Present a Markdown document as slides

Press ⌥⌘P or click the play button and the open Markdown document becomes full-screen slides. H1 and H2 headings and horizontal rules start new slides. There is no separate deck file or setup. Press Esc to return to the section you were presenting.

Start Present

Start from Read or Write mode in any non-empty document:

• Click the play button in the toolbar.
• Choose View ▸ Present.
• Press ⌥⌘P.

Unmarked starts at slide 1 and takes the window into macOS full screen. If the window is already full screen, the slides take over the same Space. The command stays disabled for an empty document because there is nothing to present.

Set the slide breaks

A new slide starts at either of these points:

• An H1 or H2 heading.
• A horizontal rule written as ---, ***, or ___.

The document you already have usually presents without changes. A file with no headings or dividers becomes one slide.

The split rules protect ordinary Markdown. A divider inside a code block or quote does not split the slide. A setext heading, with --- under the title, stays a heading. The Properties block at the top of the file stays out of the slides. Stray or doubled dividers collapse instead of making empty slides.

Move through the presentation

Action	Control
Next slide	Right Arrow, Space, Page Down, click, or two-finger swipe
Previous slide	Left Arrow or Page Up
First slide	Home
Last slide	End
Blank to black	B
Blank to white	W
End Present	Esc, ⌘., or the corner close button

Any key restores a slide after the screen is blanked. The presentation holds on the last slide instead of leaving full screen.

Up and Down scroll a slide with more content than fits. Once the content fits, or the scroll reaches an end, those keys move between slides.

What appears on a slide

Present uses the same renderer as Read mode. Your theme and reading font carry over, along with tables, code blocks, quotes, task lists, local images, and Mermaid diagrams.

Type starts at about two and a half times the reading size. When a slide needs more room, Unmarked shrinks the type to a readable floor. Past that point the slide scrolls, and a soft fade at the bottom shows that more content is available. Nothing is silently cut off.

The pointer hides after a moment. Move it to show the slide counter and close button. Both fade away again. Links do not open during Present because a click moves to the next slide. The display stays awake for the presentation.

Return to the document

Press Esc or ⌘., or use the corner close button. Unmarked returns to the section that was on screen, ready to edit. Leaving from slide 1 preserves the position you had before Present started.

Present is a view. It never changes the Markdown file, and everything stays on the Mac.

Current limits

Present does not have speaker notes or a separate presenter view yet. A very wide table shares the slide width across its columns. Mermaid diagrams stay at their reading size rather than expanding to fill the screen.