Typora Presentation Mode & Themes

[jhildenbiddle]

This may seem well outside the scope of a markdown editor/viewer, but stick with me for a moment...

Evernote has a very interesting "Presentation Mode" that Typora could easily mimic (it’s worth checking out if you haven’t seen it). It’s basically a full-screen + large-text + distraction-free view of a document in read-only mode with the mouse pointer presentation changed to emulate a laser-pointer. It sounds a little gimmicky at first, but the truth is a well-formatted markdown document can easily replace a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation.

Typora could leverage its ability to create themes for the application to allow “Editor Themes” and “Presentation Themes”, giving users and theme authors full control over how their editor and presentations look. A new “Presentation Mode” would then simply mean switching to a full-screen, read-only mode using the selected presentation theme.

[waahto]

I feel that this is a bit outside the scope as you said :) However, you can already 1) use fullscreen, 2) change the cursor (https://davidwalsh.name/css-custom-cursor) and 3) export to html if you insist on being read-only.

[jhildenbiddle]

The use case (which happens daily for me) is that for those of us who keep tidy notes in Markdown format, the document is often perfectly suitable to share in meetings on a large screen or projector. I believe I could accomplish the visual tweaks I need by 1) toggling full-screen mode and 2) manually switching to a custom theme (type scaled using vw units, horizontal rules set to emulate page/section breaks using CSS, etc.)

Thanks for the feedback. If/when I get around to creating the presentation theme, I'll be sure to share it with the community.

[elizhenning]

I don't see the need for this and I think it would be UI clutter. There are other apps specifically designed for Markdown slides, some of which have MathJax functionality. I like Swipe.to

[jhildenbiddle]

Thanks for the suggestion, @elizhenning . I'll give Swipe.to a look.

[vassudanagunta]

My Viewer Mode comment moved to #710

[frankgerhardt]

I use reveal-md to present. Can edit in any md editor.

[vassudanagunta]

@frankgerhardt reveal-md does not address what people are asking for in this issue. It requires you to move your content into reveal-md's format. It doesn't work as a reader/presentation mode for any markdown files.

[kundeng]

This is not a bug but Typora will be the best markdown editor with this feature.

Some really good markdown editors:

haroopad--- no maintenance after 3 years. Has this feature. No outlining, no multiple doc, no visual editing. ... Yu writer pro--- has this feature. No visual editing, image copy/pasting buggy, no visual editing...

vnote--- very close to typora. Doesn't have this feature.

[jinyuzu99]

Typora can be a presentation app with:

• Largest font size
• Focus Mode on
• Typewriter Mode on

Just like below:

For more, you can add optional functions:

• Show only the current line, to make it cleaner
• Using larger text
• Add animation

[vassudanagunta]

For more, you can add optional functions:

• Show only the current line, to make it cleaner
• Using larger text
• Add animation

The whole point of a standard such as Markdown is to:

1. Free you, the user. You are not locked into a single tool.
2. Free the tool. It is free from having to do everything. It can focus on doing one or a few things really well.

Typora's focus is being a great place to write and edit Markdown. It is popular because you can work in WYSIWYG mode. There is a lot of work to be done within this focus. Please @abnerlee, stay focused on improving Markdown support and implementing writing and editor features.

There already are many presentation apps available, and any that accept Markdown or HTML can be used to present what users write in Typora. There is no need to turn Typora into an Text OS.

[jinyuzu99]

Typora's focus is being a great place to write and edit Markdown. It is popular because you can work in WYSIWYG mode. There is a lot of work to be done within this focus. Please @abnerlee, stay focused on improving Markdown support and implementing writing and editor features.

There already are many presentation apps available, and any that accept Markdown or HTML can be used to present what users write in Typora. There is no need to turn Typora into an Text OS.

For professional purpose, Markdown will never take place of Keynote, Powerpoint or other professional app. Markdown is too simple to achieve that feature.

Instead of professional use, Markdown should be used at quick showcase. Just like taking notes at meeting then quickly share it to others. Take advantage of its simplicity, then do what professional app couldn’t do.

[jhildenbiddle]

There's a lot of "this isn't how I use Typora" sentiment driving some of the less-than-supportive feedback in this thread. The same thing happened when the idea of an in-app file browser (#57) was proposed (e.g. "just use Finder", "adding this will bloat Typora", "this isn't what Typora is for", etc.) and yet Typora now has a file browser and the world continues to spin.

It's worth reminding folks who contribute to a discussion this way that 0% of Typora users will use 100% of Typora's features, and how you use a tool isn't necessarily the right or only way a tool can or should be used.

• If you aren't interested in a feature, don't use it if/when it gets implemented.
• If you are concerned about how a proposed feature might impact the user experience, share your concerns but don't assume what the design or impact will be. Better yet, propose designs or guidelines that help illustrate or address your concerns.
• If other tools are available that provide functionality similar to a proposed feature, suggest them but don't assume their existence makes a suggested feature moot. Be curious why a features is being proposed when other tools or processes exist that can accomplish the same goal.

Here's another perspective to consider...

Markdown editors are a dime-a-dozen, and Typora is no longer the only WYSIWYG markdown editor available. Many markdown editors have come and gone because the developers were unwilling or unable to continue supporting them. Providing a distinctive feature (like Presentation Mode) that is a paid feature on other platforms (Evernote) has the potential to distinguish Typora from competitors, attract new users, garner word-of-mouth marketing and additional press coverage, and generate revenue when Typora 1.x is released (assuming it's paid)--all of which can help ensure Typora is around years down the road.

