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Show HN: Slaide, open-source Markdown slides AI writes and PowerPoint opens

I am trying to replace PowerPoint with a file format better suited for AI. But let me fill you in... So, I pitch a lot these days, and "make the deck" had become the worst part of my week. I don't know about you, but automation hasn't really worked for me here. Every AI deck tool I tried failed the same way. After various trial and errors, it ends up being fine on screen, but a broken approximation on export, and not one of them would touch my company master. So I was thinking that perhaps the solution is to give AI a format that's just easier to handle - the XML is really bloated and complex, maybe Markdown & YAML would do better. So, I gave it a shot and it worked. It is called .slaide. It is basically a somewhat customized Markdown to match text with theme defined placeholders and a theme defined in YAML. The markdown has some custom elements for charts, svg, html, etc. to make it valid. All files are then packaged in a zip file (.slaidec). It renders to a web deck, a PDF and a .pptx. None of the underlying formats are new to AI and that's good about it. First time I tried it, the agent (here my local claude code) managed to come up with some great decks. I only had to tweak the skills a bit to push it from "good" to great. And then I had to think about a hosted version for those without a local agent (or who just want to try it all out for a day) - I added that, too, as well with a manual editor/viewer. Anyway, the end result is a surprisingly small deck file which renders great on its own and has many of the features covered you'd expect from a presentation viewer. I added a few of them on our website https://getslaide.com for anyone to try. I also made it so that you can import from PPTX and export to PPTX or PDF if you need to. I'd say it is 95% or so accurate (there are some differences in how browsers and pptx renders pixels, hence the difference). The core is Apache-2.0: language, renderer, CLI, the pptx import and export, the Rust viewer, an MCP server and an agent skill. That skill is the whole reason the format is text at all. Everything local is free. Only the hosted version costs money, because we are paying for the agent on our end, image generation and all. So, all in all, you can just install it via npm or check out the source on Github: https://github.com/aivorynet/slaide or simply run "npm install -g @aivorynet/slaide", then "slaide install", and just use your local cli to work with the format. It should support claude, codex, gemini and cursor out of the box, but happy to get some feedback on it (I primarily focused on my hosted build and claude code to be honest - limited resources and all that). Anyway, would be cool to hear your thoughts. At least for me it did really well across the board, so curious to see if anyone else has the same result. Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49120039 Points: 2 # Comments: 0

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Presentations, handed to AI the right way.

A slide language AI can actually write. One plain-text .slaide file becomes a polished web deck, a print-ready PDF, and editable PowerPoint - from the same source.

Your model just needed a better format.

Write the words. The theme does the rest.

Point your AI at Slaide

Tell Claude Code, Codex or Cursor to load the Slaide Agent Skill and MCP server. Your agent learns the whole language in one step.

It writes the deck - you can too

The agent drafts and edits the plain-text .slaide files, validating as it goes. It’s just text, so you can step in by hand anytime. See how →

Ship anywhere

One command turns that source into a navigable web deck, a high-fidelity PDF, and editable PowerPoint - all from the same file.

Markdown on the left. A real slide on the right.

We ship decks a week, zero pixels placed by hand.

Edit the text - the slide re-renders live. A faithful preview of core Slaide syntax; the CLI renders the full language.

A full deck toolchain, not just a renderer.

Import your .pptx

Convert existing PowerPoint or Keynote into editable .slaide - text, positions, fonts, colors, images and tables.

Agent Skill + MCP

A first-class skill and MCP server, so AI authors, validates and renders on its own.

Export editable .pptx

Round-trip back out with real text boxes, shapes and images - not flat pictures.

Speaker notes & presenter view

Write ??? note beside any slide - it shows in the presenter overlay, never to the room or the PDF.

Native viewer

A standalone desktop app shows, edits in-place and exports any deck - no Node on the target machine.

Builds, motion & media

Incremental reveals, fade / slide / shared-element morph transitions, video, audio and sandboxed live embeds - all from text.

A small language that does a lot.

Transitions

Fade, slide, zoom and shared-element morph between slides.

Builds & motion

Incremental reveals with named entrance animations and timing.

Layouts & slots

Route Markdown into named slots - cover, statement, two-col and your own.

Inline styling

Theme classes for gradient fills, colour, weight and type scale.

Images & media

Images, video, audio and full-bleed backgrounds - inlined for one portable file.

Speaker notes

Notes show in the presenter overlay, never in the deck or the PDF.

Embeds & widgets

Sandboxed iframes for YouTube, Figma and live HTML/JS - themed automatically.

Inline SVG

Vector art that inherits the theme’s colours via currentColor .

Themes

Fonts, colours, gradients and layouts as named YAML - swap one line to restyle.

Three plain-text pieces. That’s the whole format.

The deck

Markdown for the words plus a tiny YAML header. Slides split on --- ; :: name :: routes content into the theme’s layout slots. This is what you - or the AI - write.

The theme

One reusable YAML master holds every design decision - fonts, color roles, gradients and the grid of each layout, all as named data. Point master: at it to restyle a whole deck.

The shareable file

Deck, master and every asset zipped into one self-contained .slaidec . Tiny, portable and offline-ready - hand someone a single file and it just opens.

One deck. Any look. Reskin in a line.

Your AI's native presentation format.

Open at the core. Yours to build on.

The editor is free. AI is the upgrade.

Make and edit decks free, everywhere. Pay only when the AI does the work - for a day, or every day.

No credit card required.

24 hours of AI.

Launch price, limited time.

Prices in USD, excl. tax (EUR at checkout). Day Pass & Hosted live at app.getslaide.com .

Write your next deck in plain text.

Install the CLI, scaffold a deck, and render to web + PDF in under a minute.

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