Share or print your slides

Send slides to someone#

The quickest way to share slides with people who were not in the room:

mdeck build my-talk.md --share --self-contained -o my-talk.html

Send my-talk.html by email. It opens in a reader view: an outline of all slides on the left, the slides in the middle, a Read mode that stacks every slide for scrolling on a phone, a Look menu to try other themes and colors, a Download PDF button, and a Present button that opens the full-screen deck.

• Your speaker notes are removed from a --share build. Add --with-notes to keep them in the file, for example when you also present from the same link. Readers only see notes if you put share: with notes: true in the settings at the top of your slide file.
• The PDF is made while building, using Chrome or Chromium on your computer. If neither is found, the button offers the browser's own "Save as PDF" dialog instead. Set MDECK_CHROME to the browser's path if it is installed somewhere unusual.
• Leave out --self-contained to get a folder with the HTML, the media files and deck.pdf side by side, which stays smaller when the talk has videos.
• To stop recipients changing the look, put share: with themes: false in the settings at the top of your slide file.

Anyone who opens a normal build can reach the reader view through the small Overview link in the corner, or by adding ?view=share to the address. Likewise ?view=presenter opens the presenter view of any build, as long as the notes were kept in the file.

Make a PDF on its own#

mdeck pdf my-talk.md
mdeck pdf my-talk.md -o handout.pdf

Each slide becomes one page at the slide's own size, with real text you can search and copy.

While you write, mdeck reads your text file. To send the presentation to someone else, build it: ask mdeck to make a browser-ready version of your talk.

Make a folder you can share#

mdeck build my-talk.md

mdeck creates a folder called dist. It contains index.html and the local pictures, videos, and audio files the presentation uses.

Send the whole folder, not just index.html. You can compress the folder into a ZIP file first. This option is usually best for talks with large videos.

Building again updates the output. Keep your original slide file and pictures outside dist, because mdeck replaces the build output.

Make one HTML file#

If you need one file to transfer, use:

mdeck build my-talk.md --self-contained -o my-talk.html

Here, -o means “save the result with this name.” The file contains the presentation and embedded local media. Videos become larger when embedded, so a folder is often more convenient for a video-heavy talk.

The recipient can open the HTML file in a modern browser. External websites, online videos, and downloadable tools such as live Python still need a network connection. Fonts may look slightly different because this mode uses the theme's system-font alternatives.

Make a PDF#

Open the built presentation in your browser. Choose Print, then Save as PDF. Each slide becomes a page. Turn off the browser's own headers and footers if they appear.

A PDF is useful for reading or printing. Videos and interactive activities do not run in it.

Present without installing mdeck#

You can include small launchers with a folder build:

mdeck build my-talk.md --presenter-launchers

The folder then includes present.sh for macOS/Linux, and present.bat plus present.ps1 for Windows. These start a local web server and open the presenter view. The other computer needs Python 3 and a modern browser.

Use this with a folder build; it cannot be combined with --self-contained.

Put the presentation on a website#

The built folder can be hosted as an ordinary static website. Upload its contents together so the relative image and video paths keep working. Every build contains every view; the address picks it: ?view=deck, ?view=share, ?view=presenter or ?view=audience. The short forms ?v=d, ?v=s, ?v=p and ?v=a mean the same.

Building does not publish anything automatically. Uploading or deploying the files is a separate step with your hosting provider.

Check before sharing#

Open the final result, try its images and videos, and make sure the whole talk is there. If you expect to be offline, test without an internet connection.

Remember that speaker notes are included in the presentation file, even though they are hidden on the audience screen. Remove anything confidential before building a public copy.