Quarto Reveal.js presentations Skill

Quarto Reveal.js presentations

Quarto renders a .qmd file with format: revealjs into a self-contained HTML slide deck. This file covers the everyday workflow and syntax; references/ carries the full option set.

Creating a new deck

Pick a template. Ask the user which kind of deck they need, offering:
- Meeting deck (recommended) - light theme, Inter font; agenda, columns, tables, speaker notes, action items. For meetings, updates, proposals.
- Technical talk - dark theme; code blocks with line highlighting, executable Python, live demo slides. Needs Jupyter (see step 4).
- Minimal starter - bare format: revealjs to build from scratch.
Copy it into the user's project, together with its theme so the relative theme: path resolves:
- Meeting deck: ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/templates/meeting-deck.qmd + theme-clean.scss
- Technical talk: ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/templates/technical-talk.qmd + theme-clean-dark.scss
- Minimal: ${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/templates/minimal.qmd
Fill it in. Replace the title, subtitle, author, footer and placeholder content with the user's material. Every placeholder ("Your Name", "Organisation Name", "Topic One", "Person A", example URLs) is gone when this step is done.
Render with quarto render deck.qmd (or quarto preview deck.qmd for live reload). Done when the output ends in Output created: deck.html with no errors. The technical-talk template executes Python cells, so it needs a Python with jupyter, numpy, pandas and matplotlib; with uv: uv run --with jupyter,numpy,pandas,matplotlib sh -c 'QUARTO_PYTHON=$(which python) quarto render deck.qmd'. Set execute: enabled: false to render without executing.

If quarto is missing, point the user to https://quarto.org/docs/get-started/.

Slide syntax

| Syntax | Creates | |--------|---------| | ## Slide Title | New slide with title | | # Section Title | Section divider slide | | --- | Untitled slide | | . . . | Pause (reveal what follows on the next click) |

Speaker notes - place them first

Put the notes block straight after the slide title, before any visible content, so the notes show as soon as the slide opens rather than after every fragment has played. The templates use this structure:

## Slide Title

::: {.notes}
**SAY FIRST:** Opening line to say as the slide appears.

**KEY MESSAGE:** The core point of this slide.

---

**Detail (if needed):**

- Supporting information
- Backup data if asked
:::

Visible slide content here...

. . .

Content that appears after a pause

Press S during the presentation to open speaker view.

Columns

:::: {.columns}

::: {.column width="58%"}
Left content (chart)
:::

::: {.column width="42%"}
Right content (table)
:::

::::

Incremental lists

::: {.incremental}
- First point (appears first)
- Second point (appears next)
:::

Images and backgrounds

![Caption](image.png){width="80%"}

## Dark Background {background-color="#1a1a2e"}

## Image Background {background-image="photo.jpg" background-opacity="0.5"}

Code with line highlighting

```{.python code-line-numbers="2-3"}
def example():
    highlighted_line_1 = True
    highlighted_line_2 = True
    normal_line = False
```

Use code-line-numbers="1|2-3" to step through highlights one click at a time.

Themes

Built-in themes: default, dark, simple, serif, night, moon, sky, beige, blood, dracula, league, solarized.

The bundled themes use Inter for text and JetBrains Mono for code (both loaded from Google Fonts):

| Theme | File | Best for | |-------|------|----------| | Clean Light | theme-clean.scss | Meetings, proposals, general use | | Clean Dark | theme-clean-dark.scss | Technical talks, code demos |

format:
  revealjs:
    theme: theme-clean.scss

Extras in the light theme

theme-clean.scss adds styling the dark theme does not carry:

Tables - first column left-aligned in the sans font (labels); every other column right-aligned in monospace with tabular numbers.

.small-table - a compact table to sit beside a chart:

::: {.small-table}
| Metric | Value |
|--------|------:|
| Revenue | $120,000 |
| Orders | 1,500 |
:::

Mermaid - enlarged labels (nodes 18px, clusters 20px bold, edges 16px, titles 22px bold). Pair with mermaid: theme: neutral under revealjs:, as the meeting-deck template does:

```{mermaid}
%%| fig-width: 14
flowchart LR
    subgraph GROUP["Group Label"]
        A["Node A"]
        B["Node B"]
    end
    A --> C["Result"]
    style GROUP fill:#dbeafe,stroke:#3b82f6,stroke-width:2px
```

.bar-chart - horizontal bars with the value inside the bar, for when Mermaid's xychart cannot label bars. Colours: .green, .blue, .amber, .red.

::: {.bar-chart}
::: {.bar-row}
::: {.bar-label}
Label Text
:::
::: {.bar-container}
::: {.bar-fill .green style="width: 95%"}
$120K
:::
:::
:::
:::

Slide size and transitions

Both full templates use a 16:9 canvas with fast fades:

format:
  revealjs:
    width: 1600
    height: 900
    margin: 0.15
    min-scale: 0.2
    max-scale: 1.5
    transition: fade
    transition-speed: fast

Presenting and PDF export

| Key | Action | |-----|--------| | Space / → | Next slide | | ← | Previous slide | | S | Speaker view | | O / Esc | Overview | | F | Fullscreen | | B / . | Blackout | | E | Print (PDF) view | | G | Jump to slide | | M | Slide menu | | ? | All shortcuts |

For PDF: open the rendered deck in Chrome, press E, then print (Cmd/Ctrl+P) and save as PDF with margins set to none and background graphics on. references/presenting.md covers the ?print-pdf URL route and the pdf-* options (fragments per page, pages per slide).

Reference files

| File | Open when | |------|-----------| | references/yaml-options.md | Looking up any revealjs: YAML option (navigation, slide numbers, footer, logo, scaling, menu, multiplex) | | references/theming.md | Writing or adjusting an SCSS theme, Sass variables, custom CSS classes | | references/advanced-features.md | Fragments, auto-animate, absolute positioning, stacks, iframes, video and background media | | references/code-blocks.md | Syntax highlighting styles, line highlighting, executable code cells, code output | | references/presenting.md | Speaker view, chalkboard, multiplex audience sync, PDF export, accessibility |

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