# Gift Guide

Source content and build pipeline for "How To Get Your Stories In Front Of The Readers
Who Need Them" — the lead-magnet PDF given away at reground.org/gift. Kept in its own
repo because this content changes on its own schedule, independent of the reground-site
deploys.

Styled to match reground.org's dark theme (background, heading, and CTA colors are
pulled directly from that site's CSS).

## One-time setup

You need `pandoc` and `weasyprint` on your `PATH`. Both are already used elsewhere on
this machine; nothing else to install.

## Building a PDF

```sh
make template.pdf              # the generic/base version
make partners/<slug>.pdf        # a specific partnership's version
make                            # rebuilds template.pdf + every partners/*.md that exists
make clean                      # removes generated PDFs (never touches the .md sources)
```

`make` finds the source `.md` file automatically from the `.pdf` name you ask for, so
building any filled-in template is just naming the PDF you want.

## Building slides

For recording a screen-share walkthrough of the guide, the same markdown builds
a PowerPoint deck instead of a PDF:

```sh
make template.pptx              # slide deck for the base version
make partners/<slug>.pptx        # a specific partnership's deck
make slides                      # template.pptx + every partners/*.pptx
```

Pandoc turns each `##` heading into its own slide, matching the "one step per
page" layout of the PDF. If you want scripted talking points per slide, add a
`::: notes` ... `:::` fenced div under a heading — pandoc exports those as
speaker notes rather than slide body text.

Pandoc's pptx writer doesn't read `style.css` (pptx isn't HTML-based), so the
slide theme instead comes from `reference.pptx` — a PowerPoint file whose
slide master carries the colors and fonts, built once by hand-editing its
theme XML to mirror `style.css`'s dark background, heading blue, body text,
and accent colors, plus Roboto/Open Sans fonts. Edit it in PowerPoint/Keynote/
Google Slides (or its `ppt/theme/theme1.xml` and
`ppt/slideMasters/slideMaster1.xml` directly) if the slide theme ever needs to
diverge from or resync with the PDF's.

## Starting a new partnership

```sh
cp template.md partners/<slug>.md
```

Edit the new file's title (front matter) and rewrite the opening/closing copy to bridge
your angle with the partner's audience — the 3 Step sections and their photos are
generally reusable as-is. Then:

```sh
make partners/<slug>.pdf
```

## Notes

- The photos in `images/` (4 extracted from the original PDF, plus `intro-reader.jpg`
  sourced from Pexels) are intentionally generic/illustrative (not specific to any one
  partnership) and don't need to change per customization.
- `template.html` renders the cover (title + byline + author photo) from the document's
  YAML front matter — you don't need to hand-write that part in the body of each `.md`
  file, just update the front matter.
- `style.css` is the single source of truth for the visual theme. Edit it once and
  `make all` rebuilds every partner PDF with the change.
- The closing block's `:::: {.closing .columns}` / `::: {.column} :::` structure
  matters for slides: pandoc's pptx writer silently drops an image if it shares a
  plain div with paragraph text, but keeps it in a two-column div. `.closing .column`
  in `style.css` flattens those columns back to a centered stack for the PDF, so the
  printed page looks the same as before. Keep that structure when editing the
  closing copy — a plain `::: {.closing}` div will make the author photo disappear
  from the slide deck.
