Home / Markdown to slides
Markdown to slides, as Reveal.js HTML you can keep
Some people write talks the way they write anything else: headings, bullets, a code block, in order. This page is for them. You author outline-shaped slides — headings become titles, lists become bullets — and export a self-contained Reveal.js HTML bundle you can commit, alongside PDF and PPTX. All three exports are on Free, with no credit card and no AI; AI drafting is optional and lives on Pro and Unlimited. The denial goes in the first paragraph rather than the fine print: we do not ship a Markdown file importer — there is no .md upload and no build step — and we are not a Marp or reveal-md clone.
The job: “markdown to slides” means three different tools
The search phrase is one thing; the products behind it are three, and they barely compete with each other. Working out which one you are looking for takes about a minute and saves you a signup:
- A command-line compiler. Marp, reveal-md, pandoc and friends read .md files on your machine and emit HTML or PPTX. Source of truth is the Markdown, the deck is a build artifact, and the whole thing lives in a Makefile or a CI job. This is not what we are.
- An add-on that pastes text into Google Slides or PowerPoint. SlidesAI, Plus AI and similar tools take your notes and build inside somebody else’s suite. What you own at the end is a .gslides or .pptx in Google or Microsoft, which is exactly right if that is where your team reviews work.
- A web editor that stays close to an outline. You write structure in a browser and get a deck you can present and export. That is us, with Reveal.js as the output format.
So the wedge here is narrow and worth stating: keep the talk as structure rather than drawn boxes, get HTML you can put in a repo rather than only a cloud player, and optionally have AI draft the first outline instead of staring at an empty slide.
And the counter-case, because it is real: if you already have a Marp pipeline that works, you probably do not need us. A compiler in CI, slides rebuilt on push, everything in one text file — that is a good setup and we are not going to argue you out of it. Come here if you want a browser editor and the same HTML-native ending, or if a blank index.html is the reason your deck never gets written.
How markdown-shaped decks actually work here
“Markdown-friendly” is the kind of phrase that can mean almost anything, so here is exactly what it means on this page and what it does not.
- Write an outline, get slides. Slides here are structured content, not a picture of content: a slide has a title and a list of bullets, or it is a code slide, a quote, a section divider, two columns, a stats or timeline layout. Headings become titles and lists become bullets, so reordering a talk is reordering an outline rather than dragging text boxes between canvases.
- There is no .md file importer. Explicitly. No drop-in upload, no front-matter convention, no directive syntax, no watch mode, no build you can aim at a directory. Nothing in Markdown goes in — HTML, PDF and PPTX come out. Outline-shaped is a metaphor for how authoring feels, not a file format we accept. We say it twice on purpose, because it is the obvious feature to imply on a page with this URL.
- We are not a Marp or reveal-md clone. No CLI, no parity with their directives, themes, speaker-note conventions or plugin ecosystems, no local build. Those are open-source projects doing a job properly; claiming their surface area would be a lie you would discover in ten minutes.
- The export is the thing you keep. A self-contained Reveal.js HTML bundle you commit next to your notes, host on your own domain, or present offline from a local file — plus PDF for fixed-fidelity sending and PPTX when something downstream demands that file type. All three are on Free, with no watermark and no export cap. The downloadable file is not the upsell.
- AI is a draft, not a format. Describe a talk to Alie on Pro (100 generations a month) or Unlimited, get a first outline, then edit it like a document. Free has no AI at all and is still a complete manual editor. AI is never required to produce a deck or an export — see AI presentation maker for the paid half described as paid.
- You own the CSS. The exported bundle is Reveal.js and ordinary stylesheets, so themes are yours to change and a deck from last year is still restylable. We are not claiming a template replaces a design system.
- Credit where it belongs. Reveal.js is an independent open-source project created by Hakim El Hattab; it is free and we did not invent it. We are an editor and exporter that targets it, with no affiliation to the upstream project.
Who this is not for
- You need a Google Slides file as the working copy. If reviewers comment in Google and the deck must stay a .gslides, use a Google Slides add-on — SlidesAI, Plus AI and similar tools author inside Google, which we do not. We export PPTX; that is not the same as living in someone else’s suite. See SlidesAI alternative and Plus AI alternative for the comparisons with only first-party figures.
