The guide previously leaned on generic stock photos of strangers for each
step, which didn't match reground.org's actual visual identity (color,
type, and voice carry the brand everywhere else on the site — no stock
imagery appears anywhere but the author's own photo). Removed all stock
photos; the only photo left is the real author headshot on the cover and
closing page, which also got a real cleanup (tighter crop, better contrast,
reduced glasses glare) and a bug fix (it was rendering as an oval instead
of a circle since width/height were never equal).
Since nothing forces per-step pages anymore, the PDF's h2 sections now flow
continuously instead of each getting its own page-break — a short guide
with no photos to fill a page reads better as continuous pamphlet-style
prose than as a sparse slide-per-page export. Each step keeps a short
pull-quote (verbatim line from its own paragraph, styled in the brand
blue/teal) for visual rhythm instead. Net effect: 6 pages -> 3 pages, no
blank/orphaned space. The pptx keeps one section per slide, since that
format is for narrated screen-share recordings where the presenter's voice
fills the space a printed page can't.
Also rewrote the closing CTA: "Get a Free Strategy Session" was generic
coaching-industry boilerplate that could belong to anyone's funnel. The new
copy and button use the guide's own vocabulary instead.
The intro was the only slide/page without a graphic. Shortened it to two
sentences and added a matching photo, and dropped the CSS rule that let
Step 1 share a print page with the intro (needed now that the intro has
its own image and deserves a full page like every other section).
Same markdown now also builds a PowerPoint deck (make slides /
make template.pptx) alongside the existing PDF, for recording
walkthrough videos. Styling comes from reference.pptx since pandoc's
pptx writer ignores style.css; its theme was hand-tuned to match the
PDF's dark palette and fonts.
Restructure the closing block into a two-column div so the author
photo survives in slide exports (pandoc drops images sharing a plain
div with paragraph text), with a CSS override so the PDF keeps its
original centered layout.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Converts the lead-magnet PDF from a Google Slides export into an editable
markdown template, styled to match reground.org's dark theme, with a
Makefile convention (make partners/<slug>.pdf) for producing per-partnership
customized versions.
will