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Kova

Kova is a free, open-source desktop app for creating presentations from plain Markdown. Write slides in your editor; Kova handles layout, theming, and export to PowerPoint — no drag-and-drop required.

Download Kova View on GitHub

How it works

A Kova presentation is a single .md file. Slides are separated by --- on its own line. An optional YAML frontmatter block at the top sets the document title, theme, and aspect ratio.

---
title: My Presentation
theme: slate
aspect_ratio: "16:9"
---

# My Presentation

Your Name · 2026

---

## What we'll cover

- Background and context
- The core problem
- Our proposed approach
- Next steps

---

## Progress so far

!progress[Feature complete](82)
!progress[Tests passing](94)
!progress[Docs written](67)

Kova parses the file in real time, detects the best layout for each slide automatically, and renders a live preview in the editor. Click ▶ Present when you're ready — dual-screen presenter view opens automatically if an external display is detected.

Feature overview
Plain Markdown Standard Markdown + GitHub Flavored Markdown tables
Automatic layouts 13 layout rules applied without manual configuration
11 built-in themes Customisable per-document via the Inspector panel
Custom themes Drop a .yaml file into ~/.kova/themes/
Mermaid diagrams Rendered and auto-themed to match your presentation
Kova extensions Progress bars, YouTube embeds, poll/QR codes
Speaker notes Hidden from the audience, visible in presenter view
Presenter view Dual-screen: next slide preview, notes, elapsed timer
Export to PowerPoint Full .pptx output via PptxGenJS — no internet required
Focus mode Distraction-free writing with Ctrl+Shift+F

Alpha status

Core features are stable, but you may encounter rough edges. Please report issues on GitHub with your OS, Kova version, and reproduction steps.

Documentation