Academic poster generator that converts Markdown files to beautiful HTML posters with live preview, drag-and-drop editing, and PDF export.

• Installation
• Quick Start
• Frontmatter
• Features
• Templates
• CLI
• PDF-To-Poster Claude Skill

uv pip install -e .
playwright install chromium  # Required for PDF export

# Create a new poster from a template
postergeist new my-poster --template gradient

# Start the live editor
postergeist serve my-poster/poster.md

# Export to HTML
postergeist export my-poster/poster.md -o poster.html

Posters are written in Markdown with YAML frontmatter for configuration. Each ## Heading creates a new cell on the poster.

---
title: "My Research Poster"
subtitle: "Optional subtitle"
authors:
  - name: Alice Smith
    affiliation: "1"
  - name: Bob Jones
    affiliation: "1,2"
affiliations:
  - key: "1"
    name: University of Example
  - key: "2"
    name: Institute of Science
poster:
  size: A0-landscape           # Paper size (see below)
  template: gradient            # Built-in or custom theme
  columns: [1, 2, 1]           # Relative column widths
  logos:                        # One or more logos (top-left)
    - images/logo1.png
    - images/logo2.png
  qr_code: https://example.com # QR code URL (top-right)
  qr_label: "Project Page"     # Label next to QR code
  colors:                      # Override template colors
    primary: "#2d1b69"
    secondary: "#e87f24"
  fonts:                       # Override template fonts
    heading: Roboto Slab
    body: Open Sans
  font_scale: 1.0              # Global font scale factor
  style:                       # Override template layout
    column_gap: "8mm"          # Gap between columns
    cell_gap: "3mm"            # Gap between cells
    cell_padding: "6mm"        # Padding inside cells
    poster_margin: "12mm"      # Outer margin around poster body
    header_padding: "8mm 12mm" # Padding inside the header
---

Each ## Heading starts a new cell. Use HTML comments to control placement:

## Introduction

<!-- col: 0 -->

Your content here with **bold**, *italic*, and other markdown.

## Results

<!-- col: 1, h: 1.5 -->

This cell is in column 1 with 1.5x height.

## Analysis

<!-- col: 2 -->

Content for the third column.

Cell options (in <!-- ... --> comments):

• col: N — Place cell in column N (0-indexed)
• h: N — Relative height (default: 1.0, higher = taller)
• split: true — Split cell horizontally (use ||| to separate halves)

Cells without a title (no ## Heading text) render as content-only, without a header bar.

Create side-by-side content within a single cell:

## Comparison

<!-- col: 0, split: true -->

### Left Side

Content for the left half.

|||

### Right Side

Content for the right half.

Standard markdown tables are supported and automatically contained within cells:

| Method | Score | Time |
|--------|-------|------|
| Baseline | 0.75 | 10s |
| **Ours** | **0.95** | **3s** |

Inline math with $E = mc^2$ and display math with:

$$\text{Quality} = \frac{\text{PSNR} \times \text{SSIM}}{\text{Time}}$$

Rendered via KaTeX.

```mermaid
graph LR
    A[Input] --> B[Process]
    B --> C[Output]
```⁠

Diagrams automatically adapt to the active template's color scheme.

Standard markdown images with automatic captions from alt text:

![**Method overview:** our pipeline](images/figure.png)

Alt text is rendered as a caption below the image. Markdown formatting (bold, italic, code) is supported in captions — bold text is highlighted in the primary color.

Display images side by side with captions:

{grid:2:center}

![**Bold caption:** description text](images/fig1.png)

![**Another caption:** more details](images/fig2.png)

Syntax: {grid:N} or {grid:N:align}

• N — Number of images in the grid (2, 3, 4, etc.)
• align — Vertical image alignment: top, center, or bottom (default: bottom)

Caption formatting: Markdown bold (**text**), italic (*text*), and inline code are rendered in captions. Bold text is highlighted in the primary color.

