own, and a chart or a table needs a second call to fill it in — see Images, Charts and Tables. For design guidance on combining these elements, see Visual Design Techniques.

Slides or Layouts

These tools write to two surfaces. Anywhere one takes a slide id, it also takes a layout id (“layout-…”, from layout_list or layout_get), and the element lands on the deck's layout instead of on one slide. That is how your assistant adds something that should appear on every slide built from a layout — a logo, a footer rule, a side accent bar — rather than pasting it onto each slide in turn.

The tools that address an element rather than a surface — element_bulk_update, element_delete, element_group and element_ungroup — need no surface at all: they look an elementId up on both. Layout element ids are dle- prefixed and come from layout_get.

What Changes on a Layout

• New elements are decorative — they carry no role and they are not placeholders. A role you pass is dropped and reported back under ignored.
• Charts are not available — layouts have no chart type. Put the chart on a slide.
• A placeholder's text is its prompt — updating text on a placeholder sets the wording shown for that slot while it is empty — in the editor's Layouts view, and on every empty placeholder of the slides built from that layout. It is ghost text, never content.
• Groups cannot span surfaces — every member must be on one slide, or on one layout.

Example — Editing a Layout

// An accent bar on the layout, not on one slide.
// Every slide built on this layout shows it.
element_bulk_create({
  deckId: "deck_abc123",
  slideId: "layout-Qc9Wb3Xn",   // a layout id, where a slide id would go
  elements: [
    {
      elementType: "shape",
      shapeType: "rectangle",
      x: 0, y: 0,
      width: 14, height: 720,
      fillColor: "#1A1A2E"
    }
  ]
})

// Response:
// {
//   slides: [
//     {
//       slideId: "layout-Qc9Wb3Xn",
//       surface: "layout",
//       layoutName: "Title and Content",
//       elementIds: ["dle-shape-Ka1bZ9mQ"]
//     }
//   ],
//   ignored: ["role"]
// }

Creating a Single Element

When you ask to “add a title to this slide” or “put a blue rectangle behind the heading,” your assistant uses element_create to place one element at a time. For adding several elements at once, the assistant will typically use element_bulk_create (below) instead.

Parameters

* Always set role on text elements with semantic meaning (titles, body, etc.). Decorative shapes like accent bars or background rectangles don't need a role. See the full list of styling properties in the Common Properties Reference below.

What It Returns

• elementId — the new element's ID (use this for updates and line anchors)
• type — the element type that was created
• position — { x, y } in pixels
• size — { width, height } in pixels
• overflow — if the text doesn't fit, includes overflow info with suggestions for fixing it

Example — Shape with Text

element_create({
  deckId: "deck_abc123",
  slideId: "slide_001",
  elementType: "shape",
  shapeType: "rectangle",
  x: 60, y: 40,
  width: 500, height: 80,
  fillColor: "#1C2833",
  text: "**Q4 Business Review**",
  fontSize: 36,
  fontFamily: "Inter",
  textColor: "#FFFFFF",
  textAlign: "left",
  verticalAlign: "middle",
  role: "title"
})

// Response:
// {
//   id: "j97x...",
//   elementId: "elem_abc123",
//   type: "shape",
//   slideId: "slide_001",
//   position: { x: 60, y: 40 },
//   size: { width: 500, height: 80 },
//   zIndex: 0
// }

Example — Text Element

element_create({
  deckId: "deck_abc123",
  slideId: "slide_001",
  elementType: "text",
  x: 60, y: 150,
  width: 600, height: 300,
  text: "- Revenue up 18% QoQ\n- 340 new customers\n- Expanded to 3 new markets",
  fontSize: 16,
  fontFamily: "Inter",
  textColor: "#AAB7B8",
  role: "body"
})

Example — Line

// Line with an arrow from point A to point B
element_create({
  deckId: "deck_abc123",
  slideId: "slide_001",
  elementType: "line",
  startX: 60, startY: 130,
  endX: 560, endY: 130,
  strokeColor: "#5EA8A7",
  strokeWidth: 3,
  arrowHead: false
})

// Anchored line — connects to an existing element
element_create({
  deckId: "deck_abc123",
  slideId: "slide_001",
  elementType: "line",
  startAnchor: {
    type: "connected",
    elementId: "elem_abc",
    connectionPointId: "right"
  },
  endAnchor: {
    type: "connected",
    elementId: "elem_def",
    connectionPointId: "left"
  },
  strokeColor: "#2E4053",
  arrowHead: true
})

Creating Multiple Elements

Most of the time, your assistant builds a slide by placing several elements at once — a title, an accent bar, body text, and so on. element_bulk_create creates up to 50 elements in a single atomic call. All elements succeed or all fail — you won't end up with a half-built slide.

