Slide Deck

Slide Deck

Turn a Markdown note into a slide deck and export it to PDF or a PNG image series, with live readability checks.

Deutsch

Features

• Theme isolation — slides render inside a sandboxed iframe, so the active Obsidian theme never leaks into the preview or the exports. A deck looks identical regardless of the vault theme.
• Nine built-in themes — the Nordstern set: shiro 白 (light, default), kuro 黒 (dark), sumi 墨 (true-black, high-contrast), kairo 回路 (dark, cyan), kurenai 紅 (dark, red); plus the crimson 紅 family in four modes (crimson-dark, crimson-dark-lc, crimson-light, crimson-light-lc), which adds a serif display face over a mono body and a faint scanline the low-contrast modes dim. Selected per deck via the theme: frontmatter key; each carries a matching code-highlight and Mermaid theme. Legacy 0.4.x keys (default, dark, serif, high-contrast) still work — they resolve silently to their Nordstern successor.
• Live theme switcher — the preview toolbar has a theme dropdown for ephemeral try-on, a source label (from frontmatter / from default / ● unsaved) that shows where the active theme comes from, and a Set button that writes theme: directly into the note's frontmatter. Frontmatter is the source of truth; the Settings default applies only to notes without a theme: key.
• User themes — drop .css files into a configurable themes folder (default Slide-Deck-Themes/); the frontmatter theme: value is the filename without the .css extension. Each file is a --sd-* token block with optional extra CSS on top of the plugin's design system (type scale, spacing, rhythm) — a 7-token theme already looks finished; user themes inherit the shiro theme's code-highlight and Mermaid styles unless overridden. See the theming guide. The Settings tab shows all valid theme keys live.
• Theme import/export — an Open in Finder button reveals the themes folder so you can drop files in; Export theme as .css writes any theme as an editable .css starting point; a toggle hides the themes folder in Obsidian's file explorer.
• Nine per-slide templates — default, title, section, quote, image-focus, two-column, columns-3, stat, cover-image — set per slide with a layout directive (an HTML comment); columns are separated by a column directive, and in multi-column templates the leading heading spans all columns. See the layout guide.
• Combinable density modifiers — add compact (tighter type) or code-heavy (smaller code) to any template in the same layout directive.
• Smart layout inference — with no explicit directive, the layout is inferred from content shape: a lone heading becomes section, a lone block quote becomes quote, a lone image or diagram becomes image-focus, and column splits pick two-column / columns-3. An explicit layout directive always wins.
• Deck slots — header:, footer:, and paginate: frontmatter keys render as floating corner slots on every slide (pagination shows n / N).
• Media that fills and centers — block images and Mermaid diagrams occupy the available space, horizontally and vertically centered and scaled to fit (object-fit: contain), for both Obsidian embeds (![[…]]) and standard Markdown images.
• Sparse slides compose vertically — slides with little content are vertically centered instead of clinging to the top.
• Markdown notes → slides — separate slides with a line containing only ---; YAML frontmatter controls theme, aspect ratio, and font floor per note.
• Live preview pane — renders the current note as a slide deck in a side panel, scaled to pane width, with a click-to-source link on overflow warnings.
• Fit-or-warn readability — each slide auto-scales content down to a configurable legibility floor (minFontPx); slides that would need smaller text are flagged as overflowing instead of becoming unreadable.
• Custom CSS — an optional CSS snippet in Settings is appended to the deck styles in both preview and exports, for branding or tweaks.
• PDF export — renders all slides at their native resolution; on desktop, triggers the system print dialog (choose "Save as PDF"); on mobile (iOS/iPadOS), writes a self-contained HTML file and opens it via the OS so you can print or share to PDF from there.
• PNG image-series export — captures each slide via modern-screenshot and writes numbered PNGs into a configurable export folder (Settings, default Slide-Deck-Export/); typographically accurate inter-word spacing.
• Mobile support — runs on iOS/iPadOS (Obsidian Mobile); all desktop-only APIs are platform-guarded.
• KaTeX math — inline and display math ($…$ / $$…$$) rendered by KaTeX.
• Code highlighting — fenced code blocks highlighted by highlight.js, per-theme.
• Accessible callouts — Obsidian-style > [!note], [!warning], [!danger], [!tip], [!info] blocks rendered with redundant coding: border color + geometric shape + visible label word (not color-only; satisfies WCAG 1.4.1).
• Mermaid diagrams — fenced ```mermaid ``` blocks rendered as SVG, per-theme.
• EN/DE interface — all UI strings follow Obsidian's language setting (English canonical, German supported).

Screenshots

The note and its projection. The deck renders in a side panel and carries the toolbar: theme picker, where the active theme comes from, and the two export paths.

Nine built-in themes. The same slide in each — only colour, type and accent change; the structure is theme-independent.

Nine per-slide templates. Set one with a layout directive, or let the layout be inferred from the slide's shape.

Fit-or-warn. A slide that would need text below the legibility floor is flagged in the preview instead of being silently clipped.

Accessible callouts. Meaning is carried three ways at once — border colour, geometric shape, and a visible label word.

Settings. The tab lists every valid theme: value live, including themes you drop into the themes folder yourself.

Click the preview for the full-resolution image.

