Speaker View
Press S during any presentation to open a synchronized speaker window.
What you see
The speaker view shows:
- Current slide — small preview of what the audience sees
- Next slide heading — so you can bridge transitions smoothly
- Speaker notes — your notes for the current slide, or "No notes for this slide"
- Elapsed timer — starts on first navigation, HH:MM:SS format
Output files
When you render a deck, MD-Slides generates three files:
| File | Purpose |
|---|---|
my-talk/index.html | Main presentation — show this to your audience |
my-talk/speaker.html | Speaker view — open on your laptop |
my-talk/sync.js | Synchronization module (required by both) |
Both windows stay synchronized: navigate from either and the other follows.
Adding notes
---
template: content
---
## My Slide
Content here.
<!-- Speaker notes: The key point here is X. Don't forget to mention Y.
Notes can span multiple lines. -->
Notes are stripped from the audience view and appear only in speaker.html.
Timer controls
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
T | Pause / resume timer |
R | Reset to 00:00:00 |
The timer starts on your first navigation, not on page load. Use {{timer}} in a header: or footer: frontmatter key to show the live value on slides.
Recommended workflow
# Generate the presentation
java -jar md-slides.jar render my-talk --theme light
# Open audience view on the projector
open my-talk/index.html
# Press S from the main window — or open speaker view directly on your laptop
open my-talk/speaker.html
Popup blockers
If the speaker view window won't open, your browser's popup blocker may be blocking the file:// URL. Fix with a local HTTP server:
python3 -m http.server 8080
# then open http://localhost:8080/my-talk/
Alternatively, allow popups for the file:// origin in your browser settings. Chrome and Firefox both support the BroadcastChannel API required for speaker view sync.