You can also target multiple slides at once using slideIds — the same elements are replicated on each slide. This is useful for adding consistent footers, logos, or accent bars across your entire presentation.

It is the only tool that creates charts and tables. A table takes rows and columns (1–75) and an optional box, and is created empty for element_update_table to fill.

Parameters

* Exactly one of slideId or slideIds must be provided.

morphKey pairs an element for a morph transition: on a slide set to morph, it glides from the element on the previous slide whose morphKey (or elementId, when it has none) matches. Copies made by slide_duplicate already carry their source's key, so set it only to pair elements that were not copied, and never give two elements on one slide the same key. See Present Mode, Builds & Transitions.

Links

link makes an element clickable in present mode, the shared viewer and an exported PowerPoint file. element_create and element_bulk_create take it on shapes, text and lines; element_bulk_update sets it on those and on images, and null removes it.

• { kind: "slide", slideId } — a click goes to that slide where the presenter left it, with the builds they had shown (none if they had not been there), and plays its transition; a link to its own slide does nothing. Take the slideId (slide-…) from deck_get or slide_get: a database id, a slide number or another deck's slide is refused with an error naming it
• { kind: "relative", to } — a click goes to the next, previous, first or last slide of the show, worked out at the click, so it keeps working after a reorder: use it for next and back buttons. to is "next", "previous", "first" or "last"; anything else is refused. It lands as a slide link does, and does nothing past either end
• { kind: "url", href } — a click opens an http, https or mailto address in a new tab. Any other scheme is refused, and the address is stored in canonical form (example.com/x becomes https://example.com/x)
• Buttons: link every piece of a button, the shape and its label, so a click anywhere on it follows the link
• Not linkable: charts, layout elements, and a trigger, whose click plays its reveals. A link on a trigger is refused, naming its reveals; move them with slide_set_build_sequence first
• Reading it back: slide_get marks a linked element · link → slide-…, · link → next slide (or previous slide, first slide, last slide) or · link → https://…, and · link → deleted slide once its slide is gone; such a link does nothing until the slide is restored

What It Returns

• slides — array of results grouped by slide, each containing the created elements with their IDs, types, positions, and sizes
• Each element includes overflow info if text doesn't fit

Example — Build a Slide Layout

element_bulk_create({
  deckId: "deck_abc123",
  slideId: "slide_002",
  elements: [
    {
      elementType: "shape",
      shapeType: "rectangle",
      x: 0, y: 0,
      width: 12, height: 720,
      fillColor: "#5EA8A7"
    },
    {
      elementType: "text",
      x: 60, y: 40,
      width: 600, height: 60,
      text: "Revenue Highlights",
      fontSize: 40,
      fontFamily: "Inter",
      textColor: "#FFFFFF",
      role: "title"
    },
    {
      elementType: "line",
      startX: 60, startY: 110,
      endX: 400, endY: 110,
      strokeColor: "#5EA8A7",
      strokeWidth: 3
    },
    {
      elementType: "text",
      x: 60, y: 130,
      width: 600, height: 400,
      text: "- Total revenue: **$4.2M**\n- Growth: +18% QoQ\n- New customers: 340",
      fontSize: 16,
      fontFamily: "Inter",
      textColor: "#AAB7B8",
      role: "body"
    }
  ]
})

// Response:
// {
//   slides: [
//     {
//       slideId: "slide_002",
//       elements: [
//         { elementId: "elem_001", type: "shape", ... },
//         { elementId: "elem_002", type: "text", ... },
//         { elementId: "elem_003", type: "line", ... },
//         { elementId: "elem_004", type: "text", ... }
//       ]
//     }
//   ]
// }

Example — Add Footers Across Slides

// Add a footer to every slide at once
element_bulk_create({
  deckId: "deck_abc123",
  slideIds: ["slide_001", "slide_002", "slide_003"],
  elements: [
    {
      elementType: "text",
      x: 60, y: 680,
      width: 300, height: 24,
      text: "Confidential — Acme Corp",
      fontSize: 10,
      textColor: "#666666",
      role: "footer"
    }
  ]
})

// The same footer element is created on all 3 slides

Updating Elements

When you ask to “change the title color to white” or “make the body text bigger,” your assistant uses element_bulk_update to modify existing elements. Only the fields you provide are changed — everything else stays the same. You can update up to 50 elements across any slides in the deck in one atomic call.

