Make your first presentation

You will make a small text file, open its preview, and change your first slide. If mdeck is already installed on your computer, skip straight to “Make a slide file.”

Set up mdeck once#

mdeck needs Node.js and npm on your computer. Install Node.js (version 22 or newer); npm comes with it.

Open a terminal. A terminal is an app where you type short commands: Terminal on macOS, or PowerShell on Windows. A text editor may also have a Terminal menu.

Run these two commands, one at a time. The first tells npm where FHNW publishes mdeck; the second installs it:

In your terminal

npm config set @tilman.schieber:registry https://gitlab.fhnw.ch/api/v4/packages/npm/
npm install -g @tilman.schieber/mdeck

You normally do this only once. To update later, run the second command again.

Check that the command is ready:

In your terminal

mdeck --help

If your computer does not recognize npm or mdeck, see When something goes wrong.

Make a slide file#

Make a folder for your talk. Open it in a plain-text editor, and save a new file called my-talk.md. Use a text editor rather than Word or Pages. If your editor asks, choose plain text.

The .md ending means the file contains Markdown: ordinary text with a few marks that say “this is a heading” or “this is a list.” You will learn those marks as you use them.

Paste this into the file:

Example

# My first presentation

Hello, everyone!

---

# Three things to remember

- Start with one idea.
- Show a helpful example.
- Leave time for questions.

Save the file. Make sure its name ends in .md, not .md.txt.

Open the preview#

In a terminal opened in your talk's folder, run:

In your terminal

mdeck dev my-talk.md

Your browser opens the presentation. Press the right arrow key to move to the second slide, and the left arrow key to go back.

Keep the terminal open while working. If the browser does not open, click or copy the local address shown in the terminal. It usually starts with http://localhost:5173/.

Make a change#

Change “My first presentation” to the title of your own talk. Save the file. The browser reloads with your new title.

That is the everyday workflow: write, save, and look at the preview. When you are finished, press Ctrl+C in the terminal to stop it.

Prefer a starting point?#

Instead of making the file yourself, run:

In your terminal

mdeck new

mdeck asks for a file name, a theme, colors, and some starting slide layouts. Press Enter to accept a suggested answer. Replace the example words in the new file with your own.

The starter may mention a logo image. Add that image, or remove the logo: line if you do not want a logo.

Next, learn how to write your slides or choose a layout.