- You want Marp or pandoc in a Makefile and nothing else. Keep the CLI. A browser editor is a worse fit for a pipeline that already builds on push, and we do not ship a compiler you could drop in its place.
- You want the tool to design every slide for you. Smart-template products optimise for arriving at a polished deck without making layout decisions — that is Beautiful.ai’s whole thesis, and it is a coherent one. Our bet is the opposite: structure first, design yours to change.
- You need live multiplayer editing. No simultaneous cursors, no shared workspace, no comment threads. We do not have it and it is not queued behind a coming-soon badge.
- You want free AI to turn a README into forty slides. That is Pro or Unlimited. Free is manual and unlimited, and it is genuinely useful, but it will not generate anything.
- You are shopping for viewer analytics, Team seats or SSO. Not sold here. Several hosted tools build their product around exactly those, and if that is the requirement they are the honest recommendation.
Compared with hosted SaaS, add-ons and the CLI
The useful axis is not features, it is what you are holding afterwards. Add-ons treat your text as fuel for a file in someone else’s suite; card-based tools keep the deck in their cloud and meter generations; a CLI hands you local HTML and no assistant. We treat the structure as the deck and hand you the HTML.
| Approach | What you keep | Markdown in? | AI? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Slides / PowerPoint add-on | A .gslides or .pptx inside that suite | Pasted text, per their own docs | Metered — check the vendor’s own page |
| Card-based hosted SaaS | Their link or player | Varies — verify on their docs | Credits (Gamma) |
| Marp / reveal-md / pandoc | Local HTML or PPTX, built from your .md | Yes — that is the point of them | Usually none |
| AI Slide Generator | Reveal.js HTML you host, plus PDF and PPTX — all on Free | No. Outline-shaped authoring, no .md importer. | Optional and paid. Free has none. |
Two rows of that table are things we do not do, and they are in it deliberately. A comparison where we win every line is a brochure.
We do not reprint competitor prices from roundups, so no other vendor’s dollars appear on this page at all. Each comparison below carries only figures we could read on that vendor’s own pricing page, with the recheck date: Gamma alternative · Beautiful.ai alternative · Pitch alternative · Plus AI alternative · SlidesAI alternative · Presentations.ai alternative · Tome alternative
The same output, framed for the job that needs it: Reveal.js presentation maker · HTML presentation export · PowerPoint PPTX export · decks for developers · conference talks and organiser hand-offs · lecture slides for educators · startup pitch decks · sales decks you hand over as a file · student and class submissions · AI presentation maker (the paid half, described as paid)
Pricing
| Plan | Monthly list price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Unlimited manual decks and slides, all templates, freeform canvas, HTML, PDF, and PPTX export. No AI. No credit card. |
| Pro | $15/month | 100 AI generations per month, Alie, AI content suggestions, AI images, email support. |
| Unlimited | $39/month | Unlimited AI generations, priority processing, advanced models, API access, priority support. |
Yearly billing is 20% off and shown separately on the pricing page: Pro $12/month billed $144/year; Unlimited $31.20/month billed $374.40/year — the list prices are the monthly ones. Read one column or the other; do not mix them. Nothing this page is about sits behind those prices: outline-shaped authoring and HTML, PDF and PPTX export are on Free, and the paid tiers buy AI generation. There is no Team, Enterprise, or SSO plan to ask about, and you subscribe yourself through Stripe — there is nobody to negotiate with.
FAQ
Do you compile raw .md files the way Marp or reveal-md does?
No. We do not ship a Markdown importer. There is no drop-in .md upload that becomes a deck, no front-matter convention, no directive syntax, no watch mode, and no build step you can point at a folder of source files. Nothing in Markdown goes in. When this page says markdown-shaped, it is describing how authoring feels — you move headings and bullets around instead of nudging text boxes — not a file format you hand us. That distinction is the whole reason this answer comes first: people search for “markdown to slides” wanting a compiler, and if that is what you want, the open-source Markdown-first toolchains already do it properly and we would rather send you there than imply we have something we do not.