Parameters

Updatable Properties

Each update object must include elementId and at least one of these properties:

A table accepts only x, y, width, height and zIndex; any other field refuses the whole call with a table's cells, rows, columns and style change through element_update_table; element_bulk_update moves, resizes or restacks it., followed by the fields it refused (see Tables). Resizing a table scales its columns and rows and keeps its text size, and no row shrinks below its text, so the table can come out taller than asked: its result entry's size is the box it came to.

What It Returns

• results — array of results, one per updated element
• Each result includes elementId, updatedFields (list of field names that changed), and overflow info if applicable

Example

element_bulk_update({
  deckId: "deck_abc123",
  updates: [
    {
      elementId: "elem_002",
      textColor: "#FFFFFF",
      fontSize: 44,
      fontFamily: "Playfair Display"
    },
    {
      elementId: "elem_004",
      text: "- Total revenue: **$5.1M**\n- Growth: +22% QoQ\n- New customers: 410",
      textColor: "#F4F6F6"
    },
    {
      elementId: "elem_001",
      fillColor: "#2E4053",
      width: 16
    }
  ]
})

// Response:
// {
//   results: [
//     { elementId: "elem_002",
//       updatedFields: ["textColor", "fontSize", "fontFamily"] },
//     { elementId: "elem_004",
//       updatedFields: ["text", "textColor"] },
//     { elementId: "elem_001",
//       updatedFields: ["fillColor", "width"] }
//   ]
// }

Duplicating Elements

When you say “make two more cards like this one” or “copy the logo onto slide 5,” your assistant uses element_duplicate. It copies elements exactly — rich text, gradient and picture fills, images, chart data, custom geometry and groups — onto the same slide (offset by 20px) or onto another slide in place. Layout elements copy onto layouts the same way; layout placeholders can't be duplicated. A group comes across as a new group when every member is copied. Copies land on top, and a copy of an animated element gets its own build at the end of the slide's sequence.

Parameters

What It Returns

• slides — the target surface and the new elements, in the same shape as element_bulk_create
• elementIdMap — which source id became which new id

Deleting an Element

When you say “remove that subtitle” or “delete the divider line,” your assistant uses element_delete to permanently remove an element from a slide. This cannot be undone, so your assistant will typically inspect the slide first with slide_get to find the right element ID.

Parameters

What It Returns

• success — whether the deletion succeeded
• elementId, type, slideId — confirmation of what was removed

Example

element_delete({
  deckId: "deck_abc123",
  elementId: "elem_003"
})

// Response:
// {
//   success: true,
//   elementId: "elem_003",
//   type: "line",
//   slideId: "slide_002"
// }

Common Properties Reference

These properties can be set when creating or updating elements. Not all properties apply to all element types.

Position & Size

Shape Styling

Text Formatting

Line Properties

Which Tool Will My Assistant Use?

Your AI assistant picks the right tool based on what you ask:

• “Add a title to this slide” → element_create or element_bulk_create to add one or more elements
• “Build a slide with a title bar, accent line, and bullets” → element_bulk_create to create all elements in one step
• “Add a footer to every slide” → element_bulk_create with slideIds to replicate across slides
• “Change the title color to white” → element_bulk_update to modify the existing title element
• “Remove the subtitle” → element_delete to permanently remove it
• “Put our logo on every slide that uses this layout” → element_bulk_create with a layout id in place of the slide id

Related

• Deck Operations — Create and manage presentations
• Slide Operations — Add, inspect, duplicate, and delete individual slides
• Images — Add images from URLs with automatic sizing
• Styling — Colors, fonts, sizes, markdown formatting, and design techniques
• Slide Rules & Roles — Element roles, visual hierarchy, and per-deck rules
• Design Techniques — Color blocks, accent lines, split backgrounds, and more