slidedown

Convert Markdown files into beautiful, professionally-designed PowerPoint presentations (.pptx) that open natively in Keynote, PowerPoint, and Google Slides. Use this skill whenever the user wants to turn a .md file into slides, create a presentation from markdown content, generate a deck from text/notes, or mentions 'slidedown', 'md to slides', 'markdown to presentation', 'markdown to pptx', or 'markdown to keynote'. Also trigger when the user has a .md file and wants it as a slide deck, or asks to 'make slides from' any text content. This skill handles the full pipeline: parsing markdown, selecting themes, applying professional layouts, and exporting a polished .pptx file.

install

source · Clone the upstream repo

git clone https://github.com/Viniciuscarvalho/slidedown

Claude Code · Install into ~/.claude/skills/

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/Viniciuscarvalho/slidedown ~/.claude/skills/viniciuscarvalho-slidedown-slidedown

manifest: SKILL.md

source content

SlideDown Skill

Convert Markdown → Beautiful PPTX (Keynote/PowerPoint compatible)

Quick Start

# 1. Install dependencies (first time only)
npm install -g pptxgenjs react-icons react react-dom sharp

# 2. Run the converter
node /path/to/skill/scripts/md2pptx.js input.md output.pptx [theme]

Available themes:

midnight

aurora

sunset

minimal

forest

brutalist

Default theme:

midnight

Markdown Syntax for Slides

The converter uses these conventions to parse markdown into slides:

Markdown	Slide Behavior
`# Title`	Title/hero slide (centered, large)
`---`	New slide separator
`## Heading`	Slide heading
`> Quote text`	Highlighted quote block with accent border
`- List item`	Styled bullet point
`bold`	Bold emphasis
`italic`	Italic text
`code`	Inline code styling
```lang ... ```	Code block with dark background
`![alt](url)`	Image (downloaded and embedded)
`<!-- notes: text -->`	Speaker notes (not visible on slide)
Tables ( `\| ... \|` )	Auto-styled data table

Example Markdown

# My Presentation
## A subtitle here

---

## The Problem

> Most presentations are forgettable.

- Death by bullet points
- Ugly default themes  
- Hours wasted on formatting

---

## The Solution

**SlideDown** converts your markdown into 
beautiful presentations — instantly.

<!-- notes: Emphasize the speed advantage here -->

---

## Metrics

| Quarter | Revenue | Growth |
|---------|---------|--------|
| Q1 | $2M | 15% |
| Q2 | $3M | 50% |
| Q3 | $4.5M | 50% |

Workflow

Step 1: Prepare the Markdown

If the user provides a

.md

file, use it directly. If they provide raw text or content in the chat, save it as a

.md

file first.

Ensure the markdown follows the syntax conventions above. If the content doesn't have

---

separators, intelligently split it into slides based on

##

headings.

Step 2: Choose a Theme

If the user hasn't specified a theme, ask them or pick one that matches the content:

midnight — Dark navy with indigo accents. Professional, modern. Good for tech talks, product launches.
aurora — Dark with purple-to-teal gradient. Creative, bold. Good for design talks, conferences.
sunset — Warm orange-amber tones. Energetic, friendly. Good for startups, pitches.
minimal — Light background, clean typography. Classic, readable. Good for academic, corporate.
forest — Deep green tones. Calm, trustworthy. Good for sustainability, health, finance.
brutalist — Yellow background, bold black text. Striking, memorable. Good for manifestos, bold statements.

See references/themes.md for full color/typography details.

Step 3: Generate the Presentation

node scripts/md2pptx.js input.md output.pptx midnight

Step 4: QA

Convert to images and verify:

python scripts/office/soffice.py --headless --convert-to pdf output.pptx
pdftoppm -jpeg -r 150 output.pdf slide

Visually inspect each slide for:

Text overflow or cutoff
Proper theme application
Readable contrast
Correct content from the markdown

Step 5: Deliver

Copy the final

.pptx

/mnt/user-data/outputs/

and present to the user.

The

.pptx

format opens natively in:

Apple Keynote (Mac/iPad/iPhone)
Microsoft PowerPoint (Windows/Mac/Web)
Google Slides (import)
LibreOffice Impress (Linux)

Design Principles

Each theme follows these principles for professional-quality output:

No boring slides — Every slide has visual elements (shapes, accent colors, icons), never just text on white.
Typography hierarchy — Title slides use 36-44pt, headings 28-32pt, body 16-18pt, with contrasting font weights.
Color discipline — 60/30/10 rule: dominant background, secondary for content areas, accent for highlights.
Layout variety — Title slides are centered, content slides left-aligned, quotes have accent borders, tables have styled headers.
Breathing room — Minimum 0.5" margins, generous spacing between elements.
Consistent motif — Each theme has a signature visual element (accent shapes, borders, overlays) repeated across slides.

Dependencies

```
pptxgenjs
```
— PPTX generation
```
react-icons
```
,
```
react
```
,
```
react-dom
```
,
```
sharp
```
— Icon rendering (optional, for icon-enhanced slides)
LibreOffice (
```
soffice
```
) — PDF conversion for QA
Poppler (
```
pdftoppm
```
) — PDF to images for QA