Requirements

• Obsidian ≥ 1.13.0 (the settings tab uses the declarative settings API introduced in 1.13.0)
• Desktop + Mobile (isDesktopOnly: false) — runs on desktop (Windows, macOS, Linux) and on mobile (iOS/iPadOS); desktop-only APIs are platform-guarded.
• Desktop PDF export uses the system print dialog — choose "Save as PDF" in the printer dropdown. It does not produce a PDF file directly.
• Mobile PDF export writes a self-contained HTML file into the export folder and opens it with the OS default app; from there you can print or share to PDF. The file name is <export-folder>/<note-name>.html.
• PNG export writes files into a configurable export folder (Settings → Slide Deck → Export folder, default Slide-Deck-Export/). PDF export on desktop goes through the system print dialog, where you choose the location.

Install

Community Plugins (intended channel)

Planned: once accepted into the Obsidian community plugin registry it will be installable via Settings → Community plugins → Browse → search "Slide Deck".

Manual install

1. Download main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css from the latest release.
2. Create the folder .obsidian/plugins/slide-deck/ inside your vault.
3. Copy the three files into that folder.
4. In Obsidian: Settings → Community plugins → Installed plugins — enable Slide Deck.

BRAT (Beta Reviewers Auto-update Tool)

1. Install the BRAT plugin.
2. In BRAT settings, add https://git.jkaindl.de/jkaindl/slide-deck (or its GitHub mirror https://github.com/johannes-kaindl/slide-deck).
3. Reload Obsidian.

Build from source

git clone https://git.jkaindl.de/jkaindl/slide-deck.git
cd slide-deck
npm install
npm run build          # produces main.js
cp main.js manifest.json styles.css /path/to/vault/.obsidian/plugins/slide-deck/

Usage

1. Open a Markdown note and separate slides with a line containing only ---.
2. Run Open presentation preview (command palette) — the deck renders in a side panel and updates as you edit. Slides that overflow are flagged there rather than silently clipped.
3. Set theme, aspect ratio and font floor per note in the YAML frontmatter:

---
theme: shiro
aspect: "16:9"
minFontPx: 24
header: My talk
paginate: true
---

# First slide

---

# Second slide

4. Export with Export presentation to PDF or Export presentation to image series. PDF prints the isolated deck directly on desktop; on mobile a self-contained HTML file is written to your export folder and handed to the OS, where you print or share it as PDF.

Per-slide layout is chosen with a layout directive — an HTML comment on its own line:

<!-- layout: two-column compact -->

# Heading spanning both columns

Left column content.

<!-- column -->

Right column content.

Omit the directive and the layout is inferred from the slide's shape. The full template and modifier reference is in the layout guide.

Configuration

Plugin settings

Per-note frontmatter

Add a YAML frontmatter block at the top of your note to control presentation-level settings:

---
theme: kuro
aspect: 16:9
minFontPx: 24
header: My talk
footer: ACME Corp
paginate: true
---

Slide layout & syntax

Nine per-slide templates (default, title, section, quote, image-focus, two-column, columns-3, stat, cover-image), combinable density modifiers (compact, code-heavy), the layout and column directives, and smart layout inference are documented in the Slide layouts & syntax guide.

Slide separator

Use a line containing only --- to split slides:

---
theme: shiro
aspect: 16:9
---

# Slide 1

Content here.

---

# Slide 2

More content.

Note: the --- in the YAML frontmatter block is the standard YAML delimiter and is not a slide separator.

How it works

1. Parsing — the active note's Markdown is split on --- lines into individual slide bodies. A YAML frontmatter block (if present) sets deck-level directives.
2. Fixed canvas — each slide is rendered onto a fixed canvas: 1280×720 px (16:9) or 960×720 px (4:3). The canvas size does not change with window size.
3. Theme isolation — slides render inside a sandboxed iframe with the chosen theme's styles injected directly. The active Obsidian theme does not reach inside the iframe, so the deck looks identical in preview, PDF, and PNG regardless of vault theme.
4. Fit-or-warn — each slide's content is measured in the DOM. If it exceeds the canvas, the content is scaled down uniformly. Scaling stops at minFontPx (the legibility floor). If the content would still overflow at that scale, the slide is flagged with a warning in the preview pane rather than scaled further.
5. Export — the same theme-isolated iframe artifact feeds all export paths: the print pipeline (PDF) and per-slide modern-screenshot (domToCanvas) capture (PNG). On desktop, PDF is printed via contentWindow.print(); on mobile, a self-contained HTML file is written to the vault and handed to the OS via openWithDefaultApp.

Network use (local AI)

The Generate presentation from note command sends note content to an OpenAI-compatible LLM endpoint that you configure (default http://localhost:1234, i.e. a local LM Studio). No cloud service is involved unless you point the endpoint at one — the settings tab holds an ordered list of endpoints, tried in order, and each row can carry its own optional API key, so a local server and a hosted provider (e.g. OpenRouter) can sit side by side in the same list.

• Reachability pings and model lists are requested when you open the generation dialog or the settings tab. These are automatic requests to the configured endpoint(s).
• Note contents are sent only when you press "Generate".
• No telemetry, no analytics, no third-party services.

Server CORS

Streaming runs over XMLHttpRequest under the Obsidian origin, so the endpoint must allow cross-origin requests. LM Studio's CORS toggle must be on; Ollama needs OLLAMA_ORIGINS=app://obsidian.md (or *). If the endpoint answers the reachability ping but refuses the stream, the plugin automatically falls back to a non-streaming request (you lose the live token view, but the deck still generates).

License

Code: AGPL-3.0-or-later. Documentation: CC BY-SA 4.0. Author: Johannes Kaindl — https://jkaindl.de