[rotty3000]

After googling "does typora have presentation mode" I arrived here. I don't know what more I can add.

[rotty3000]

1. Adding some kind of [pagebreak] construct would be very useful not only as the basis for a presentation mode but also when exporting to PDF or printing. For PDF, this would make a simple presentation option available (because many PDF viewers have simple presentation modes.)
2. Adding header navigation (maybe with a configuration option for which headers, e.g. h1+h2.)

The rest could be handled by themes.

[rotty3000]

you know like this one: https://support.typora.io/Page-Breaks/

[zifeo]

You can use also remarker, currently working very well with Typora:

yarn global add remarker
# or
npm install -g --save remarker
remarker -s slides.md  
# go to http://localhost:6275

And then get a pdf with decktape.

[rotty3000]

So with no additional software I was able to make a few theme mods which got me pretty close to what want:

1. I change the @media print section so that h2,h3 { page-break-before: always; }
2. I added @page {size: landscape} to @media print
3. I set my font size to 24px

Now when I export to PDF it's oriented properly and pages break without having to add anything to my markdown.

What I tried, and failed, to do was to create a footer by combining the page-break-before: always; behaviour with css ::before & content, something like:

@media print{
    ...
    h2::before, h3::before {
        content: " ";
        display: block;
        background-image: url(./theme/foo.svg);
        background-size: 15%;
        background-repeat: no-repeat;
        border-top: solid;
    }
}

It looks perfect when viewed in print render mode, but it doesn't survive through exporting or printing :(

Any css gurus out there that could make this work?

[rotty3000]

I solved it! I was able to add a footer to each page. My presentation mode is complete!

So, recap of what I did was (all within my custom "presentation" theme; clone of Premito):

1. change the @media print section so that h2,h3 { page-break-before: always; }
2. add to @media print @page {size: landscape; margin: 12px;}
3. set my font size high (e.g. 24px)
4. add a literal <footer>content</footer> element at the bottom of your markdown file (typora doesn't mind this and renders it well due to inline HTML support)
5. add to css a footer block like:

   footer {
     border-top: solid;
     min-height: 4em;
   }

6. in the @media print add:

     footer {
       position: fixed;
       bottom: 0;
   }

7. Export to PDF. Boom!!!
8. tune to your liking

[jiamingz42]

+1 to this feature

[dong100136]

+1 to this feature

[salmanulfarzy]

@z-jason @dong100136 Please use :+1: instead of commenting it.

[agraef]

@rotty3000 Thanks a bunch for your tips about required css changes for presentations! I'll give that a go immediately.

Like some others I came here by googling for Typora presentations, and I also think that it would be a killer feature to have. And no, it won't turn Typora into LO Impress or PowerPoint, but it doesn't have to. I've been doing most of my slides with Markdown for many years, because it's just so much quicker.

[LeShrimp]

I feel that this is already addressed by the fact that Typora allows to add custom exports.

Typora uses Pandoc for export and pandoc has plenty of options to convert markdown to various presentation formats, e.g. revealjs and PowerPoint.

The following screenshot shows a sample configuration that creates beautiful revealjs presentations:

Here is detailed instructions: https://medium.com/@leshrimp/using-typora-to-create-presentations-1f4dce83b656

[chuliangcai]

+1 to this feature

[luxi78]

+1 to this feature

[NorHei]

It would be nice if reveal.js would be a standard export option. Maybe whith a nice example in the Docs?

@LeShrimp First of all. Thanks for the reveal.js post, it works like a charm! It would be nice if you could provide a example .md file with all options in frontmatter, that are available. And some nice example slides. Do you have a solution for the reveal.js problem that images are often far to big and you have to shrink them before adding them in Typora?

@abnerlee Adding such example(s) to the docs would make it almost a feature of this application. It would be easy to find and give the opportunity to play around with it. (without the hassle of actually maintaining the solution).

In addition to this i would whish for a detailed step by step description of the Pandoc export process in Typora (Whith all parameters) as it would allow pepole who are not complete Pandoc professionals to have a starting point on creating own exports like the ons used with reveal.js.

For example i tried to automate reveal.js workflow on a certain directory whith the same parameters used in the export, but Pandoc tells me the .md file is not a valid source. Somewhere in the docs you mention, that in a first step Typora exorts to the pandoc native format, before doing any further conversions. This confuses me, to become a real pandoc professional whith real understandig woud take about 3 Month and that ist far more time than i got available right now. I think most of us are looking for solutions that they can easyly adapt whith a few looks into the documentation and have no time to fully understand Pandoc to an expert degree.

[NorHei]

Got another Issue whith this :-)

This:

content before the pause

. . .

content after the pause

Works good.

Those do not :

::: notes

This is my note.

- It can contain Markdown
- like this list

:::

---

:::::::::::::: {.columns}
::: {.column width="40%"}
contents...
:::
::: {.column width="60%"}
contents...
:::
::::::::::::::

Examples form : https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#speaker-notes https://pandoc.org/MANUAL.html#columns

Any ideas?

[NorHei]

I solved this now by using a custom export whith this command:

pandoc -f markdown -s  -o ${currentFolder}\${currentFileName}_reveal.html -t revealjs -V revealjs-url=https://unpkg.com/reveal.js -V data-separator-notes=^Note: --slide-level 2 --embed-resources --standalone -i ${currentPath}

While converting to "native" format the additional Markdown features like

::: notes
This is my note.
:::

Are not converted to

and when pandoc then converts from native format, there is no additional markdown parsing going on. Maybe someone knows a better solution, but this one does the job right now.