iA Writer template that turns Markdown document into a simple slideshow
This iA Writer template turns a simple Markdown file into a simple slide deck, as inspired by this Tweet from 2016. It splits the HTML output of a Markdown file into slides by use of the horizontal ruler (<hr> element in HTML, or --- in Markdown):
# Welcome to my slideshow
This is my first slide.
---
This is my second slide!When going into preview mode in iA Writer, each slide is rendered 'full screen'. You can navigate forward by using the → (right), ↓ (down) and ⎵ (space) keys. Navigate back with ← (left), ↑ (up) and ⌫ (backspace) keys.
- Clone this repository or download as a zip
- Double-click the
Slideshow.iatemplatetemplate in Finder
To use the template, do any of these things:
- Select the Slideshow template via the Templates preference pane
- Select it in the menu View > Templates > Slideshow
- When previewing your document, select Slideshow from the toolbar at the bottom of the screen
More information can be found here.
The template was styled around Adelle Sans and MonoLisa. They’re not free and I didn’t include webfont files in this repository. The fallback fonts should look fine. However, if you have access to the following font files, you can put them in the Slideshow.iatemplate/Contents/Resources/fonts folder:
fonts/AdelleSans-Regular.woff
fonts/AdelleSans-Regular.woff2
fonts/AdelleSans-Bold.woff
fonts/AdelleSans-Bold.woff2
fonts/MonoLisa-Regular.woff
fonts/MonoLisa-Regular.woff2
Tip: the Slideshow.iatemplate ‘file’ can be opened like a regular folder by right-clicking it in Finder and choosing Show Package Contents. Remember to reinstall the template after changing its contents.
Does it support Dark mode?
Yes, it does (see Appearance → Dark in preferences).
Can I print my slides?
This template doesn’t support printing to paper or PDF. It will likely throw an error. A simple solution is to choose a (built-in) template that does support printing.
Does it work on iOS?
No, I expect it to break ungloriously.
The slideshow sort of breaks after I edited some text. What gives?
Because Writer tries to sync the preview scroll position with the editor scroll position, the slideshow position and behavior may break. Your best bet is to right-click in the preview and click Reload. Putting the cursor at the top of the editor might also work.
Can I have horizontal sliding?
Horizontal sliding would be cool, but is much harder to implement than vertical sliding, since a browser’s natural behavior is to move vertically (iA Writer preview uses the Safari browser engine).
Why won’t the template respond to changing the text size?
The template is responsive to window size, but ignores zoom/text size settings. The reason is that a presentation is built to balance large font sizes and the right amount of room for content. Adopting variable text sizes would make it harder to find this balance.
Why can’t I...
If you want more features, I can heartily recommend Deckset.