← Contents
type: in the front matter says what a file is, so reader doesn’t guess it from its --- breaks or its notes:
---
title: Daily Dashboard
type: workbook
---
document, what a file without a type: is.
A --- between its parts, as a day of talks taken down in one file has, makes each part an outline entry, and it’s still one document: shown, saved and printed whole, with its masthead.
It opens in whichever of Work and Edit you last chose.workbook, a packet to fill in a page at a time.
It opens in Work, a page to each part, and prints down the sheet.slides, a deck to present.
It opens in Edit, with Present beside it, and prints across the sheet.
Its outline lists its slides.A workbook and slides are both decks: either can be worked through in Work a page at a time, presented, and saved as its pages. A file opened in the mode its type picks doesn’t change the mode you chose for documents.
Work (⌘.) hides the file list and the editor and gives the rendered page
the whole window, to read and to fill in. Nothing can be typed into the file, but task checkboxes
and radio buttons still toggle, fields can be filled in, and puzzles can be played. ⌘. or Esc goes back to editing. The mode is remembered.
☰ brings the file list over the page, and Work stays.
Esc there closes the list, not Work.
Make a copy, an icon in the top bar, makes a file of its own from this one, answers and all, and opens it, still in Work; on a file dated another day, Copy for today, beside it, makes today’s (see Making a copy).
A deck (below), type: workbook or type: slides, is a workbook in Work: each slide is a page, shown one at a
time as a document is, at the size it’s written and as long as it needs to
be, with nothing of its notes. It opens on the page the cursor was on.
⌥← and ⌥→ turn the page too, as does a swipe.# [x] Warm-up), or everything in it done (see
Sections to finish). A page whose heading has no button is done
when every task on it is ticked and every radio list, or field of choices, has a choice,
a section with a button counting as one of them. A page
with nothing to tick doesn’t count either way.A file in the format of slides, with
type: slides in its front matter, also gets Present (⌘⇧.), and so
does a workbook. One file then works for both: slides in the terminal and
here in the browser.
---
type: slides
author: Josh Cummings
date: October 2026
paging: Slide %d / %d
---
# First slide
<!-- Speaker notes. slides drops them from the terminal; here they're notes. -->
---
# Second slide
--- starts a new slide, except inside a code
fence. Front matter is read only when every line in it is key: value.--- line in one: slides would split the
slide there.open-until: still shows its count.A slide comes in one step at a time. Each paragraph, quote, code block,
table or image is a step, and so is each list item, nested ones included,
and each column of a ::: columns block, in reading order. A slide’s opening heading isn’t a step: it shows with the
slide. An aside shows with the passage it sits beside. Steps not yet shown
keep their space, so the slide doesn’t shift as they appear.
A screen reader hears where the deck is as it moves, and what just showed:
“Slide 1 of 2, step 2 of 3: the second point”. A slide come to says its
title, an image its alt text, a field its label and what’s in it
(“Thoughts: blank”), and code its picked lines. A slide come to whole
(N, End) says its title and then what shows. A long step is cut to a
sentence or two. Going back a step says only where the deck is, and back
onto a slide only its title.
Code steps through its picked lines and its callouts; see Code.
A slide’s opening heading is its title, and stays at the top, on the
left. The rest sits in the middle of the space under it, top to bottom
and side to side: a short list sits in the middle as a block, its bullets
still in line with each other, and a paragraph keeps its own alignment. A
slide with a form, a puzzle, columns or asides keeps the slide’s full width.
A slide that is all headings, a title slide or a one-line statement, is
centered whole, both ways, and so is one with no opening heading. A quote,
an image, a headline, a number or a math:[…] line that is the only thing
on a slide besides its title is centered across the slide too, and an image
there is kept to about two thirds of the slide’s height.
A slide is sized to fit the window: everything on it together, puzzles included, as large as it fits, measured with every step showing so it keeps its size as they appear. A slide with room to spare grows, up to twice its size, so a statement or a short list fills the screen without one short line turning into a poster; its title and its code stay the size they were, so titles and code look the same from slide to slide. A slide too full shrinks, title and code with it, no further than 60%. Code still too wide then wraps, and a slide still too tall scrolls, bringing each step into view as it appears. The speaker view says how much the current slide shrank.
