Build Your Presentation Slides from Markdown with Slidev

Ever spent more time fighting with presentation software than actually writing your talk? You’re not alone. For developers, the process of formatting slides, tweaking layouts, and embedding code snippets can feel like a distraction from the real work: sharing knowledge.

What if you could write your slides like you write your documentation—in clean, simple Markdown—and have them transform into a beautiful, interactive presentation? That’s exactly what Slidev offers. It’s a tool built by developers, for developers, that turns Markdown files into presentation slides with a focus on the technical workflow.

What It Does

Slidev is a web-based slides maker and presenter. You write your content in a Markdown file, and Slidev generates a fully-featured, presentable slide deck in your browser. It handles the styling, layout, and speaker tools, while you focus on the content. It’s like having a static site generator, but specifically for presentations.

Why It’s Cool

The magic of Slidev isn't just in converting Markdown to slides—it’s in the developer-centric features baked in.

• Code-Centric by Design: It has first-class support for code snippets with syntax highlighting, live coding windows, and even the ability to run code blocks during the presentation.
• Theming and Customization: You can use built-in themes or create your own with Windi CSS, and customize layouts on a per-slide basis with a simple frontmatter.
• Presenter View: It includes a built-in presenter mode with speaker notes, a timer, and a preview of upcoming slides.
• Export Flexibility: Once your deck is ready, you can present directly from the browser, export to PDF, or even build it into a static site to host online.
• Vue Under the Hood: Since it’s powered by Vite and Vue 3, you can use Vue components directly in your slides for advanced interactivity and customization.

In short, it treats a slide deck like a development project—which is exactly how many of us think.

How to Try It

Getting started is straightforward. You can kick the tires in your browser in seconds, or set it up locally for a real project.

The quickest way is to use the online starter at sli.dev. Just start typing in Markdown and see your slides update live.

To build a full presentation locally, you can create a new project with npm:

npm init slidev@latest

Follow the prompts, and you’ll have a project with a sample slides.md file. Run npm run dev to start the local server and begin editing. The documentation is comprehensive and walks you through all the features, from basic syntax to advanced component usage.

Final Thoughts

Slidev hits a sweet spot for technical presentations, docs, and internal talks. It removes the friction of traditional slide builders and lets you work in a format that’s already second nature. If you’ve ever pasted a code snippet into a slide only to spend ten minutes fixing the font and colors, this tool is for you. It’s practical, powerful, and feels like it was built for the terminal-first crowd.

Give it a shot for your next stand-up demo, meetup talk, or conference presentation. You might just find that building the slides becomes the easiest part.

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