Show HN: Slide – an open-source plain text presentation maker

I'm working on something that given a markdown file with a specific marker "---" splits it into slides and opens your browser with an impress.js version of your slides.

Is this something that interests you? The project is private but I may open source it sooner.

Also, written in Python

My Favorite of the bunch after finding Deckset unfulfilling is keydown[1]. It is easy to setup and easy to customize the CSS per slideshow or per project. It is not the best in terms of documentation, but the deck.js documentation has been sufficient where keydown hasn't been helpful. Hasn't been updated in years, but I haven't found anything it doesn't do that I need it to.

[1]https://github.com/infews/keydown

Have you tried Pandoc[0]? It's the best, simplest solution I've been able to find for writing content in Markdown, and then almost trivially exporting that same content into PDF manuscripts, or PDF presentations, or HTML presentations, or more, without having to change the source content. It seems to be increasingly popular in academia for handling class notes/slides/papers all in one go. It can have good citation processing with cite-proc [1]. One of my favorite things about it is, if you know you're just going to be exporting to a specific filetype like HTML or LaTeX, you can just plain throw in code for that language directly into the Markdown, and Pandoc will run/include it.

(shameless plug alert) I wrote a super-simple Makefile script for using Pandoc, called acadoc [2]. It lets you call "make beamer", "make manuscript", "make html_presentation", etc., in a directory with Markdown files to turn them all into whatever presentation/manuscript/paper/etc. you want. The key thing, though, is that for LaTeX presentations/etc. it uses an intermediary "style/manuscript.tex" file to customize how you want your resulting LaTeX to look -- so if you want the same content, but decide the presentation looks better with white-on-black instead of black-on-white, you only need make a few changes and create a "style/manuscript_dark.tex", copy-paste that style in the Makefile, and now you can call "make manuscript_dark". It's meant to be quick and easy to use, and theoretically easy to add new recipes to.

If you want some more serious power about multiple document-type exporting, check out the links in the Acknowledgements section of Acadoc, shown here:

- https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2014/01/23/plain-text/ - http://jeromyanglim.blogspot.com/2012/07/beamer-pandoc-markd... - https://github.com/timtylin/scholdoc - http://scholarlymarkdown.com/

(Yes, I know LaTeX styles/stylesheets are a thing, but I've never taken the time to learn them, nor figure out if they can do all the custom formatting a regular .tex stylization file can do.)

[0] http://pandoc.org/

[1] https://github.com/jgm/pandoc-citeproc

[2] https://github.com/asoplata/acadoc

I didn't see any .org files in that repo, do you have them available anywhere? I'd love to see specifically how it's done.

Not really, but here's what I've just made on my phone in five minutes (don't think of it as of a "serious" presentation, I just wanted to show how exported slides look like):

http://www.slideshare.net/SergeZaitsev/slide-201606051659

The raw PDF is available on Google Drive - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bztexa2TJWdcdlZXRk1MSTVoNj...

The text I typed on my phone to make this presentation is:

    #SLIDE
    
    #make a presentation
    (even if you got no time to make one)
    
    content *is* important
    
    #Takahashi
    #method
    
    • short text
    • big font
    • many slides
    
    @http://www.magic4walls.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/two-lines-between-black-and-white-circles-minimalism-wallpaper.jpg 140% top
    minimal

    #opensource
    http://github/trikita/slide

    #Feedback
    #appreciated!

The theme is the default white-on-black theme.

Probably using Keynote instead of PowerPoint. While Keynote can export to PPT, the result is not satisfactory. Usually Keynote presentations are exported as PDF instead.

Even today, there are issues with fonts and the like causing issues with PowerPoints made on a Mac running in Windows. It's not being snooty - it's the very real fear that something will go wrong. For any Mac users who have had that happen to them, it's very embarrassing. It is more common with embedded figures and things like that for fonts to go all wonky. Even a PDF export doesn't always go well. General rule of thumb - the more complicated your slides, the greater the likelihood that things will go wrong.

Blank sheet syndrome. It simply is several orders of magnitude easier to work on well-known problems than to first find a new problem nobody else has even thought of yet. For the same reason I prefer refactoring ("optimizing") my code again and again instead of implementing things on the TODO list...

