Slide decks

.slides.md, and Markdown with Slidev front matter

A deck is one Markdown file, and it opens as its slides: the slide titles down the side, the slide on show beside them, and its notes under it. A file is a deck when its name ends in .slides.md, or when its front matter has a deck setting such as theme, layout, colorSchema or aspectRatio — the way a Slidev deck starts. Any other Markdown file opens as a page.

Writing one

---
theme: ocean
title: Third quarter
---

# Third quarter, ==in one page==

<!-- Open with the one number people will remember. -->

---
layout: two-cols
---

# Orders grew in every region

- Shipping time down to <Popup label="2.1 days">from 3.4 days last quarter</Popup>

::right::

| Region  | Orders |
|---------|--------|
| Nordics | 12,480 |

• A line of --- starts the next slide; the lines between two of them are that slide's settings.
• Layouts: cover, intro, section, center, two-cols, end, quote, fact and statement. The first slide is a cover unless it says otherwise; in two-cols, ::right:: starts the right column.
• Themes: dark, light, sunflower, ember, meadow, ocean and dusk — or yellow, orange, green, blue, purple. The front matter sets the deck's, and a section slide with a theme of its own colours every slide up to the next section.
• ==words== are marked in the theme's accent colour.
• <!-- … --> is a note: left off the slide and shown under it.
• <Popup label="…">…</Popup> puts a word in the text that opens a box over the slide when it is clicked. A click elsewhere or Esc closes it.
• Pictures (![](chart.png), a path beside the deck), tables, code, and drawings: an ```excalidraw or ```mermaid block is drawn in place.
• ```timeline (date | event), ```stats (number | caption) and ```cards (title | sentence) blocks lay out a row of dates, big numbers or cards.
• source: in a slide's settings puts its sources in the footer; logo: and logoLink: in the deck's put a logo on the first and the last slide.

The deck's text mode is the Markdown itself, and in a local folder you can edit it there and save with ⌘S.

Moving through it

The arrow keys, PageUp PageDown, Space and Enter go back and forth; Home and End go to the first and the last slide. A click on a title in the side list goes to that slide.

Present shows the slides alone, full screen, one at a time; Esc leaves. While presenting, the pointer is a laser: press and drag anywhere on the slide and a trail follows it, then fades. A click on a popup word or a link still opens it.

Sharing it

Button	What it does
Copy for LinkedIn and Medium	puts the deck on the clipboard as an article: each slide as a picture, its popups, notes and sources under it
Save as PDF	a page a slide, saved to your Downloads folder — ready for a LinkedIn document post

Next: drawings and diagrams.