Posterskill — AI-Generated Academic Conference Posters from Your Paper

Posterskill is a Claude Code skill that generates print-ready conference posters from your paper. Point it at your Overleaf source and project website — it extracts content, downloads figures, fetches logos, and builds an interactive poster you can edit in your browser. Single HTML file, no build step, no dependencies.

*Source: GitHub - ethanweber/posterskill

Claude Code Skills Docs*

The Problem It Solves

Making conference posters is tedious. You’ve already written the paper — why manually re-layout the content into PowerPoint or a LaTeX poster template? Posterskill reads your paper directly and generates a structured, visually coherent poster draft that you then refine interactively.

How It Works

Your Overleaf Paper     Project Website URL
       ↓                       ↓
   /make-poster (Claude Code skill)
       ↓
   Extracts text, figures, tables, logos
       ↓
   Generates poster/index.html
       ↓
   Open in browser → drag, swap, resize
       ↓
   Copy Config JSON → paste back to Claude
       ↓
   Claude refines → repeat until perfect
       ↓
   Print to PDF (margins: none, background graphics: on)

Quick Start

# Clone the skill and your paper
git clone git@github.com:ethanweber/posterskill.git poster && cd poster
git clone https://git.overleaf.com/YOUR_PROJECT_ID overleaf

# Optionally add reference posters for style matching
cp ~/some_poster.pdf references/

# Start Claude Code and run the skill
claude
/make-poster

Interactive Editing Features

The poster is a self-contained HTML file with a built-in visual editor:

Feature	How
Resize columns	Drag column dividers
Resize cards	Drag row dividers within columns
Swap cards	Click one diamond handle, then another
Move cards	Click handle, then click a drop zone
Adjust font size	A-/A+ buttons (global control)
Print preview	Preview mode shows exact print layout
Save layout	Export as JSON, reload later
Load layout	Paste JSON back to Claude for refinement

Programmatic API

Available in browser console or via Playwright automation:

posterAPI.swapCards('method', 'results')   // swap two cards
posterAPI.moveCard('quant', 'col1', 2)     // move card to position
posterAPI.setColumnWidth('col1', 280)      // resize column (mm)
posterAPI.setFontScale(1.5)                // adjust text size
posterAPI.getWaste()                       // measure whitespace
posterAPI.getConfig()                      // get full config JSON

Claude uses Playwright under the hood to measure image aspect ratios, auto-optimize column widths, take screenshots for verification, and generate PDFs at full print resolution.

Inputs

Input	Source	Required
Paper	`overleaf/` directory	Yes
Project website	URL (asked at runtime)	Yes
Reference posters	`references/` directory	No — for style matching
Author website	URL for brand/style matching	No
Formatting specs	Conference instructions URL	Asked if missing
Logos	Auto-downloaded from your website	Auto

How LearnAI Team Could Use This

Research methods courses — have students generate and refine posters from papers they are already writing.
Poster design workshops — teach visual hierarchy, column proportions, whitespace, and figure selection through hands-on editing.
AI collaboration studies — observe the loop of AI-generated draft, human layout edits, JSON feedback, and Claude refinement.
Conference prep support — help students and researchers move from paper draft to poster draft faster.

Real-World Use Cases

Researchers — turn a completed paper into a print-ready poster draft before a deadline.
Graduate students — get a professional starting point for first-time poster presentations.
Course instructors — integrate poster creation into project-based research classes.
Academic labs — standardize poster workflows while preserving manual control over final content and layout.