Deck settings
Every deck can start with a front-matter block: a few lines of settings
between two --- lines, before the first slide.
---title: Q3 board reviewtheme: cuoiopaginate: truefooter: Board review · Confidential---Each line is a key and a value. The block applies to every slide, so it is where you set what the deck as a whole looks and sounds like. You never have to write one: a deck with no front matter renders with sensible defaults.
Four things to know
Section titled “Four things to know”1. It applies to every slide. footer: Confidential puts the footer on
every slide. You set it once instead of forty times.
2. One slide can differ. Most settings have a per-slide form, usually a
class on the slide’s _class: line or a <!-- _key: … --> comment. The slide’s
own setting wins over the deck’s:
Try this. The deck sets a two-color brand bar and page numbers. This slide drops the bar (spectrum-off) and hides its own number (no-pagination). Delete those two classes and the slide falls back to the deck.
3. A wrong value is usually caught. Most look and accent settings accept a
fixed list of values. lint:deck and the Studio editor warn on a value outside
that list, such as spectrum: rainbow, and name the values that work. The deck
still renders, using the default. theme:, size: and the motion keys are not
checked yet, so a typo there renders the default without a warning.
4. The Studio writes it for you. The controls under Settings → Deck write these lines. (The one exception is Inline validation, which is your own editor preference.) The panel’s sections — Look, Chrome, General, Accent, Motion, Speech — match the groups below and in the front-matter reference. Type a key in the editor and autocomplete offers its values.
The Playground’s Deck settings sheet writes the ones most decks want, in three groups: Look (theme, color mode, preset, finish, headline alignment, heading rule, eyebrow, corners, card lift, mode), Format (size, venue, splitting) and On every slide (page numbers, header, footer). A row under a preset shows the preset’s value and writes a line only when you pick something else.
The settings most decks want
Section titled “The settings most decks want”General — what the deck is
Section titled “General — what the deck is”| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
title: | The deck’s name: the browser tab, the Studio switcher, the export filename. Defaults to the first heading. |
lang: | The deck’s language, e.g. en-US or it. It sets the read-aloud voice, so set it for any deck that is not in English. |
split: | Where a new slide starts: at each ## heading (headings, the default), or only at --- (rule). See Authoring decks. |
class: | A modifier on every slide, e.g. class: checks-bold. |
Look — theme and canvas
Section titled “Look — theme and canvas”| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
theme: | The palette. See Themes & palettes. |
color-mode: | Open in light, dark or print, or follow the viewer’s system. |
size: | The slide shape: hd (16:9) by default, or standard (4:3), square, portrait (4:5), story or reel (9:16), mobile, 4k. |
mode: | The hand: boardroom (clean, the default) or sketch (hand-drawn). |
finish: | A backdrop behind every slide, e.g. halo or gallery. |
Three more change the feel of card layouts: lift: on gives cards a shadow,
corners: rounded rounds the slide, and cards: decides where a short card
row puts its spare height.
Chrome — the furniture on every slide
Section titled “Chrome — the furniture on every slide”header: and footer: add a running header and a running footer. Page numbers
are on unless paginate: false says otherwise; one slide opts out with the
no-pagination class, and title, divider and closing slides drop theirs on
their own. meta: fills the small status line in the masthead, such as a
date or a review stage. logo: draws your logo, and one line styles it:
logo-finish: bottom-center accent-ink lg title takes up to one word each for
the placement, the color, the size and the scope, and the editor completes them.
A placement word hides the header, footer or page number in that band, because
the brand wins; a color word recolors the mark from the theme and follows light
and dark. Any slide can hide the logo with _class: no-logo. The Studio’s
Chrome tab has a control for each word.
Accent — the small decorations
Section titled “Accent — the small decorations”These are where a deck gets its character, and each one is a single word:
Try this. Try spectrum: mono, rule: accent, eyebrow: dot. Each changes its own decoration. An unknown value falls back to the default, and lint:deck lists the valid ones.
| Key | Decorates |
|---|---|
spectrum: | The spectrum accent: on (a rainbow), solid, duo, mono or off. It colors the brand bar along one edge and every accent that follows it, such as table rails and code strips. spectrum-edge: moves the bar. |
spectrum-card: | A thin rail on each card. |
rule: | The line under each heading. |
eyebrow: | The mark on the eyebrow: a line holding only inline code, just above the heading, like `Q3 review`. |
headline: | How the heading lines up: left, center, right. |
stamp: · tone: | The shape of a status stamp, and of a review tone. |
Motion — for live surfaces only
Section titled “Motion — for live surfaces only”motion: on animates charts as they appear in the preview, in Present mode and
in the exported player. A PDF is always still. motion-style: and
motion-speed: tune it, and player-motion: off keeps motion while you present
but ships still charts in the exported player.
Speech — how the deck is read aloud
Section titled “Speech — how the deck is read aloud”pace: sets how long a self-presenting deck holds on a slide before speaking,
and how long it lets the last sentence land before the next slide appears.
lexicon: teaches the voice how to say a word, and acronyms: spells out
abbreviations. Definitions in acronyms: also feed glossary: auto, which adds
a glossary slide at the end:
---acronyms: ARR: annual recurring revenueglossary: auto---Settings to reach for last
Section titled “Settings to reach for last”color:,backgroundColor:,backgroundImage:andstyle:are raw CSS, kept for Marp compatibility. They bypass the theme, so the deck stops following a theme or a dark-mode switch. Prefertheme:andfinish:.style:also works only in the command-line render: the Studio ignores it.present:,read:,fluid:andplayer:choose what the command-line export produces. In the Studio, Share makes that choice instead.
Every key, its accepted values and its default, grouped the same way: Front-matter reference.