# Overhead really simple slides with Markdown by [Peter Eisentraut](https://peter.eisentraut.org)

### Before we start - use cursor keys or mouse to navigate - press f for full screen

## But why?

## Other presentation tools - are too complicated for occasional speakers - are bloated - are ugly - are hard to customize - don’t render my content correctly - keep breaking

I like writing, but producing slides is giving me angst. Before every conference, I try a new tool, without much success.

## Some things I have tried - LaTeX Beamer: complicated syntax, very fragile, huge software stack, not very agile, hard to customize, hard to include images, videos This is still a respectable tool, but we can do better.

## Some things I have tried - DocBook Slides: verbose syntax, hard to customize, dated look I like the idea of standardized markup, but the implementation is dated and hard to work with.

## Some things I have tried - OpenOffice: WYSIWYG is frustrating, consistent formatting is cumbersome Gets the job done, but not what I’m aiming for.

## Some things I have tried - [Showoff](https://github.com/puppetlabs/showoff): huge Ruby stack keeps breaking, nonstandard Markdown syntax, hard to fix things when the formatting doesn't work This was the right idea, but it kept breaking.

## Some things I have tried - [reveal.js](https://revealjs.com/): huge codebase, kept truncating my code samples, a lot of work to customize Again, right idea, but it shouldn’t be that complicated.

## I don’t ask for much - tools that don’t break - version-controllable - easy to customize - but no customization necessary - simple syntax - standardized formats

## No dependencies - I don’t want to live in fear of having to debug a Ruby or NPM stack the night before a presentation. - I’d like my presentation to still work in two, three, or six years.

## Standardized formats - Markdown and/or HTML - let the browser handle the rest: - images - videos - math markup? - your custom JavaScript magic?

## It’s not that hard! - standard Markdown/[CommonMark](https://commonmark.org/) processor, plus - <100 lines of plain [CSS](../overhead.css), plus - <120 lines of plain [JavaScript](../overhead.js), plus - browser = complete presentation tool

## Example [source of this presentation](example.md)

## Little code, lots of features - keyboard, mouse, and touch navigation - supports some presenter remotes (if they produce key events) - easy full screen mode - direct links to slides (URL fragments) - printing/PDF support - source code highlighting

## Source code highlighting example with [highlight.js](https://highlightjs.org/): ```ruby # a comment if i > 0 puts "positive" end ```

## Not supported/not planned - speaker notes - speaker clock - incremental revealing - slide transitions

I have never seen Al Gore or Steve Jobs use speaker notes. Just sayin’.

## Final remark - Don’t write presentation slides like I did here. - This is a “presentation” for reading on the web, not for presenting.

## Resources - -

## Contact - - - [@petereisentraut@mastodon.social](https://mastodon.social/@petereisentraut)

# Good bye

## Postscript: Table test

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