Mar 8, 2021

Create an online presentations with markdown and Remark

Overview

Create a slide show presentation written purely in markdown and displayed in a standard web browser using Remark.

By using my existing Hugo website framework, I can publish slides for public consumption:

Details

Create a folder to store presentations. For this example, I will use a directory under the Hugo framework to make the presentation publicly available:

jemurray@jasons-mbp:~/Documents/www-personal/current/jasonmurray.org $ mkdir static/presentationdev
jemurray@jasons-mbp:~/Documents/www-personal/current/jasonmurray.org $

In the newly created directory, add an index.html file with the Remark scripts to load the slide show content:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Title</title>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <style>
      @import url(https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Yanone+Kaffeesatz);
      @import url(https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Droid+Serif:400,700,400italic);
      @import url(https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Ubuntu+Mono:400,700,400italic);
      body { font-family: 'Droid Serif'; }
      h1, h2, h3 {
        font-family: 'Yanone Kaffeesatz';
        font-weight: normal;
      }
      .remark-code, .remark-inline-code { font-family: 'Ubuntu Mono'; }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
  <script src="https://remarkjs.com/downloads/remark-latest.min.js"></script>
  <script>
    var slideshow = remark.create({
      highlightStyle: 'monokai',
      sourceUrl: 'content.md',
      slideNumberFormat: ''
    });
  </script>
  </body>
</html>

Create the file content.md which contains the content of the slide show presentation:

class: center, middle

# Using Markdown to Create Slides

---

# Agenda

1. Introduction
2. Deep-dive
3. ...

---

# Introduction

Lists:

- foo
- bar
- baz

---

# Display Code Blocks

```terminal
#!/usr/bin/env python3

print("Hello World!")

While creating content, I use the vscode extension Live Server to display and automatically reload the slide deck after each save. Start the web server by clicking the Go Live button:

While editing or displying private presentations, use the Live Server locally at the URL: http://127.0.0.1:5500/static/presentationdev/:

For public presentations, I post the content in the static directory of my existing Hugo website:

Example site: https://jasonmurray.org/presentationdev/ - Use the arrow keys to move between slides.