Slide can be an option for people with different mindset - like some people prefer Markdown for documentation, while others are happy Word or Writer. Also Slide is a mobile app, so it's suitable for last-minute presentation makers, who do it on a plane, when using a laptop may be inconvenient.

I find editing of a slide on Powerpoint or Impress to be cumbersome. I'm going to take a closer looks at this Slide tool but I currently use Reveal.js [1]

I can just open up the HTML on any browser, no need to install some specific application. I can edit the file in a text editor and do a Ctrl+F to find any piece of text to change. Overall I just find it simpler.

Also, I usually just want an image and some text. When I see presentations done well in Powerpoint with arrows and parts animated, it is very impressive and I'm sure that would be harder to do in React. I just find that for technical presentations I find it distracting more than anything else.

1. http://lab.hakim.se/reveal-js/#/

My main issues with impress are that I like a Text based Format which give nice diffs between slides and that I like to copy slides from one presentation to another, probably using a different style. This always Breaks in impress.

Thanks for the feedback! Slide is not something we're selling or trying to make profit of (in any form - no ads, no spying, no analytics, open source). We made a few presentations with it for internal company meetings, but that was mostly just text that I find very boring to share.

Below in this thread there is an example of a slide text, PDF and SlideShare upload. It should give an impression of how it looks like and how it works.

I agree that a presentation on the web site would make more sense, but I can't think of a good idea for the presentation, while some fake artifical example is not much different from what you see on the screenshots.

Finally, once you open the app - it starts with a quick tutorial which is a presentation itself. It was supposed to be a quick start for new users, as well as an example.

Thanks, I understand your point, and I sincerely don't want it to become a thread of infinite disagreement. But text slides can be helpful.

I often use just text. I rarely use images (no kittens or meme picures, images are good only if they really illustrate what you're saying). My slides are just text, lists and short code blocks.

(for the company meetings I use whiteboard instead of slides more and more often. I illustrate what I speak about in real time and keep people's attention. And I illustrate only when I see people don't follow my words).

People are good creatures, but we are so easily distracted. If someone missed what I just said and I have text slides - he may look at a slide and get the idea.

Also, people are bad a multitasking. If you are saying one thing and slide describes something additional or even different - people will lose their focus. If your audience could close their eyes and not fell asleep - they would be able to get 100% of what you are telling them. But they keep their eyes open. Their eyes focus on you, or their neighbors in the audience, on their phone screens or watches etc. It distracts. Having large, short, clear slides keeps their focus on what you're saying.

So right, it all depends on the audience, how they are interested in your presentation topic and how well you perform on the stage.

I find text slides to be frustrating when listening, but that's mostly because it highlights how mind-bogglingly slowly they're usually talking.

Also, I find it invaluable to have the slides able to stand on their own if I need to go back or missed the presentation. Even if the presentation was recorded (which doesn't seem to be the case, typically) in high quality (which seems to be even more rare), I find it much easier to just skim through the parts of the text that I care about.

I agree that presenters should put most of their effort into their verbal presentation. But also having the essence of what's being said displayed as text is a good enhancement. Comprehension and retention is improved when information is conveyed in multiple forms (e.g. audibly and visually). The combination can be particularly useful when the presentation is not in the audience member's first language. Also in the video you linked to, the presenter was speaking and displaying English which is not his first language and while he's quite fluent, his accent might be a barrier to some in the audience, one that may be overcome by displaying the essential points. The text can also help the hard-of-hearing.

This seems like an opportune moment to suggest technical presenters take a look at Prof. Shewchuk's missive: http://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~jrs/speaking.html

I'm in no way affiliated with him, just found his rant online. I think his points apply to a lot of technical presentations (though certainly not all).

Another helpful resource is "The Craft of Scientific Presentations": http://www.amazon.com/Craft-Scientific-Presentations-Critica...

The bottom line is that the tool itself is probably less relevant than we think it is, though I agree with Tufte that text-intensive Powerpoint is great way to do your critical points grave disservice.