Making IG carousel posts with Claude

A Claude account and a phone or computer

• A Claude account (the free plan is fine)
• On your phone, download Claude App or on your computer open claude.ai
• No design skills, no coding

Copy this prompt, fill in the blanks, send it

Same on phone or computer, just paste it into the Claude chat box.

You are an IG content strategist.
My account is about ___(your niche, for example nail art tutorials)
My audience is ___(your audience, for example women aged 20-35 who want to learn nail art)
Style leans ___(professional / friendly / minimal)
Make me a set of 7 IG carousel slides:
1. Write the copy first, the topic is:___
   Slide one needs a headline that grabs attention
   The last slide carries the call to action
   Keep each slide under 30 characters
2. Then turn the copy straight into HTML carousel cards
   Each card 1080x1350px (the 4:5 ratio IG carousels use)
   Use a bold serif font
   Text big enough to fill the frame, not much empty space
   Style:dark background, big white text(or any style you want)
   Bottom right corner: @your handle
3. Export them as PNG, highest quality you can

Generate on your phone → download the PNGs

Everything happens on the phone, with no computer screenshots.

1. Open the Claude App on your phone and paste the prompt above (keep the last line, export them as PNG, highest quality you can)
2. Claude gives you the PNG files in the chat, one by one
3. Open each file and tap Download. On a phone the image opens in the system preview, and you save it to your photos from there
4. Once all 7 are saved, open IG and pick those 7 for one carousel post

Claude has a feature called "Code execution and file creation" that makes the image files for you. It is on the Free, Pro and Max plans, works on the web, the desktop app and the mobile app, and is switched on by default.

No PNGs? Tell Claude "export this set as PNGs again, one by one". Still nothing, go to Settings, then Capabilities, and check that "Code execution and file creation" has not been turned off (in the mobile app, tap your name in the left sidebar to open Settings). If that does not help either, take the backup route below.

Claude on your phone + the Canva App

Phone only, no computer needed.

1. Paste the prompt into the Claude App on your phone and have it write the copy only (no HTML cards needed)
2. Download Canva App (free), search for IG carousel templates
3. Pick a template you like and paste in the copy Claude wrote
4. Adjust the colors, fonts and background image
5. Download straight from Canva → upload to IG

You are an IG content strategist.
My account is about ___(your niche)
My audience is ___(your audience)
Style leans ___(professional / friendly / minimal)
Write me the copy for a 7 slide IG carousel
Topic:___
Slide one needs a headline that grabs attention
The last slide carries the call to action
Keep each slide under 30 characters
I will lay it out in Canva so give me text only

Download the Canva App: iOS / Android (the free plan is plenty)

Upload an image to use as the background

For Option A: upload an image you like to Claude, then say:

Use this image as the background
Add a semi-transparent dark overlay
Keep the text readable

Free image libraries: Unsplash, Pexels (English keywords work better)

Claude, Python 3 and Playwright

• Claude Code, or claude.ai plus saving the file yourself
• Python 3 and Playwright (for the automated screenshots), installed step by step in steps 2 to 4
• A Mac. Every command in this guide was actually run on a Mac. Windows commands are a bit different and were not tested here, so on Windows the easiest route is to ask Claude Code to install things for you

The downloads take a little while, but once it is installed you never redo it. After that, every new carousel is just step 1 and step 5.

Step 1　Have Claude generate the HTML file and save it in a new folder

Make a new folder on your Desktop called ig-carousel (right-click in Finder and choose New Folder). Every file from here on goes in this folder.

Then paste this prompt into claude.ai or Claude Code:

Make me an HTML file for a 7 slide IG carousel
Each card is a div with class="card", sized 1080x1350px
Load Noto Serif TC (headlines) and Noto Sans TC (body) from Google Fonts
Background a solid color or gradient, dark
Topic:___
Style reference: dark background, big white text, gold accent #fbbf24
Text big enough to fill the frame
Add page-break-after: always to every div
Give me the full HTML so I can save it as a .html file

Step 2　Open Terminal and check that python3 is there

Press Cmd + Space, search for Terminal and open it. First move into the folder you just made:

cd ~/Desktop/ig-carousel

This prints nothing, and the prompt at the start of the line changes to ig-carousel %, which means you are now inside that folder. Next, check python3:

python3 --version

If you see a version number you are good. On the Mac used for testing it printed Python 3.9.6. Your number may differ, that is fine: both 3.9 and 3.14 were tested and everything below worked. If you got a version number, go straight to step 3.

