Skill: presenterm

Create and manipulate presentations for presenterm - a markdown-based terminal slideshow tool.

Quick Reference

Presentations are plain markdown files. Run with:

bash

presenterm slides.md

Use --present for presentation mode (disables hot reload). Use -x to enable code execution.

Slide Structure

Front Matter (optional intro slide)

yaml

---
title: "My **Presentation**"
sub_title: Optional subtitle
author: Author Name
---

Multiple authors use authors: with a YAML list.

Slide Separator

Slides are separated by the end_slide comment command. Do NOT use --- (thematic breaks) as slide separators unless end_slide_shorthand is configured.

markdown

First slide content

<!-- end_slide -->

Second slide content

Slide Titles

Use setext-style headers for slide titles (rendered centered with special styling):

markdown

My Slide Title
===

Or the underline variant:

markdown

My Slide Title
---

Comment Commands

All special behaviors use HTML comment syntax. Key commands:

Command	Purpose
`<!-- end_slide -->`	End current slide, start new one
`<!-- pause -->`	Reveal content incrementally on keypress
`<!-- jump_to_middle -->`	Center following content vertically
`<!-- new_line -->`	Insert explicit blank line
`<!-- new_lines: N -->`	Insert N blank lines
`<!-- incremental_lists: true -->`	Auto-pause between list items
`<!-- no_footer -->`	Hide footer on this slide
`<!-- skip_slide -->`	Exclude slide from presentation
`<!-- alignment: center -->`	Set text alignment (left/center/right)
`<!-- include: file.md -->`	Include external markdown file
`<!-- font_size: 2 -->`	Set font size 1-7 (kitty terminal only)
`<!-- speaker_note: text -->`	Add speaker notes
`<!-- // comment -->`	User comment (ignored during rendering)
`<!-- column_layout: [2, 1] -->`	Define column layout
`<!-- column: 0 -->`	Switch to column N
`<!-- reset_layout -->`	Exit column layout
`<!-- list_item_newlines: 2 -->`	Spacing between list items

Column Layouts

Define columns with proportional widths, then write content into each:

markdown

<!-- column_layout: [2, 1] -->

<!-- column: 0 -->

Left column content (2/3 width)

```python
def hello():
    print("hi")

Right column content (1/3 width)

Content below columns spans full width.

code


Use `[1, 3, 1]` to center content in the middle 60%.

## Code Blocks

### Syntax Highlighting

Standard fenced code blocks with language identifiers. Over 50 languages supported.

### Line Numbers

````markdown
```rust +line_numbers
fn main() {
    println!("Hello");
}

code


### No Background

````markdown
```python +no_background
print("clean look")
```

Dynamic Highlighting

Highlight different line subsets on each keypress using | separator:

markdown

```rust {1-3|5-7|all} +line_numbers
struct Config {
    name: String,
    value: u32,
}

impl Config {
    fn new() -> Self { ... }
}
```

Selective Highlighting

Highlight only specific lines (no animation):

markdown

```rust {2,4}
fn example() {
    let important = true;    // highlighted
    let boring = false;
    let also_important = 42; // highlighted
}
```

Code Execution

Mark blocks executable with +exec. Requires -x flag or config to enable.

markdown

```python +exec
print("Hello from Python!")
```

Press ctrl+e during presentation to execute.

Hiding Lines

Hide boilerplate while still executing it. Prefix depends on language:

•Rust: lines starting with #
•Python/bash/go/js/ts/c/c++/etc: lines starting with ///

markdown

```rust +exec
# fn main() {
println!("Only this shows");
# }
```

External Code Files

markdown

```file +exec +line_numbers
path: code.rs
language: rust
start_line: 5
end_line: 15
```

Execute and Replace

+exec_replace runs automatically and replaces the block with output. Requires -X flag.

Images

Standard markdown image syntax. Supported in kitty, iterm2, wezterm, ghostty, foot, and sixel terminals.

markdown

![](path/to/image.png)

Text Formatting

Standard markdown: bold, italic, ~~strikethrough~~, inline code, links.

Colored text via <span> tags:

markdown

<span style="color: red">Red text</span>
<span style="color: #ff0000; background-color: black">Custom colors</span>
<span class="my_class">Using theme palette class</span>

Themes

Set via Front Matter

yaml

---
theme:
  name: dark
---

Built-in Themes

dark, light, terminal-dark, terminal-light, tokyonight-storm, gruvbox-dark, catppuccin-latte, catppuccin-frappe, catppuccin-macchiato, catppuccin-mocha

Preview all: presenterm --list-themes

Theme Overrides in Front Matter

yaml

---
theme:
  override:
    default:
      colors:
        foreground: "beeeff"
---

Custom Theme Files

Place .yaml files in ~/.config/presenterm/themes/ to make them available by name.

Speaker Notes

Define with . Use two terminal instances:

bash

# Main presentation
presenterm slides.md --publish-speaker-notes

# Speaker notes viewer (separate terminal)
presenterm slides.md --listen-speaker-notes

Multiline notes:

markdown

<!-- 
speaker_note: |
  First point to mention
  Second point to mention
-->

Common Patterns

Section Separator Slide

markdown

<!-- end_slide -->

<!-- jump_to_middle -->

Section Title
===

<!-- end_slide -->

Incremental Bullet Points

markdown

<!-- incremental_lists: true -->

* First point
* Second point
* Third point

Side-by-Side Code and Image

markdown

<!-- column_layout: [3, 2] -->

<!-- column: 0 -->

```python
def process(data):
    return transform(data)

code


## Docs & Examples

- Full documentation: https://mfontanini.github.io/presenterm/
- Example presentations: https://github.com/mfontanini/presenterm/tree/master/examples
- Demo presentation: https://github.com/mfontanini/presenterm/blob/master/examples/demo.md
- Theme definitions: https://github.com/mfontanini/presenterm/tree/master/themes