Present with a clear point

Templates and examples

The reference preserves the reference projects’ Pandoc layout names and placeholders, adapted to DejaVu Sans, cobalt covers, neutral content slides, and the supplied Small Council artwork. Beamer styling is separate from the PowerPoint reference.

Tools and fonts

Pandoc 3.x creates PowerPoint. PDF slides additionally require XeLaTeX, Beamer, and supporting LaTeX packages. Install DejaVu Sans desktop fonts; code uses separately available DejaVu Sans Mono. Neither workflow needs a helper script or Office-to-PDF conversion.

Create PPTX

Save deck.md, sc-workflow.png, and sc-presentation-reference.pptx in your working folder:

pandoc "deck.md" --standalone --slide-level=2 \
  --reference-doc="sc-presentation-reference.pptx" --resource-path=. \
  -o "sc-deck.pptx"

Create PDF slides

Save sc-presentation.tex in the same folder:

pandoc "deck.md" --standalone -t beamer --slide-level=2 \
  --pdf-engine=xelatex -V aspectratio=169 -V fontsize=20pt \
  -V geometry:paperwidth=10in -V geometry:paperheight=5.625in \
  -V mainfont="DejaVu Sans" -V sansfont="DejaVu Sans" -V monofont="DejaVu Sans Mono" \
  --include-in-header="sc-presentation.tex" --resource-path=. \
  -o "sc-deck.pdf"

Story and layouts

The repository also preserves the reference projects’ optional convenience: make presentation INPUT=deck.md OUTPUT=build/deck.pptx. For a .pdf output, scripts/render.sh renders the PowerPoint file using LibreOffice; this differs from the direct Beamer PDF shown here. Pandoc defaults live in sc-presentation-defaults.yaml. Normal website builds do not run a document renderer.

Use a 32pt DejaVu Sans cover/section title, 26pt content heading, 20pt body, 16pt cover support, and 9pt footer. Keep one point per slide. Split dense slides before making text smaller. Put detail in ::: notes blocks; PPTX preserves presenter notes while this PDF command renders audience slides.

With --slide-level=2, # makes section slides and ## makes content slides. Metadata makes the cover. Columns and table/image structure guide Pandoc’s layout choice; an arbitrary written layout name is not a selector.

Edit reusable styles through PowerPoint Slide Master, preserving the expected placeholders and layout names. Keep charts and diagrams directly labeled. Use static PNG/JPEG exports for images shared between Office and PDF.

Inspect the example

The preview is a Beamer rendering, not a Microsoft PowerPoint screenshot. Inspect every slide for clipping, wrapping, fonts, contrast, notes, and table readability. PDF and PPTX use independent layouts and need separate inspection.