Skip to content

1.10 Export Presentations

Jump to bottom
Frédéric Clavert edited this page Jul 26, 2026 · 10 revisions

Export Guide

Version: 1.0.0-rc.4 Last updated: 2026-07-20

This page covers every export route: documents (PDF, Word), presentations (reveal.js, Beamer) and books.

Available formats

Format Extension Description
PDF .pdf Typeset document via Pandoc + XeLaTeX
Word .docx Microsoft Word document, template support
reveal.js presentation .html Web slide deck, online or self-contained
Presentation PDF .pdf Printable slide deck
Beamer .pdf LaTeX slide deck (presentation projects)

PDF export

Requirements

  • Pandoc installed
  • LaTeX (XeLaTeX) installed

The export window tells you whether both were found before you start.

Steps

  1. Open Export (or Ctrl/Cmd+E)
  2. Choose PDF
  3. Set the title, author and output file
  4. Click Export

Options

Option Description
Scope Whole book or a single chapter (book projects only)
CSL style Citation style — Chicago (notes-bibliography) or MLA bundled, or bring your own .csl
Locale Language of the generated citations
Abstract Read automatically from abstract.md

Word export

Produces a .docx readable by Microsoft Word and LibreOffice.

  1. Export → Word
  2. Pick a template (optional)
  3. Choose the output file

Word templates

You can use a custom .dotx template:

  1. Put the template in the project folder
  2. The export detects it
  3. Styles or placeholders are applied, depending on whether a bibliography is attached — see the Word Templates guide for which mechanism you'll actually get.

Available placeholders (apply in every case except bibliography + Pandoc + no citation engine requested — see the Word Templates guide for the full three-condition breakdown): {title}, {author}, {date}, {content}, {abstract}.

See the Word Templates guide.

Presentation export

For presentation projects.

Three modes, chosen in the export window:

Mode Result
Online A light HTML file; reveal.js is loaded from a CDN (needs a connection when presenting)
Offline A self-contained HTML file, everything embedded — usable with no network, in a conference room
PDF A printable deck

The Beamer route (LaTeX) remains available for a classic academic look; configure it in the project settings.

Configuring a deck from its front matter

New in RC3. The YAML block at the top of slides.md configures the export:

---
title: "Danzig, 1919-1939"
author: Frédéric Clavert
theme: night
transition: fade
---

These values complete reveal-config.json. The title and author typed in the export window take precedence.

Speaker notes

A line starting with Note: inside a slide becomes a speaker note in the reveal.js export.

Exporting a book

New in RC3. In a book project, the export window offers a scope:

  • Whole book — chapters are assembled in manifest order, with numbered chapters, a table of contents, and front and back matter in place;
  • This chapter only — a working proof, for a re-read or for sending a single contribution.

Note style (footnotes, endnotes per chapter, endnotes at the end) and bibliography placement (one or one per chapter) follow the book settings, which have had a dialog since RC4 — see Books and Chapters.

Assembly is correct for PDF and, since RC4, for Word too: a book exported with a bibliography attached used to come out empty of chapter content. Note style remains PDF/LaTeX only in Word, since it relies on LaTeX commands a .docx cannot express.

Bibliography in exports

Automatic inclusion

If your document contains citations ([@citekey]), the bibliography is:

  1. generated at the end of the document (or of each chapter, if you asked for that);
  2. formatted according to the chosen CSL style;
  3. limited to the references actually cited.

CSL styles

Only two styles are bundled — Chicago (notes-bibliography) is the default:

Style Field
Chicago (notes-bibliography) History, humanities — footnote-style, not author-date
MLA Literature, languages

For anything else — APA, Harvard, IEEE, or a journal-specific style — bring your own CSL file (see below); ClioDeck isn't limited to the two bundled ones.

Custom CSL file

  1. Download one from the Zotero Style Repository
  2. Put the .csl file in the project
  3. Select it from the Project panel's CSL settings (cslPath)

Troubleshooting

The PDF export fails

  • Pandoc or LaTeX not installed → brew install pandoc (macOS), MacTeX or TeX Live for LaTeX
  • An error in the markdown itself — the export window shows Pandoc's message

Citations do not appear

  • Check the keys ([@citekey]) against your bibliography — the Check citations button lists the missing ones
  • Make sure a bibliography is attached to the project

Images are missing

  • Use paths relative to the document
  • Check that the image files exist

Keyboard shortcut

Action Shortcut
Export Ctrl/Cmd+E

Clone this wiki locally