Markup

Slipshow’s presentation are written in a “What You See Is What You Mean”, compared to presentation tools such as PowerPoint, which are “What You See Is What You Get”.

In more usual words, PowerPoint lets you visually place blocks, what you edit and what you’ll present are the same. Slipshow, on the contrary, lets you describe your intent (“this text is a title”, “this paragraph is a definition block”, …) and does the formatting for you.

In this page, we describe the syntax used to describe this intent. You’ll write your presentation as a simple text document, with no formatting but using this specific syntax. From that syntax, Slipshow will be able to format the document.

Note

This syntax is very close to Markdown’s syntax, however subtly different. If you are familiar with Markdown, see where it differs

Paragraphs

A paragraph is made just by writing text. They should be separated by a blank line.

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This is a paragraph. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec hendrerit tempor tellus. Donec pretium posuere tellus. Proin quam nisl, tincidunt et, mattis eget, convallis nec, purus. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Nulla posuere. Donec vitae dolor. Nullam tristique diam non turpis. Cras placerat accumsan nulla. Nullam rutrum. Nam vestibulum accumsan nisl. This is a second paragraph. This is part of the second paragraph.

A single newline would not create a new paragraph, but would continue in the paragraph without line break.

Headings

Titles are made by prefixing the text with #. The more you add #, the smaller the title.

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# Title 1 ## Subtitle 1 ## Subtitle 2 ##### Subsubsubsubtitle

Bold and italic

Bold is made by enclosing with ** characters and italic by enclosing with *.

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This is **bold**, *italic*, and ***bold and italic at the same time***.

Links

Links are included with the following syntax: [text](link target).

Images, SVGs, videos, audios, PDFs, drawings

Images and several other objects are included with the following syntax: ![alternative text](path/to/file.extension).

The kind of media that is included (image, video, …) is by default inferred from the extension. For instance, a file ending with .png is considered an image, while a file ending in .mp3 is considered an audio file. However, it is also possible to bypass this detection by using an attribute. For instance: ![](file.mp4){audio} or ![](file.svg){image}.

Here are the possibilities:

SVGs are recognized either from the svg attribute, or the .svg extension.

Videos are recognized either from the video attribute, or an extension from: .3gp, .mpg, .mpeg, .mp4, .m4v, .m4p, .ogv, .ogg, .mov, .webm.

Audios are recognized either from the audio attribute, or an extension from: .aac, .flac, .mp3, .oga, .wav.

Pdfs are recognized from the .pdf extension.

Drawings are recognized from the .draw extension.

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The [slipshow documentation](slipshow.readthedocs.io) should be consulted in case of doubt. Here is it's logo: 

Lists

Lists can be started with a dash. Indentation allows to put other blocks in the list. Lists can be numbered too.

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- This is a list - This is another item in the list - This is another item, that contains multiple paragraphs. This is the second paragraph of the third item - This item contains a nested list - This is the nested list - It has two items 1. This is another, 2. numbered, 3. list.

Note

Slipshow’s syntax inherits from Markdown’s notion of “tight/loose” lists.

In effect, if you find that the items in your list are rendered too close to each others, add a blank line in between each items. The list will become “loose” and the items will be spaced.

Mathematics

The syntax for mathematical formulas is the same as the one in Latex. You can include math in any text (inline formulas), or as a block.

You can insert a mathematical block either by enclosing with $$ or with a codeblock with the math language. To add some inline mathematics, enclose with a single $.

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This is a mathematic block $$ \left( \sum_{k=1}^n a_k b_k \right)^2 < \Phi$$ which will render in its own line. A math block may also be more convenient: ```math \left( \sum_{k=1}^n a_k b_k \right)^2 < \Phi ``` This is the Euler's identity: $e^{i\pi} = - 1$.

Code

Snippets of source code can be included either inline (in the flow of the text) or as a code block.

Inline code are inserted by enclosing with `. Code blocks are blocks containing code to display verbatim, and syntax highlighted. They are created with ```.

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This is a code-block: ``` Code goes here ``` It'll try to detect the language and syntax highlight it. You can help it by providing a language: ```ocaml let salut = "hello" ``` If you don't want a highlight, use "text": ```text Code goes here ``` The expression `factorial(5)` denotes the factorial of `5`.

HTML

Including HTML is done just like in Markdown for inline and blocks. Use the Commonmark spec for reference, but here is a less precise introduction.

You can include HTML directly in the flow, provided the HTML is separated from the text by at least one space.

If a line following a blank link consist of an HTML tag, the following lines will be interpreted as HTML until the next blank line.

Tables

Tables follow the GFM syntax:

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| foo | bar | | --- | --- | | baz | bim |

They are currently not stylized by default and thus require a bit more effort to use.

Thematic breaks

A thematic break is a change of subject represented graphically, often by a horizontal line, or sometimes in books a triple asterisk.

To add a thematic break, use either ___, *** or (directly the HTML: <hr>).

Beware that horizontal lines may not render in the rendered example (due to being too small). You can add hr { border-width: 2px} in the editor if that happens.

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Some thing. ___ Some other thing *** Another unrelated subject <hr> Something else.

Incompatibilities with Markdown

Quotes

Since in Slipshow, the > character is used for grouping, quotes are not made like in Commonmark. Instead, they can be added as special elements.

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> This is not a quote {blockquote} > Cogito Ergo Sum

Setext Headings

Markdown’s Setext headings cannot be used in Slipshow. Use ATX headings.