A Rust-based tool for generating professional PowerPoint presentations from Markdown files. This tool provides a complete pipeline for creating presentations:

1. Convert Markdown to HTML with custom styling and embedded scripts
2. Render HTML to slide images using headless browser automation
3. Create PowerPoint (PPTX) presentations from the slide images

• Simple Markdown Syntax: Write presentations in easy-to-use Markdown
• Custom Styling: Include CSS to control the look and feel of your slides
• JavaScript Support: Add interactivity with custom JS
• Efficient Pipeline: Generate presentations in a three-step process
• Local and Remote Resources: Include local files or remote URLs for CSS/JS
• Customizable Output: Control image dimensions, format, and naming
• Complete PPTX Generation: Creates fully-functional PowerPoint files

• Rust and Cargo (https://rustup.rs/)
• Chrome/Chromium for headless rendering
  • On macOS: brew install --cask google-chrome
  • On Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install chromium-browser
  • On Windows: Download from https://www.google.com/chrome/

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/yourusername/big-slides.git
cd big-slides

# Build the project
cargo build --release

# The binary will be available at target/release/big

# Display help
./target/release/big --help

# Check version
./target/release/big --version

Big-Slides provides three main commands that can be used separately or in sequence:

big generate-html -i input.md -o output.html [--css style1.css,style2.css] [--js script1.js,script2.js]

• -i, --input: Path to the markdown file
• -o, --output: Path to output HTML file
• --css: CSS files to include (local paths or URLs, comma-separated)
• --js: JavaScript files to include (local paths or URLs, comma-separated)
• --mode: Mode for CSS/JS: 'embed' to embed content or 'link' to reference (default: "embed")

# Basic usage
big generate-html -i presentation.md -o presentation.html

# With custom styling
big generate-html -i presentation.md -o presentation.html --css style.css --js navigation.js

big generate-slides -i presentation.html -o slides_directory [--base-name slide] [--format png] [--width 1280] [--height 720]

• -i, --input: Path to the HTML file to render
• -o, --output-dir: Directory to output slide images
• --base-name: Base filename for slides (default: "slide")
• --format: Format for the slide images (default: "png")
• --width: Width of the slides in pixels (default: 1280)
• --height: Height of the slides in pixels (default: 720)

# Basic usage
big generate-slides -i presentation.html -o ./slides

# With custom dimensions and format
big generate-slides -i presentation.html -o ./slides --width 1920 --height 1080 --format png

big generate-pptx -i slides_directory -o presentation.pptx [--pattern "*.png"] [--title "My Presentation"]

• -i, --input-dir: Directory containing slide images
• -o, --output: Output PPTX file path
• --pattern: Pattern to match slide images (default: "*.png")
• --title: Title for the presentation (default: "Presentation")

# Basic usage
big generate-pptx -i ./slides -o presentation.pptx

# With custom title and pattern
big generate-pptx -i ./slides -o presentation.pptx --title "Quarterly Report" --pattern "slide_*.png"

The true power of big-slides comes from running the complete pipeline:

# Create a working directory
mkdir my_presentation && cd my_presentation

# Write your presentation in markdown
cat > slides.md << EOF
# My Presentation

## Created with big-slides

---

# Key Point 1

* Easy to write
* Version controllable
* Looks great

---

# Code Example

\`\`\`rust
fn main() {
    println!("Hello, presentations!");
}
\`\`\`

---

# Thank You!

Questions?
EOF

# Create a custom style
cat > style.css << EOF
body {
  font-family: 'Arial', sans-serif;
  color: #333;
}
h1 {
  color: #0066cc;
}
.slides > div {
  background: linear-gradient(to bottom, #ffffff, #f0f0f0);
  padding: 40px;
  border-radius: 5px;
}
EOF

# 1. Convert markdown to HTML with your style
big generate-html -i slides.md -o slides.html --css style.css

# 2. Render HTML to slide images
big generate-slides -i slides.html -o ./slide_images --width 1920 --height 1080

# 3. Create PPTX from slides
big generate-pptx -i ./slide_images -o presentation.pptx --title "My Big Presentation"

# Open the presentation
open presentation.pptx  # On macOS
# Or: xdg-open presentation.pptx  # On Linux
# Or: start presentation.pptx  # On Windows

Big-Slides expects markdown files where slides are separated by --- (horizontal rule):

# Title Slide

Presentation subtitle

---

# Slide 1: Introduction

* Bullet point 1
* Bullet point 2
* Bullet point 3

---

# Slide 2: Code Example

```rust
fn main() {
    println!("Hello, world!");
}

## Customizing Slides

### CSS Styling

You can create a custom CSS file to control the appearance of your slides:

```css
/* Basic styling */
body {
  font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;
  color: #333;
  background-color: #fff;
}

/* Title styling */
h1 {
  color: #0066cc;
  border-bottom: 2px solid #eee;
  padding-bottom: 10px;
}

/* Slide container styling */
.slides > div {
  box-shadow: 0 5px 15px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);
  margin-bottom: 20px;
  padding: 40px;
  border-radius: 5px;
}

/* Code blocks */
pre code {
  background-color: #f5f5f5;
  display: block;
  padding: 15px;
  border-radius: 5px;
  overflow-x: auto;
}

/* Tables */
table {
  border-collapse: collapse;
  width: 100%;
}

th, td {
  border: 1px solid #ddd;
  padding: 8px;
}

th {
  background-color: #f2f2f2;
}

You can add JavaScript to control slide navigation (especially useful if you want to preview your slides in a browser):

document.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function() {
  const slides = document.querySelectorAll('.slides > div');
  let currentSlide = 0;
  
  // Hide all slides except the first one
  for (let i = 1; i < slides.length; i++) {
    slides[i].style.display = 'none';
  }
  
  // Add keyboard navigation
  document.addEventListener('keydown', function(e) {
    if (e.key === 'ArrowRight' && currentSlide < slides.length - 1) {
      slides[currentSlide].style.display = 'none';
      currentSlide++;
      slides[currentSlide].style.display = 'block';
    } else if (e.key === 'ArrowLeft' && currentSlide > 0) {
      slides[currentSlide].style.display = 'none';
      currentSlide--;
      slides[currentSlide].style.display = 'block';
    }
  });
});

big/
├── src/
│   ├── main.rs    # CLI interface and command handling
│   ├── lib.rs     # Core functionality implementation
│   └── tests.rs   # Unit tests
└── tests/
    ├── integration_test.rs       # Basic integration tests
    ├── generate_html_test.rs     # HTML generation tests
    ├── generate_slides_test.rs   # Slide generation tests
    ├── generate_pptx_test.rs     # PPTX generation tests
    └── end_to_end_test.rs        # Full pipeline tests

# Run all non-browser tests
cargo test

# Run specific test
cargo test test_generate_html_basic

# Run browser-dependent tests (ignored by default)
cargo test -- --ignored

# Run all tests with full output
cargo test -- --nocapture

• RUST_LOG: Controls logging level (e.g., RUST_LOG=info)
• BROWSER_PATH: Specify custom browser path for testing

1. Chrome/Chromium not found:

   • Ensure Chrome/Chromium is installed and accessible in your PATH
   • Consider specifying browser path via environment variable

2. Permission Issues:

   • Make sure you have write permissions for the output directories

3. Slide Navigation Problems:

   • Check that your JavaScript correctly handles slide transitions
   • Ensure your HTML structure matches the expected .slides > div pattern

MIT License

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to submit issues or pull requests.