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pengjunchi0/codex-visio-paper-figure-skill

23PowerShellAudience · researcherComplexity · 3/5Setup · hard

TLDR

A PowerShell-based skill for AI coding assistants that guides converting static paper figures and PNG screenshots into fully editable Microsoft Visio files using native shapes and Visio's COM automation API.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((codex-visio-paper-figure-skill))
    Purpose
      Figure reconstruction
      PNG to vsdx
      Native editable shapes
    Workflow
      Analyze figure
      Map coordinates
      Draw shapes
      Validate output
    Tech
      PowerShell
      Visio COM API
      OpenAI Codex
    Audience
      Researchers
      Paper authors
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Code map

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Convert a PNG screenshot of a neural network architecture diagram from a research paper into an editable .vsdx Visio file with native shapes you can modify.

USE CASE 2

Rebuild a model architecture figure from an arXiv paper as a Visio diagram to customize colors, reorder blocks, and update labels before reusing in your own publication.

USE CASE 3

Use the included PowerShell scaffold helpers to have Codex draw rectangles, arrows, and text at specific coordinates in a new Visio page.

Tech stack

PowerShellMicrosoft VisioCOM AutomationOpenAI Codex

Getting it running

Difficulty · hard Time to first run · 1h+

Requires Windows with Microsoft Visio installed, the COM automation layer will not work without a licensed Visio installation.

No license information was mentioned in the explanation.

In plain English

This repository is a skill for OpenAI Codex, the AI coding assistant, that helps researchers convert paper figures into editable Microsoft Visio diagrams. The core use case is a researcher who has a PNG screenshot, a reference image, or an AI-generated model architecture diagram and needs it rebuilt as a .vsdx file made of native Visio shapes rather than a flat image paste. The distinction matters in academic work: a .vsdx file with native rectangles, arrows, text boxes, and groups lets an author change colors, reorder blocks, update labels, and adjust spacing before submitting or publishing. Embedding the original PNG instead looks the same at first glance but cannot be edited at the element level. The skill defines a structured workflow for Codex to follow. It starts with analyzing the reference figure to identify panels, modules, arrows, dashed feedback lines, repeated elements like heatmap grids or node sequences, and any text that must be reproduced exactly. It then maps pixel coordinates from the reference image to Visio page coordinates and calls Visio's COM automation API to draw each element as a native shape. A separate validation step checks that the final .vsdx contains no large embedded image files, that all text remains editable, and that the layout matches the reference. The repository includes two PowerShell scripts. One is a utility for backing up .vsdx files, exporting page previews as PNG, and inspecting the internal package structure of a .vsdx file. The other is a scaffold that provides helper functions for drawing rectangles, ovals, lines, arrows, and text at specified coordinates, giving Codex a starting point for writing a rebuild script. The default style settings follow academic paper conventions: Times New Roman font, 0.9 to 1.2 point borders, low-saturation background colors, and consistent arrow styles. The tool runs on Windows with Microsoft Visio installed, since the COM automation layer requires Visio to be present.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Using the codex-visio-paper-figure-skill scaffold, write a PowerShell script that uses Visio COM automation to draw a transformer architecture with encoder and decoder blocks, multi-head attention arrows, and labeled feed-forward layers at specified coordinates.
Prompt 2
I have a PNG of a paper figure showing a 3-stage pipeline. Using the Visio skill helpers, generate a PowerShell script to recreate it as native Visio shapes with editable text labels and academic paper arrow styles.
Prompt 3
Run the validation step from codex-visio-paper-figure-skill to check that my rebuilt .vsdx file contains no embedded images, all text is editable, and the layout matches my reference figure.
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