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Keyboard Shortcuts


File operations

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+N New presentation
Ctrl+O Open file
Ctrl+S Save (opens Save As if the file has never been saved)
Ctrl+Shift+S Save As
Ctrl+Shift+F Toggle focus mode

Editor

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+B Wrap selection in bold (**…**)
Ctrl+I Wrap selection in italic (*…*)
Ctrl+1 Toggle H1 heading on the current line
Ctrl+2 Toggle H2 heading on the current line
Ctrl+3 Toggle H3 heading on the current line
Ctrl+4 Toggle H4 heading on the current line
Ctrl+5 Toggle H5 heading on the current line
Ctrl+6 Toggle H6 heading on the current line
Ctrl+C Copy
Ctrl+X Cut
Ctrl+V Paste
Ctrl+Z Undo
Ctrl+Shift+Z Redo

Heading shortcuts: pressing the same level again removes the heading marker — Ctrl+2 on an existing ## line strips it back to plain text.

Bold / Italic with no selection: if nothing is selected, Ctrl+B inserts bold text and Ctrl+I inserts italic text, with the placeholder pre-selected so you can type immediately.


Presentation mode

Key Action
/ / Space / PageDown Next slide
/ / PageUp Previous slide
N Toggle speaker notes panel (single-screen only)
Esc Exit presentation mode

You can also navigate by clicking the left third or right third of the screen in single-screen mode.

Dual-screen mode

In dual-screen mode the presenter overlay handles all navigation, and speaker notes are always visible — no key press required. See Presenting for full details.


Customising shortcuts

The five file-level shortcuts can be remapped via ~/.kova/keybindings.yaml:

new_file:   ctrl+n
open_file:  ctrl+o
save:       ctrl+s
save_as:    ctrl+shift+s
focus_mode: ctrl+shift+f

Editor shortcuts (Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, heading toggles) and presentation navigation keys are not currently remappable.

See Settings & Keybindings for the full format and supported modifier/key names.