Build a presentation by pasting JSON

Create a whole deck in one step by pasting a JSON document describing each slide.

Building a deck slide by slide in the editor is the right way to finish one and a slow way to start one. Importing gets you to the finishing part: paste a JSON document describing each slide — what kind it is and what it says — and the whole deck is created, laid out and ready to edit.

There are two ways in:

  • On Create presentation, under Paste JSON, the document builds a new deck.
  • In the editor of a deck you already have, Import JSON in the top bar replaces every slide in the draft with the document's. A deck you have already published keeps showing its published version until you publish again.

Use Copy the prompt in either import box to get this format plus the instructions an assistant needs, then describe the deck you want and paste back what it gives you.

You describe slides, not positions. Each slide names a layout and supplies its words; Magpie places the text on the canvas. Once the deck exists, every slide is an ordinary slide — move, restyle and add to it in the editor as usual.

The whole document is checked before anything is saved: if any part of it does not fit the format below, nothing is created or replaced and the problem is reported with the exact slide that caused it.

The document

{
  "title": "Q3 review",
  "theme": { "background": "#ffffff", "text": "#1d1d1b", "accent": "#d04838" },
  "slides": []
}
Field Type Notes
title string, optional Up to 150 characters. If left out, the title typed on the page is used.
theme object, optional background, text and accent, each a hex colour such as #d04838. Any you leave out keep Magpie's defaults.
slides array, required At least one slide, up to 200.

Slides

Every slide takes layout and the fields that layout uses. Fields belonging to another layout are ignored, so give a slide only what its own layout needs.

layout Use it for Required Also takes
title The opening slide heading subheading
section A divider between parts of the deck heading subheading
bullets A point with its supporting points bullets heading
text A point that is a paragraph, not a list body heading
quote Something said by someone quote attribution
blank An empty slide to build on yourself — —
Field Type Notes
heading string Up to 150 characters.
subheading string Up to 300 characters.
bullets array of strings Up to 12, each up to 300 characters. Written without a bullet character — Magpie adds it.
body string Up to 2,000 characters. Newlines are kept.
quote string Up to 1,000 characters. Quotation marks are added around it.
attribution string Up to 150 characters. Written without a dash — Magpie adds it.
notes string Speaker notes, up to 10,000 characters. Never shown to an audience. Any layout can have them.
hidden boolean true to keep the slide in the deck but skip it when presenting.
background string A hex colour for this slide only, overriding the theme.

Keep bullets short. Six or fewer are set at a comfortable reading size; past that the text is set smaller to fit, which is a sign the slide should be two.

A complete example

{
  "title": "Q3 review",
  "theme": { "background": "#ffffff", "text": "#1d1d1b", "accent": "#d04838" },
  "slides": [
    { "layout": "title", "heading": "Q3 review", "subheading": "Sales and product, July to September" },
    { "layout": "section", "heading": "Where we got to" },
    {
      "layout": "bullets",
      "heading": "What shipped",
      "bullets": ["Store went live in four countries", "Invoices now chase themselves", "Boards got public suggestions"],
      "notes": "Spend the most time on Store — it is the one they asked about last quarter."
    },
    {
      "layout": "text",
      "heading": "What slipped",
      "body": "The mobile app moved to Q4. The calendar work it depends on took six weeks rather than three."
    },
    { "layout": "quote", "quote": "We stopped keeping the roadmap in three places.", "attribution": "A customer, September" },
    { "layout": "title", "heading": "Questions" }
  ]
}

If an import is rejected for a reason you can't work out, Contact support.

Updated September 13, 2026

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