If this Mac has never had the developer tools installed, typing python3 pops up a window asking whether to install the command line developer tools:

Click Install, then Agree on the license that follows, and the Mac downloads and installs the tools by itself. How long it takes depends on your connection. When it says it is done, go back to Terminal and run python3 --version again. Once a version number shows up, carry on.

Step 3　Make a Python environment just for this folder

First give this folder its own virtual environment (venv). Playwright gets installed inside this folder instead of into the system Python. Type these two lines in order:

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

The first line creates a hidden folder called .venv and prints nothing. The second line steps into that environment, and afterwards the prompt starts with (.venv), like this:

(.venv) ig-carousel %

If you see (.venv), you are set. One thing to remember: closing Terminal takes you out of the environment, so next time cd into the folder first and run the source line again.

Step 4　Install Playwright and the browser it screenshots with

Check that the prompt starts with (.venv), then type these two lines in order:

python3 -m pip install playwright
python -m playwright install chromium

The first line downloads Playwright itself. When you see a line starting with Successfully installed that includes playwright, it is installed. The version number changes over time; on Python 3.9 the test install got 1.60.0. If a yellow WARNING follows saying a newer pip is available, ignore it, it does not affect anything below.

The second line downloads the browser Playwright uses for screenshots, about 260 MB in total, so give it a moment. When the last line says downloaded to, it is done. You only do this once.

If you already use uv, you can skip the venv

If uv (a Python package manager) is installed on your computer, you can skip steps 3 and 4 and type:

uv run --with playwright python -m playwright install chromium
uv run --with playwright python screenshot.py

uv sets up the environment for you and then runs the command. Both routes were tested and gave the same 7 images. uv is a separate install, so if you have not used it, just follow the venv route above.

Step 5　Save the screenshot script and run it

Save the script below as screenshot.py in the ig-carousel folder, next to carousel.html:

from pathlib import Path
from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

folder = Path(__file__).parent
html = folder / "carousel.html"
output = folder / "output"
output.mkdir(exist_ok=True)

with sync_playwright() as p:
    browser = p.chromium.launch()
    page = browser.new_page(viewport={"width": 1080, "height": 1350})
    page.goto(html.as_uri())
    page.wait_for_load_state("networkidle")
    cards = page.query_selector_all(".card")
    for i, card in enumerate(cards):
        card.screenshot(path=str(output / f"slide-{i+1}.png"))
    print(f"Done. {len(cards)} images in the output/ folder")
    browser.close()

As long as screenshot.py and carousel.html sit in the same folder, there is no path to edit. Once it is saved, type this in Terminal:

python3 screenshot.py

It prints "Done. 7 images in the output/ folder", and a new output folder appears holding 7 PNGs at 1080x1350, ready to upload to IG. In testing it took about 3 seconds from pressing Enter to having all 7 images.

The three commands to render a new set

With everything installed, a new set goes like this: have Claude write a new carousel.html over the old one, then open Terminal and run:

cd ~/Desktop/ig-carousel
source .venv/bin/activate
python3 screenshot.py

The new PNGs overwrite the old ones with the same names in output. If the new set has fewer slides, the extra old images stay behind, so if you want to keep the previous set, rename or move the output folder before running.

How it differs from the basic path

• Custom fonts: any Google Font, no longer capped by Claude's defaults
• Precise layout: CSS controls every margin, color and type size
• Batch output: change the copy, rerun once, no re-screenshotting
• Background images: no compression, as sharp as the original
• Consistency: every carousel matches, which builds brand recognition

Fully automatic with Claude Code

If you have Claude Code, one prompt can run the whole flow:

Make me an IG carousel, the topic is "___",
use HTML+Playwright to generate 1080x1350 PNGs,
dark background, white text, gold accents, background image from Unsplash,
font Noto Serif TC, save the screenshots to /tmp/carousel/

Claude Code writes the HTML, downloads the background image, runs Playwright and produces the PNGs. You just wait for the result. You can hand it the installs in steps 2 to 4 as well, just tell it "install Playwright for me".

Terms used in this guide