Slidev — Presentation Slides for Developers

What it is

Slidev is a Markdown-based presentation tool designed for developers. You write slides in Markdown, use Vue components for interactivity, and get code syntax highlighting with animations, live coding capabilities, LaTeX math rendering, Mermaid diagrams, and export to PDF or SPA.

This tool targets developers who present at conferences, team meetings, or internal demos and want to stay in their code editor rather than switching to PowerPoint or Google Slides.

How it saves time or tokens

Slidev keeps presentations in version-controllable Markdown files. No binary formats, no drag-and-drop alignment, no theme wrestling. A developer familiar with Markdown can create a polished presentation in minutes. Code blocks render with proper syntax highlighting and can even run live during the presentation. For AI-assisted content creation, generating slide content in Markdown is straightforward.

How to use

1. Install Slidev via npm.
2. Create a slides.md file with slide separators.
3. Run the dev server to preview.
4. Present from the browser or export to PDF.

# Create a new Slidev project
npm init slidev@latest

# Start the dev server
npx slidev

# Export to PDF
npx slidev export

# Build as SPA for hosting
npx slidev build

Example

A slides.md file:

---
theme: seriph
title: My Tech Talk
---

# Welcome to My Talk

Building better tools with Rust

---

Why Rust?

• Memory safety without garbage collection
• Zero-cost abstractions
• Fearless concurrency

Code Example

fn main() {
    let numbers = vec![1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
    let sum: i32 = numbers.iter().sum();
    println!('Sum: {}', sum);
}

Questions?

Find me on GitHub @username

Each `---` separator creates a new slide.

Related on TokRepo

• Documentation tools — More developer documentation tools
• Content creation tools — AI-assisted content creation

Common pitfalls

• Slidev requires Node.js. If your machine does not have Node installed, the setup adds friction.
• Custom Vue components in slides add complexity. For simple presentations, stick to Markdown and built-in layouts.
• PDF export uses Playwright under the hood. The first export downloads a browser binary, which can be slow.
• Presenter notes are supported but require the presenter view mode, which needs a second browser window.
• Animations and transitions work well in the browser but may not render correctly in exported PDFs.
• Review the official documentation before deploying to production to ensure compatibility with your specific environment and requirements.