Creating Slides using Go's present package

May 21, 2015 · 2 minute read

Sick of using Powerpoint? Just want to create simple, clean slides for your next tech presentation? Well then give Go’s present package a try.

Creating the Slides

Just create a .slide file in your favourite text editor. The syntax is pretty simple. The full syntax is documented on the present package page.

Here is a simple example:

Data Center Automation Presentation

* Agenda
- Terraform Example
- Chef Example

* Terraform Example
.image images/terraform-example.png _ 800

* Chef Example
.code code/recipes/default.rb

.code code/attributes/default.rb

It should be pretty self-explanatory but just in case:

• The first line is just the title of the Presentation.
• Asterix (*) indicate the title of each slide.
• Dash (-) indicate a bullet point.
• .image to insert an image using a local relative path.
• .code pulls in code using a local relative path.

Viewing the Slides

Now to see your slides. You’ll need Go installed and setup. Hopefully you already have that otherwise it’s about time you got started :-).

Pull down the present package:

go get golang.org/x/tools/cmd/present 

That should of created the present binary in your $GOPATH/bin. Now run that from the directory where your slide is (or a parent directory).

$GOPATH/bin/present

If it worked you should see the following:

2015/05/21 23:41:37 Open your web browser and visit http://127.0.0.1:3999

Now open your browser at http://localhost:3999/ and you should see your .slide file so click on it to see your new slides.

Tips

1. If you want to share your slides with someone else in the office, you can always change the IP and/or Port that the present binary is binding on: $GOPATH/bin/present -http="192.168.0.103:3999"
2. Add the bin directory to your path so you can just use present to start the slides. export PATH="$GOPATH/bin:$PATH"