Pdf Playground

A Claude Code plugin for creating professional, print-ready documents. Designed for newsrooms, nonprofits, and organizations that need proposals, reports, one-pagers, newsletters, slides, and event materials.

Configure your organization's colors, fonts, and branding once, then generate on-brand documents every time.

Codex support

Codex can use the shared document-design skill through the tested standards-based project path. From the project where you want to use it, run:

npx --yes skills@latest add jamditis/claude-skills-journalism --skill document-design --agent codex --copy -y

Invoke it with $document-design. This route includes the skill's relative templates, brand examples, control assets, and CSS reference. The eight /pdf-playground:* commands and the SessionStart hook remain Claude Code-only; they are not part of the Codex support claim. For project branding in Codex, run this from the project root, then customize the copied file:

cp .agents/skills/document-design/brands/default.yaml pdf-playground.local.md

Before you start

You need Claude Code installed and working on your computer. Claude Code is a command-line tool made by Anthropic, it runs inside your terminal (the black window where you type commands).

Not sure if you have it? Open your terminal and type:

claude --version

If you see a version number, you're good. If you get an error like "command not found," you need to install Claude Code first: Install Claude Code

Setup (one time)

Step 1: Add the plugin source

Open your terminal and run this command exactly as shown:

claude plugin marketplace add https://github.com/jamditis/claude-skills-journalism

What this does: It tells Claude Code where to find this plugin. You only need to do this once. Think of it like adding a new app store to your phone.

If you get an error:

• Make sure you're connected to the internet
• Make sure you typed the URL exactly, no extra spaces, no missing letters
• Try running claude --version to confirm Claude Code is installed

Step 2: Install the plugin

claude plugin install pdf-playground@claude-skills-journalism

What this does: It downloads and installs the PDF Playground plugin.

If you get an error:

• Make sure step 1 completed without errors first
• The part before the @ is the plugin name (pdf-playground), and the part after is the source (claude-skills-journalism). Type the whole thing as one word with no spaces.

Step 3: Restart Claude Code

Close your Claude Code session and open a new one. The plugin loads when Claude Code starts, so you need a fresh session for it to appear.

That's it, you can start creating documents now. Brand customization (below) is optional.

Updating

To get the latest features and fixes:

claude plugin update pdf-playground@claude-skills-journalism

Then restart Claude Code (close and reopen).

You can also run /pdf-playground:update inside Claude Code to check your version and update automatically.

How to tell if you need an update

If you see any of these, you probably need to update:

• The preview opens without a control panel sidebar
• Commands reference features that don't seem to work
• Claude mentions your plugin version is outdated

Creating documents

Once the plugin is installed, open Claude Code and type any of these commands:

After Claude generates your document, it saves an HTML file in your current folder. To turn it into a PDF:

1. Open the HTML file in Chrome (or any Chromium-based browser)