Can I keep my slides in git?
Yes, and this is the honest version of the workflow. Export the self-contained Reveal.js HTML bundle and commit that file next to whatever notes or source you already keep in the repo. It diffs, it tags, it survives a cancelled subscription, and it opens from a local file with the network off. What you cannot do is treat the repo as the input: there is no build that reads .md from the tree and produces a deck. The HTML is the artifact you version, not the source we compile.
Is Markdown required to use this?
No. Markdown-shaped is the wedge, not a gate. You can author entirely in the editor — a freeform canvas, code slides, quotes, two-column layouts, charts, timelines — and never think about outline structure at all. The reason this page exists is that a lot of people who write talks as text find the heading-and-bullet route faster, and most slide tools make them fight a designed template instead. If you prefer the canvas, use the canvas.
Does the Free plan include AI?
No. Free has no AI. It is unlimited manual decks and slides, every template, and HTML, PDF, and PPTX export, with no credit card. AI generation — the Alie assistant, AI content suggestions, AI images, prompt-to-deck — is on Pro and Unlimited only. Worth saying plainly because the two halves of this product are priced in opposite directions: the export half, which is what makes a deck keepable, costs nothing; the AI half is the paid part. Signing up for $0 expecting “turn this README into forty slides” will disappoint you.
SlidesAI and Plus AI already turn text into slides. How is this different?
It is a different job rather than a better version of the same one. Those are add-ons: they take your text and build inside Google Slides or PowerPoint, and what you end up owning is a .gslides or .pptx in someone else’s suite. That is the right answer when the working copy has to live in Google — genuinely, not as a consolation. We are a standalone Reveal.js editor whose output is HTML you host. If your team reviews and edits in Google Slides, an add-on fits your life better than we do.
Does the AI read my Markdown and turn it into the deck structure?
AI is a drafting assistant, not a parser. On Pro and Unlimited you can describe a talk in prose and get a first draft of slides to edit, and you can paste text into the chat as part of that description. What does not happen: a documented Markdown contract where specific syntax maps to specific slide types, a guarantee that fenced code blocks or nested lists come across a particular way, or a file upload path. Treat a generated draft as a starting outline you will rewrite, which is what it is worth.
Can I keep my own CSS and theme the exported HTML?
Yes. The export is a Reveal.js bundle, so the styling is ordinary CSS you can open and change, and a deck you exported a year ago is still restylable. We are not going to oversell this: we ship templates and themes, and a template is not a design system. If your brand has real typographic and colour rules, someone still has to apply them — the difference here is that nothing stops you, because the file is yours.
Do you sell Team seats, SSO, or viewer analytics?
No to all three. There are no Team or Enterprise SKUs, no SSO, no admin console, no shared workspace, and no live co-editing — Free and the two paid plans are individual accounts bought through Stripe, and there is nobody to negotiate with. We also do not sell viewer analytics as a product: we hand you files, and a file you commit to a repo or hand to an organiser cannot report back to us. Several hosted slide tools do offer exactly those things and offer them well; that is a different trade, not a gap we are pretending away.
Do you publish a rating or a user count?
No. No star rating, no rating markup in this page’s structured data, no logo wall of companies said to use us, no count of users or decks. The claims here are about what the software does and what it costs, and both are checkable by making a free account or reading the pricing page.
Outline a talk, export the HTML
Free is manual and unlimited, and HTML, PDF, and PPTX export are all included. No credit card, no AI, no .md upload to look for.
Written by an AI operator of AI Slide Generator. No fake reviews, ratings, user or deck counts, company logos, or stock testimonials on this page. We do not ship a Markdown file importer and we claim no CLI parity with Marp, reveal-md or pandoc — those are independent open-source projects doing a different job. We did not invent Reveal.js and claim no affiliation with the upstream project. Google Slides and PowerPoint are Google and Microsoft products; we are not affiliated with either. Our own price facts rechecked 6 Sep 2026 from aislidegenerator.ai/pricing.