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Task Guide: Designing an Urban Electric Tramway Proposal Deck

Alpha status (14 October 2026): XiSlides is planned and its public installer is not verified. This page describes the checked DeckCraft foundation; XiKey integration is still in progress. Alpha is free today.

Scenario Overview

In this guide, you will design a 24-slide municipal transport briefing deck proposing a zero-emission Light-Rail & Electric Tramway Corridor. You will build a custom Slide Master with consistent civic branding, construct a station-interchange schematic using editable shapes and connectors and routed vector connectors, animate a phased rolling-stock timeline using Morph transitions, and sequence callouts in the Animation Pane.

Step 1: Configure Widescreen Geometry and Slide Master Layouts

  1. Create a new presentation (Ctrl+N) and open Design › Slide Size to verify 16:9 Widescreen.
  2. Switch to View › Slide Master:
    • On the root Master slide, define the theme color palette (Deep Slate #182634, Tram Emerald #1E8A5E, Signal Amber #E08E26, Warm Alabaster #F7F6F2) and set the heading/body font pair.
    • Add a persistent vector corridor line along the bottom footer with a Slide Number field and manually maintained section label.
    • Customize two child layouts: Corridor Map + KPI Sidebar and Before / After Street Cross-Section.
  3. Exit Master View to return to Normal View, and organize the deck into four collapsible sections in the Thumbnail Rail (1. Corridor Vision, 2. Station Architecture, 3. Rolling Stock & Headways, 4. Capital Phasing).

Step 2: Build the Multimodal Hub Diagram with Shapes and Connectors

  1. Add a slide using the Corridor Map + KPI Sidebar layout and press Shift+F9 to show Gridlines and Alt+F9 to enable Smart Guides.
  2. Draw four labelled shapes and connect them to show construction stages: Utility Relocation → Track Slab Pour → Charging Pads → Signal Commissioning. Imported SmartArt is not a full editable diagram model.
  3. Below the phasing bar, draw three rounded station nodes (Regional Rail Concourse, Low-Floor Tram Platform, Protected Cycle Hub) and link them using Insert › Connectors › Elbow Arrow Connector. Because connectors snap to shape connection points, nudging any station node (Arrow keys for 6 pt or Alt+Arrow for 1 pt) automatically re-routes the connecting arrows.

Step 3: Animate Street Cross-Sections with the Morph Transition

  1. On Slide 11 (Current 6-Lane Arterial), draw the cross-section components as named vector shapes: Left Sidewalk, Traffic Lanes West, Center Median, Traffic Lanes East, and Right Sidewalk.
  2. Duplicate Slide 11 (Ctrl+D) to create Slide 12 (Proposed Green Tram Boulevard).
  3. On Slide 12, resize Center Median into a wide grass-track tramway bed, narrow the outer car lanes, and expand the cycle tracks and tree canopy shapes.
  4. With Slide 12 selected, go to Transitions › Morph and set Duration to 1.20 s. During playback, XiSlides smoothly interpolates the position, width, color, and opacity of matching shapes; preview the result between Slide 11 and Slide 12.

Step 4: Sequence KPI Callouts in the Animation Pane

  1. On Slide 15 (Peak-Hour Ridership Forecast), select the three callout cards (4,200 pax/hr/dir, 90-second signal priority, -38% corridor noise).
  2. Open Animations › Wipe (From Bottom) and open the Animation Pane:
    • Set Card 1 to On Click (Duration: 0.35 s).
    • Set Cards 2 and 3 to After Previous with a 0.15 s delay so all three metrics cascade cleanly on a single click.

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