Marp

Marp (Markdown Presentation Ecosystem) — writing slide decks in plain Markdown, exporting to HTML/PDF/PPTX/PNG. Open source, MIT, built on CommonMark + extensions. The whole ecosystem is pluggable.

🔗 Links

Description

• https://marp.app/ — project site
• https://github.com/marp-team/marp — entrance repo with an overview of the family

Download or use

• VS Code extension: Marp for VS Code
• CLI: npx @marp-team/marp-cli@latest slide-deck.md → see Marp CLI
• Awesome list: https://github.com/marp-team/awesome-marp

🗒️ Description

The whole ecosystem is built around a single idea: slide deck = Markdown + CSS theme. The --- separator splits slides. The rest is markdown-it + directives + theming.

🧩 Marp family

Component	Role
Marpit	Skinny framework: Markdown + CSS → HTML/CSS slides. Zero opinions about themes.
Marp Core	Marpit + official themes (default/gaia/uncover) + math + emoji + auto-scaling
Marp CLI	CLI: conversion to HTML/PDF/PPTX/PNG, watch mode, server mode
Marp for VS Code	Live preview + custom theming in the editor

Earlier, inactive integrations (Marp Web, Marp React, Marp Vue) — still in the repo but unsupported.

🧩 Key features

• CommonMark base — if you can write Markdown, you can write slides
• Directives — global (theme:, size:, paginate:) and local (<!-- _backgroundColor: aqua -->)
• Image syntax — slide backgrounds, advanced backgrounds via <foreignObject>
• Theming — pure CSS, no predefined classes/mixins; custom themes via @theme metadata
• Export — HTML, PDF, PPTX (including editable), PNG/JPEG, presenter notes as TXT
• Math — MathJax (default) or KaTeX via math: directive
• Auto-scaling — fitting headers (# <!-- fit -->), shrink for code/math blocks

✍️ Reasoning for

A Markdown-first workflow for presentations fits my stack perfectly — Obsidian, Hugo, Quartz, everything is already MD-based. Instead of fighting with PowerPoint or Keynote, I write content like a regular note and pipe it through the CLI. PPTX export leaves an escape hatch when a client demands an editable file.

Related: in my setup there’s a skill create-marp-deck — interview-driven workflow for generating decks with gradient section dividers and automatic HTML/PPTX export. That’s exactly the use case. Full description of the 4-phase process (Brainstorm → React → Iterate → Export) in Claude Code Marp Workflow.

Alternatives considered

• reveal.js — JS-first, more JS than Markdown
• Slidev — Vue-based, for devs; beautiful but a specific stack
• Google Slides / PowerPoint / Keynote — WYSIWYG, no versioning, no diffs

Marp wins on: git versioning, no lock-in, export in 4 formats, working inside VS Code.

🔗 Resources

• Documentation: https://marpit.marp.app/
• Awesome Marp: https://github.com/marp-team/awesome-marp
• Built-in themes (default/gaia/uncover): https://github.com/marp-team/marp-core/tree/main/themes

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