# ✨ LinkedIn Carousel Generator

A complete application that automatically generates professional, highly visual LinkedIn carousels from simple text or articles using Google's **Gemini 3 Pro** (for advanced reasoning and content structuring) and **Gemini 3 Image** (for high-quality, style-consistent backgrounds).

Built with **Python**, **Streamlit**, and the latest **Google GenAI SDK**.

---

## 🚀 Features

- **Automated Content Generation**: Extracts key points from any text or article and structures them into a compelling multi-slide narrative optimized for LinkedIn.
- **AI Image Generation**: Dynamically creates unique, high-quality background images tailored to the content of each slide using Gemini's image models.
- **Consistent Styling**: Supports multiple visual styles or a custom user-uploaded reference image to maintain brand consistency across all slides.
- **Auto-Formatting**: Automatically overlays text, headlines, and code snippets onto the generated backgrounds using Python Pillow.
- **Cost Estimation**: Provides real-time token and cost estimation for transparency.
- **Multi-Language Support**: Generate carousels in over 10 different languages.
- **Export Ready**: Download all generated slides as a ZIP file, ready to be converted to PDF and posted directly to LinkedIn.

## 🛠️ Tech Stack

- **Frontend**: [Streamlit](https://streamlit.io/)
- **AI Models**: Google Gemini (via `google-genai` SDK)
- **Image Processing**: [Pillow (PIL)](https://python-pillow.org/)
- **Deployment**: Docker & Docker Compose

---

## 📦 Getting Started

### Prerequisites

- A **Google Gemini API Key**. You can get one from [Google AI Studio](https://aistudio.google.com/).
- **Docker** and **Docker Compose** (Recommended) or **Python 3.10+** (for local development).

### Option 1: Running with Docker (Recommended)

The easiest way to run the application is using Docker Compose.

1.  **Clone the repository** (if you haven't already) and navigate to the project directory:
    ```bash
    cd linkedin-carousel-generator
    ```

2.  **Run the application**:
    You can either export your API key first or pass it inline:
    ```bash
    export GOOGLE_API_KEY="your_api_key_here"
    docker compose up --build -d
    ```
    *Alternatively, you can provide the API key later through the web UI.*

3.  **Access the app**:
    Open your browser and navigate to [http://localhost:8501](http://localhost:8501).

### Option 2: Local Python Setup

1.  **Navigate to the app directory**:
    ```bash
    cd linkedin-carousel-generator/linkedin_carousel_app
    ```

2.  **Create a virtual environment**:
    ```bash
    python -m venv venv
    source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows, use `venv\Scripts\activate`
    ```

3.  **Install the dependencies**:
    ```bash
    pip install -r requirements.txt
    ```

4.  **Run the application**:
    ```bash
    streamlit run app.py
    ```

---

## 🏗️ Project Structure

```text
linkedin-carousel-generator/
├── Dockerfile                  # Container definition for the app
├── docker-compose.yml          # Compose file for easy deployment
├── .dockerignore               # Files to exclude from Docker builds
├── linkedin_carousel_app/      # Main application source code
│   ├── app.py                  # Main Streamlit UI and execution logic
│   ├── generator.py            # Integration with Google Gemini for Text & Images
│   ├── styles.py               # Configuration for visual styles and layouts
│   ├── utils.py                # Helper functions (Image formatting, fonts, etc.)
│   └── requirements.txt        # Python dependencies
└── README.md                   # Project documentation
```

## 💡 How to Use

1. **Enter API Key**: Open the settings sidebar and paste your Gemini API Key if you haven't set it via environment variables.
2. **Paste Text**: In the main area, paste the article, blog post, or ideas you want to convert into a carousel.
3. **Configure**: Select an output language and visual style (e.g., Tech Minimalist, Bold Gradient).
4. **Generate**: Click "Generate Carousel". The app will first break down your text into slides, and then generate imagery for each one concurrently.
5. **Download**: Once finished, preview the slides in the app and click the download button to get a ZIP archive of your completed carousel. 

*(Tip: To post on LinkedIn as a swipeable carousel, convert the downloaded images into a single PDF document first).*