Change the look

A theme chooses the fonts and overall style. A palette chooses a set of colors. You can change either without rewriting your slides.

Choose a theme#

Put the theme name under design in the settings at the very top of your file:

Example

---
design: neue
palette: paper
---

If you already have a settings block there, change the existing lines rather than adding a second block.

Name to use	What it looks like
`neue`	Clear, simple type and generous space
`aurora`	A modern look with geometric shapes and color accents
`duet`	Two accent colors for contrasting ideas
`editorial`	A book-like look with serif headings
`fhnw`	The FHNW visual identity
`terminal`	A dark look with lettering like a computer terminal

Choose colors#

Set palette to one of these names:

Light palettes	Dark palettes
`paper` — white and neutral	`dark-slate` — cool and restrained
`sage` — muted green	`dark-ember` — warm highlights
`mono` — black and white	`dark-neon` — vivid highlights
`terra` — warm earth colors	`dark-mono` — dark monochrome

Leave out palette to use the theme's own colors.

Pick your own accent color#

The accent is the color used for highlights. You can set it directly:

Example

---
design: neue
palette: paper
accent: "#2455c7"
---

The value beginning with # is a color code. Many color pickers let you copy this value. Keep the quotation marks around it. Themes that use a second accent also accept accent2.

Try a look before saving it#

Open the presenter view:

In your terminal

mdeck present my-talk.md

Its appearance controls let you try themes and colors. These changes are a preview: they do not save back to your text file. Once you find a look you like, put its settings in the file and save.

Add your name and organization#

Example

---
design: neue
meta:
  title: "A place to grow"
  author: "Alex Morgan"
  organization: "The garden team"
  date: "12 June 2026"
---

The text on the title slide still comes from the heading you write on that slide. The settings above supply information for the slide's header and footer.

You can also add logo: ./img/logo.png inside the meta group.

Control headers and page numbers#

These settings go at the top level of the deck settings, alongside design:

Setting	Choices	Usual behavior
`institution`	`title`, `all`, `none`	Organization appears on the title slide
`authorDate`	`title`, `all`, `none`	Author and date appear on the title slide
`pageNumbers`	`slides`, `all`, `none`	Numbers appear after the title slide
`sections`	`all`, `none`	Section labels appear when provided

Change the slide shape#

The usual shape is widescreen, with a width of 1920 and height of 1080. For a classic 4:3 shape, set:

Example

width: 1920
height: 1440

Check your slides after changing their shape. A layout that fit before may need fewer words or a different picture crop.