Getting started

Install

Go 1.27.2 or later:

go install github.com/go-slides/slides/cmd/slides@latest

slides is one static Go binary with no cgo: nothing else to install, no Node, no Chrome. This page describes v0.3.0.

A first deck

Any Marp deck is one. Save this as talk.md:

---
marp: true
theme: default
paginate: true
footer: "{{ .talk }}"
data:
  talk: Pure Go slides
  topics: [Why, How, Next]
---

<!-- _kind: title -->
# {{ .talk }}

{{ range .topics }}
---

# {{ . }}
{{ end }}

The front matter is Marp’s, plus data:. The body is a Go template: the range writes one slide per topic, each starting with ---, and the first slide is of the built-in kind title (no header, no footer, no page number).

Build it

slides talk.md                 # writes talk.html beside the deck
slides -o slides.html talk.md  # or somewhere else; -o - for standard output

slides with no command is slides build. Flags may come before or after the deck. Open the HTML in a browser; the keyboard moves between slides.

Export images, PDF, PPTX and ODP

slides talk.md --pdf                  # one page per slide, with an outline
slides talk.md --images png           # talk.001.png, talk.002.png, …
slides talk.md --image jpeg           # the first slide only
slides talk.md -o out/slides.pdf      # the extension picks the format; out/ is created
slides talk.md --images jpeg --jpeg-quality 90
slides talk.md --images png --image-scale 2   # 2560×1440 for 16:9
slides talk.md --pdf --allow-local-files      # images from under the deck's directory
slides talk.md --pptx                         # or -o talk.pptx: one picture per slide, with notes
slides talk.md --odp                          # or -o talk.odp: the same, as OpenDocument

No browser is involved: go-webengine renders the slides and go-pdfkit writes the PDF. Local images are refused unless --allow-local-files is given. The slides of a PPTX or ODP are pictures with the speaker notes attached, not editable text, as in marp-cli. A PDF holds one image per slide, so it is larger than a vector PDF. See Command line.

Expand it

slides expand talk.md

prints the same deck as plain Marp Markdown (output of main at 4ae5c49, 2026-10-18):

---
marp: true
theme: default
paginate: true
footer: "Pure Go slides"
---
<!--
_class: "lead"
_footer: ""
_paginate: "false"
-->


# Pure Go slides


---

# Why

---

# How

---

# Next

The four slides the range generated, the footer with its value, and the title kind replaced by the spot directives it stands for. Anything that reads Marp — marp-cli, the VS Code extension — can take it from there, so nothing written with go-slides' additions is locked in.

Next

• Marp compatibility: what is read the way Marp reads it.
• Templates and Kinds: the two additions.
• Command line: every command and flag.