Image weights: Control relative widths of grid items with {w:N} at the start of the alt text:

{grid:2}

![{w:2} Large image gets 2/3 width](images/wide.png)

![{w:1} Smaller image gets 1/3 width](images/narrow.png)

Captions are automatically aligned horizontally across all grid items, regardless of image heights.

Specify any size with units:

size: 40x30in     # inches
size: 1200x800mm  # millimeters
size: 100x70cm    # centimeters

List templates: postergeist templates

Preview any template by adding ?template=NAME to the URL in the browser (e.g., http://localhost:8765/?template=modern-dark).

Create a YAML file next to your poster markdown (e.g., my-theme.yaml) and reference it in frontmatter:

# poster.md frontmatter
poster:
  template: my-theme

Example my-theme.yaml:

name: "My Custom Theme"
description: "A personalized poster theme"

colors:
  primary: "#1a5276"
  secondary: "#2ecc71"
  accent: "#e74c3c"
  background: "#ecf0f1"
  surface: "#ffffff"
  text: "#2c3e50"
  text_light: "#ffffff"
  header_bg: "linear-gradient(135deg, #1a5276 0%, #2ecc71 100%)"
  cell_border: "rgba(26,82,118,0.2)"
  poster_bg: "#ecf0f1"
  table_header_bg: "#1a5276"
  table_header_text: "#ffffff"

fonts:
  heading: "Merriweather"
  body: "Lato"

style:
  cell_radius: "3mm"
  cell_shadow: "0 1mm 4mm rgba(0,0,0,0.1)"
  cell_border_width: "0px"
  cell_padding: "6mm"
  cell_gap: "3mm"
  column_gap: "5mm"

Any omitted keys fall back to the classic template defaults. Fonts are loaded from Google Fonts automatically.

The development server (postergeist serve) provides a live editor with:

• Drag-and-drop — Reorder cells by dragging their headers
• Cell resize — Drag the bottom edge of cells to adjust height
• Column resize — Drag between columns to adjust widths
• Split cell resize — Drag the divider between split cell halves to adjust proportions
• Split/merge — Split cells into side-by-side halves or merge them back
• Live reload — Edits to the markdown file are instantly reflected
• Preview/Edit toggle — Switch between editing and clean preview modes

All layout changes (reorder, resize, column widths) are saved back to the markdown file automatically.

Click Export PDF in the toolbar to generate a high-quality PDF using Playwright's headless Chromium. The PDF matches the exact poster dimensions with full color fidelity.

Requires Playwright:

playwright install chromium

postergeist new <directory> [-t template] [--example]
    Create a new poster project

postergeist serve <file.md> [--host HOST] [--port PORT] [--preview] [--no-browser]
    Start the development server with live editing

postergeist export <file.md> [-o output.html]
    Export poster to standalone HTML

postergeist templates
    List available built-in templates

Postergeist includes a Claude Code skill that automatically converts academic paper PDFs into posters.

The skill is located at .claude/skills/paper-to-poster/SKILL.md. It's automatically available when using Claude Code in this project.

/paper-to-poster path/to/paper.pdf
/paper-to-poster https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.00653
/paper-to-poster paper.pdf CVPR 2026

The skill accepts:

• Local PDF paths — extracts content and figures directly
• URLs — downloads the PDF first (supports ArXiv abs/pdf links, direct PDF URLs)
• Optional conference name — used as subtitle and to inform style choices

1. Extracts text and figures from the PDF using PyMuPDF (handles raster images, vector drawings, and complex LaTeX figures)
2. Generates a 3-column poster markdown:
   • Column 1 (narrow): Motivation, problem statement, approach overview
   • Column 2 (wide): Key results, main figures, visual comparisons
   • Column 3 (narrow): Supporting tables, ablations, references
3. Reviews the poster against the original paper for accuracy and completeness
4. Optimizes whitespace by adjusting cell heights

The generated poster uses all available Postergeist features: split cells, image grids, mermaid diagrams, math equations, blockquotes, and tables.

my-poster/
├── poster.md          # Your poster content
├── my-theme.yaml      # Optional custom theme
└── images/
    ├── logo.png
    ├── figure1.png
    └── figure2.png