How big a slide grows or shrinks is decided with the text at 100%; ⌘+
and ⌘− then make that bigger or smaller, as far as it still fits. So ⌘−
always makes a slide smaller, and ⌘+ makes it bigger when there’s room,
and never smaller.
Hover Present to see which slides shrink below 80%, or don’t fit at all, at the speaker view’s size (1280×720); click one to go to it. Nothing is measured until you hover Present or present the file; after that, it’s measured again as you edit.
n → ↓ Space Enter PageDown, or click |
next step; after the last one, the next slide |
p ← ↑ ⌫ PageUp, or click the left third |
back one step; before the first, the previous slide whole |
N |
the rest of this slide; if it’s all showing, the next slide whole |
P |
back to the start of this slide; if it’s already there, the start of the previous slide |
Home / End |
the first slide / the last slide whole |
O |
the overview: every slide at once, to pick one from (below) |
T |
notes under the slide |
S |
speaker view: the current slide (steps to come drawn faintly), the next slide, notes, a timer, the time |
R |
in the speaker view, restart the timer (or click the timer) |
F |
full screen |
⌘+ / ⌘− / ⌘0 |
the slides’ text a step bigger, a step smaller, or back to 100% (Ctrl on Windows and Linux); it starts at 100% each time you present, and the speaker view’s slides follow |
Tab / ⇧Tab |
what can be played or opened on the slide, such as a puzzle or a block’s tabs, one by one, then back to the slides; the keys that work the one Tabbed to are its own, and the rest still move the slides |
? |
these keys, at the foot of the slides; they show for a moment as you start, and when you hover there; a touch screen’s foot leaves them out, and says how far through the deck you are, with ‹ and › either side to step back and on |
Esc, or the ✕ at the foot of the slides on a touch screen |
stop presenting |
n and p undo each other exactly, so a clicker’s back button takes back
what its forward button did.
O lays out every slide as a thumbnail, numbered as paging: says, with
its title when you hover it. The slide showing is ringed and has the
highlight. Move the highlight with the arrows (↑ ↓ a row, ← → a
slide) and Home and End; Enter, or a click, goes to that slide from
its start, and Esc goes back to where you were. It’s handy for a backup
slide at question time, or for rehearsing.
A thumbnail is the slide as the stage draws it, every step showing, at the
text size and fit the slides have; ⌘+, ⌘− and ⌘0 still size the
text while the overview is out, and the thumbnails follow. A screen
reader hears “Overview” as it opens, and each slide’s number and title as
the highlight moves to it.
O in the speaker view opens it there instead, out of the room’s sight.
There the slides already done are faded and ticked, apart from those still
to come.
The speaker view is its own window, and either window can change slides.
With a second screen plugged in, Present puts the slides full screen on it
and opens the speaker view on the screen reader is on. Chrome and Edge
ask once for leave to see your screens. Elsewhere, or with leave refused,
drag the speaker view to your screen and the slides to the projector, and
press F there.
The speaker view’s timer starts when you present from the first
slide (click it, or press R there, to restart). Tell reader the plan and it
says, under the timer, whether you’re ahead of it, on it or behind:
---
time: 50m
---
<!--
ACT 2 (16 min). Clock should read about 0:12.
-->
<!--
time: 1.5m
Skip the second demo if running long.
-->
time: in the front matter is the talk’s length.at: 0:12 line in its
notes (hours:minutes), or “Clock: 0:12” or “Clock should read about
0:12” anywhere in them.time: 1.5m in a slide’s notes is that slide’s own budget (90s, 2m,
1h, or a number of minutes).at: and time: lines aren’t shown with the notes; a clock line is.transition: says how one slide gives way to the next. In
the front matter it’s the deck’s; in a slide’s notes it’s how that slide
leaves, so it goes just above the --- it’s about:
---
transition: fade
---
# Most slides fade
---
# This one is pushed up and off
<!-- transition: up -->
---
# By this one
up, down, left and right are the way the slides move: the one
leaving goes off that way, and the next comes on after it. fade fades
one into the other. none, a cut, is what a deck that doesn’t say gets.Home, End, the speaker view) is a cut.transition: line isn’t shown with the notes, unless it doesn’t read
as a transition.Fonts and backgrounds, for a deck as for any document, are on The page.