Create Beautiful Presentations with Markdown
Online & In-Person
450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
🎯 Why Markdown Slides?
Unlike PowerPoint or Keynote, your presentations are future-proof, portable, and completely under your control. No proprietary formats, no vendor lock-in, no subscription fees.
The Problem with Traditional Slides
PowerPoint & Keynote:
- 💸 Expensive licenses or subscriptions
- 🔒 Proprietary file formats (
.pptx,.key) - 💻 Platform-specific (Windows/Mac only)
- 📦 Large binary files
- 🚫 Difficult to version control
- 😰 Lost formatting when sharing
Google Slides:
- ☁️ Requires internet connection
- 🔐 Data stored on Google’s servers
- 📱 Limited offline editing
- 🎨 Formatting breaks when exporting
- 🔗 Dependency on Google’s platform
The Hugo Blox Solution
Write your presentations in simple, human-readable Markdown. Edit anywhere, present anywhere, own forever.
✨ What You Get
🎨 Professional Design, Zero Effort
- 15+ Built-in Themes — Black, white, sky, league, and more
- Syntax Highlighting — Beautiful code blocks with 50+ languages
- Math Support — LaTeX equations render perfectly: $E = mc^2$
- Responsive — Looks great on any screen size
📝 Write in Plain Text
## My Slide Title
- Point one
- Point two
- Point three
```python
def hello():
return "World!"
```
---
That’s it! No complex UI, no formatting headaches.
🔄 Edit Anywhere, Anytime
Your slides are just Markdown files. Edit them in:
- HugoBlox Studio — Visual editing with live preview
- VS Code — With Markdown extensions
- Obsidian — Note-taking app that speaks Markdown
- Typora — Minimal distraction writing
- Any text editor — Even Notepad works!
🎯 Advanced Features
Dual Column Layouts:
<div style="display: flex; gap: 2rem;">
<div style="flex: 1;">Column 1</div>
<div style="flex: 1;">Column 2</div>
</div>
Fragment Animations:
{{< fragment >}}Appear on click!{{< /fragment >}}
Speaker Notes:
Note: Your private notes here
(visible in presenter view only)
Vertical Slide Stacks: Navigate down for sub-topics!
🚀 Getting Started is Easy
Step 1: Create Your Slides
Create content/slides/my-talk/index.md:
---
title: "My Amazing Talk"
type: slides
slides:
theme: black
---
# My Amazing Talk
### Your Name
---
## Main Points
- Point 1
- Point 2
- Point 3
---
## Thank You!
Step 2: Link to Your Event
In your event page (content/events/my-event/index.md):
---
title: "My Conference Presentation"
slides: "my-talk" # References the slides folder name
---
Step 3: Present!
Your slides are automatically:
- ✅ Embedded on the event page
- ✅ Available in fullscreen mode (click arrows-expand button)
- ✅ Accessible at a direct URL
- ✅ Keyboard-navigatable (→ ← keys)
💎 Why Academics & Researchers Love It
“I can finally version control my presentations with Git, collaborate using GitHub, and never worry about formatting breaking again. Game changer for reproducible research!” — Dr. Xin Liu, MIT
Perfect for Research
- Version Control — Track every change with Git
- Collaboration — Use GitHub pull requests for slide reviews
- Reproducibility — Slides are plain text, commit them with your code
- Open Science — Share presentations on GitHub, no barriers
- Citations — Include BibTeX references easily
- Jupyter Integration — Embed notebooks and visualizations
Perfect for Teaching
- Reusable Content — Mix and match slides across courses
- Student Contributions — Students can submit slide PRs
- Live Coding — Syntax highlighting for all languages
- Interactive Examples — Embed interactive visualizations
- Accessible — Keyboard navigation, screen reader friendly
🎬 See It In Action
Try it now! The slides embedded above demonstrate all these features:
- Code highlighting with Python
- Mathematical equations with LaTeX
- Dual column layouts (slides 4-6)
- Fragment animations
- Multiple themes
Click the arrows-expand fullscreen button (top right) to experience presentation mode!
Live Features to Try
- Navigate: Use arrow keys (→ ←) or click controls
- Fullscreen: Click the expand button to go fullscreen
- Speaker Notes: Press
Sto open presenter view (try it!) - Overview: Press
ESCto see all slides at once - Search: Press
/to search slide content - Zoom:
Alt+Clickto zoom into details
🆚 Comparison
| Feature | PowerPoint | Google Slides | Hugo Blox |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | $159.99/year | Free* | Free Forever |
| Format | Binary (.pptx) | Proprietary | Plain Markdown |
| Version Control | ❌ Difficult | ❌ Limited | ✅ Git Native |
| Offline Editing | ✅ Yes | ⚠️ Limited | ✅ Fully Offline |
| Platform Lock-in | ⚠️ Microsoft | ✅ None | |
| Code Highlighting | ⚠️ Basic | ⚠️ Limited | ✅ 50+ Languages |
| Math Equations | ⚠️ Clunky | ⚠️ Basic | ✅ Full LaTeX |
| Portability | ❌ Poor | ❌ Requires Google | ✅ Works Anywhere |
| Future-Proof | ❌ Format changes | ⚠️ API changes | ✅ Plain Text Forever |
| Open Source | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
Hugo Blox wins on freedom, portability, and long-term sustainability.
🛠️ Advanced Capabilities
Code Blocks with Syntax Highlighting
import torch
import torch.nn as nn
class Transformer(nn.Module):
def __init__(self, d_model=512, nhead=8):
super().__init__()
self.attention = nn.MultiheadAttention(d_model, nhead)
def forward(self, x):
return self.attention(x, x, x)[0]
Mathematical Equations
Display equations with LaTeX:
$$
\nabla \times \vec{E} = -\frac{\partial \vec{B}}{\partial t}
$$
$$
\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} e^{-x^2} dx = \sqrt{\pi}
$$
Dual Column Layouts
Perfect for before/after comparisons, code + explanation, or image + text:
<div style="display: flex; gap: 2rem;">
<div style="flex: 1;">Left content</div>
<div style="flex: 1;">Right content</div>
</div>
See slides 4-6 in the embedded presentation above for live examples!
🎓 For Educators: Teach the Future
Teaching with Hugo Blox means teaching modern, transferable skills:
- Markdown (used everywhere: GitHub, Notion, Obsidian)
- Version control (essential for careers)
- Web technologies (HTML, CSS)
- Reproducible science practices
Course Integration
courses/
├── ml-101/
│ ├── lecture-1/
│ │ ├── index.md (slides)
│ │ └── notes.md
│ ├── lecture-2/
│ │ └── index.md
│ └── _index.md
Each lecture gets its own slide deck, all version controlled, all editable by students as PRs.
🌍 Join the Community
Hugo Blox is used by researchers at:
- 🎓 Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge
- 🏢 Google Research, Meta AI, OpenAI
- 🔬 CERN, NASA, NIH
- 🌐 Thousands of universities worldwide
Get Help & Connect
🚀 Ready to Create?
No installation required. No account needed. Just Markdown and your creativity.
📖 Additional Resources
Templates & Examples
Tips & Tricks
- Keep slides simple — one idea per slide
- Use dual columns for comparisons
- Add speaker notes with
Note:prefix - Test presenter view before your talk
- Use fragments to control pacing
- Version control your slides with Git
- Share source files for reproducibility
Have questions? Check out the FAQ or ask the community!
Want to contribute? Hugo Blox is open source! Contributions welcome.
