About this design
Where the Oxford Style style comes from, and what it signals.
Oxford Style is an Oxford presentation template modelled on the handout you pick up at the lecture-room door. The signature is the handout section slide: paragraphs numbered 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 so you can point to one in a tutorial, and short italic glosses in a margin column level with the text they explain. A running head carries the lecture title and week of term. It is an unofficial homage with no affiliation, license or endorsement from the University of Oxford.
The colours come from Oxford's published identity. Oxford blue #002147 goes on titles, rules and the title page. Viridian #15616D keys the margin notes and picks out the period under discussion in charts, with stone grey, ash grey and off white behind. Every line from title to footnote uses Lora, the Google font the University names as its alternative to Athelas.
You follow a term's rhythm: the lecture list for weeks 1 to 8, numbered sections, a source read line by line, one captioned figure, the debate, and the essay question with its reading list. Use these Oxford-style lecture slides for humanities and social science teaching, or any talk where your audience should leave with something to read.
Use it for
- University lectures in history, law, philosophy and the social sciences
- Tutorial and seminar preparation with an essay question and reading list
- Close reading of a primary source, poem or legal text with line glosses
- Public lectures and alumni talks that need an academic register
- Course introductions that lay out a term's lectures week by week
Skip it for
- Business school teaching built around a protagonist and a decision; Harvard Style follows the case method
- Maths and science talks full of theorems and equations; Seminar gives you Beamer-style theorem boxes
- Presenting a published paper at journal club; Research Paper marks up the reprint in red pen
The presentation design prompt
This is the exact text that gets sent to your AI.
Create a presentation in the 'Oxford Style' theme, an unofficial homage to the Oxford lecture and tutorial register, built like a printed lecture handout. Background: white (#ffffff) on content slides; Oxford blue (#002147) fills the title slide and the essay panel. Typography: 'Lora' (Google Fonts) throughout. Slide titles 500 weight, 28 to 32px, #002147, sentence case, prefixed with the section number ('2. Enclosure by agreement'); title slide 48 to 52px white; body 400 at 15 to 16px in charcoal #211D1C, line-height 1.55; marginal notes Lora italic 12 to 13px in ash grey #61615F; running head and folio italic 12px #61615F. Signature layout on every content slide: a running head (lecture title left, term and week right) over a 1px #002147 rule; a main column about 610px wide; a 1px stone grey #D9D8D6 vertical rule; a margin column about 220px wide holding italic glosses, each placed level with the paragraph it comments on and keyed in semibold viridian #15616D to that paragraph number, line number or bar label; a centred page number. Title slide: #002147 field, course name in italic sky blue #B9D6F2, lecture title in white, a short 1px sky blue rule, lecturer and college; on the right the term's lecture list, weeks 1 to 8, the current week in white semibold with a 2px white left rule, the others in #B9D6F2 at reduced opacity. Handout section slide: paragraphs numbered 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 with the number hung in a 30px column in semibold #002147. Close reading slide: a primary source set on off white #F2F0F0 with a 2px #002147 left rule, line numbers in 11px #61615F every fifth line, a citation caption in italic below, and margin glosses keyed 'l. 2', 'l. 6'. Figure slide: one chart per slide, bars in #002147, the period under discussion in viridian #15616D, further series in umber #89827A and sky blue #B9D6F2, values written above each bar, a 1px charcoal baseline, no gridlines, no legend box, and a caption beginning 'Figure 1.' in italic 12.5px. Debate slide: two facing columns ('The optimist reading', 'The pessimist reading') under 1px #002147 rules, author and year references in brackets. Essay slide: left #002147 panel with the essay title as a white italic quotation followed by 'Discuss.', word count and deadline by week of term; right a reading list with hanging entries, essential items marked by a viridian asterisk and a key beneath. Square corners, 1px rules. Strictly avoid: crimson or red accents, full-width header bars, rounded cards, drop shadows, gradients, icons, clipart of spires or gowns, all-caps labels, bullet points where numbered paragraphs fit, sans-serif body text, crests, coats of arms, university logos or wordmarks, and any claim of affiliation with or endorsement by the University of Oxford.
Use this theme for my slides. Ask me what the presentation is about first, then apply the theme to every slide.View this prompt and its data on GitHubHow to use this prompt
From copied text to a finished Oxford Style deck in four moves.
- 01
Copy the prompt
Use the copy button, or open it pre-filled in Claude or ChatGPT with one click from the panel on this page.
- 02
Tell the AI your topic
The prompt instructs the AI to ask what your presentation is about first. A sentence or a pasted outline is enough.
- 03
Generate and iterate
Ask for more slides or swap a layout. The avoid list at the end of the prompt keeps Oxford Style on-style while the content changes.
- 04
Or skip straight to a deck
SlideSpeak turns your topic or document into a finished Oxford Style presentation, exportable as PowerPoint or PDF.
Common questions
Working with the Oxford Style presentation design prompt in practice.
