Settings & Keybindings
Open Settings by clicking the gear icon (⚙) in the titlebar. An orange badge appears on the icon when a Kova update is available.
Categories are listed in a rail down the left side; the window stays a constant size as you switch between them. Use the search box at the top to jump straight to a setting by name instead of browsing categories.
Appearance
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| UI theme | Auto · Dark · Light | Auto |
| Display language | System default, or any bundled UI translation | System default |
| Interface scale | 70% · 80% · 90% · 100% · 110% · 120% · 130% · 140% · 150% | 100% |
| Content width | Fixed · Full | Fixed |
UI theme sets Dark or Light mode for the interface, editor, and panels; Auto follows your operating system's appearance setting. Changes take effect immediately — no restart required.
Display language switches the language of Kova's own interface text. System default follows your OS locale; otherwise pick any translation bundled with your build (English, Deutsch, and Slovenščina at the time of writing). This is separate from the spell-check Dictionary language below. See Translating to contribute a language.
Interface scale zooms the entire app chrome — titlebars, panels, menus, editor. Useful if the default size feels too large or too small on your display. Presentation slides are always rendered at pixel-exact resolution regardless of the scale setting.
Content width controls the editor's line width. Fixed keeps editor lines at a comfortable reading width, centred in the panel. Full stretches the editor to fill the panel as you resize the editor/preview split.
Editor
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Show frontmatter | On · Off | Off |
| Word wrap | On · Off | On |
When Show frontmatter is on, the YAML frontmatter block is visible in the editor. By default it is hidden — Kova manages it automatically via the Inspector. Turn it on if you want to edit frontmatter directly.
When Word wrap is off, long lines extend past the panel edge and a horizontal scrollbar appears instead of wrapping. Useful when working with wide tables or code snippets.
Editor zoom — hold Ctrl and scroll the mouse wheel to increase or decrease the editor font size. Keyboard shortcuts also work: Ctrl++ to zoom in, Ctrl+- to zoom out, Ctrl+0 to reset to default. The zoom level is not persisted across sessions.
Language & Spelling
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Check spelling while typing | On · Off | Off |
| Dictionary language | 23 languages | Auto-detected from system locale |
When Check spelling while typing is enabled, Kova underlines misspelled words in red as you type. The dictionary is loaded on first use.
When enabled, a Dictionary language selector appears. Kova supports 23 languages including English (US/UK/AU), French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, and more.
Kova also tracks Learned words — words you've right-clicked and added to your personal dictionary. These are listed in Settings and can be removed individually.
Workspace
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Autosave | Off · 15 sec · 30 sec · 1 min · 5 min | 30 sec |
| Confirm before closing | On · Off | On |
| On startup | Blank document · Reopen last file | Blank document |
| PDF page size | A4 · Letter · Match slide size | A4 |
When Autosave is enabled, Kova saves the file automatically after the first manual save, at the chosen interval. Autosave does not trigger on an unsaved new document.
PDF page size — paper size used for PDF export. Pages are always laid out landscape. Match slide size makes each page exactly the slide's own dimensions instead of a fixed paper size — see Exporting — PDF export.
Confirm before closing — when enabled, Kova shows a confirmation dialog if you try to close or quit with unsaved changes. This applies to the window × button, Alt+F4, taskbar close, and Cmd+Q.
On startup — controls what Kova opens when it launches. Window size and position are always restored regardless of this setting.
- Blank document — opens a new empty file on every launch.
- Reopen last file — reopens the file you had open when you last quit, and restores the active slide position.
Presentation
Controls for the ▶ Present feature. See Presenting for a full explanation of each mode.
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Display mode | Auto · Single · Dual · Mirror | Auto |
| Windowed presenter view | On · Off | Off |
| Always on top | On · Off | Off |
| Show next slide | On · Off | On |
| Show timer | On · Off | On |
| Notes font size | Small · Medium · Large | Medium |
| Laser pointer colour | Red · Orange · Green · Blue · White | Red |
Windowed presenter view keeps the dual-screen presenter overlay in a normal, resizable window on your own display instead of fullscreen — see Presenting — Windowed presenter view. Always on top appears once windowed view is on, and keeps that window above other apps.
Laser pointer colour sets the colour of the pointer dot toggled with L during a presentation — see Presenting — Laser pointer.
Themes
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Default theme | Any installed theme | light |
Sets the theme applied when you create a new document with Ctrl+N. Existing files keep whatever theme was last applied to them.
Shows the path to the custom themes folder with an Open folder button — the platform config directory, plus kova/themes/:
| Platform | Path |
|---|---|
| Linux | ~/.config/kova/themes/ |
| macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/kova/themes/ |
| Windows | %APPDATA%\kova\themes\ |
If Kova finds any .yaml files with syntax errors in that folder, the filenames and error details are listed here.
See Themes — Custom themes for the theme file format.
Updates
| Setting | Options | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Check for updates on startup | On · Off | Off |
When enabled, Kova checks the GitHub Releases page for new versions and shows an orange badge on the gear icon when one is available. No data is sent to Kova's servers — only a public GitHub API call is made.
Use the Check now button for an on-demand check without enabling automatic checks.
About
Links to the GitHub repository, issue reporting, this wiki, Open Collective support, and the community Matrix chat. A Licenses drill-down lists the open-source packages Kova is built on.
Keybindings
Six file-level shortcuts can be remapped by editing a YAML file.
File location
The platform config directory, plus kova/keybindings.yaml:
| Platform | Path |
|---|---|
| Linux | ~/.config/kova/keybindings.yaml |
| macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/kova/keybindings.yaml |
| Windows | %APPDATA%\kova\keybindings.yaml |
The file is created from Kova's defaults on first read if it doesn't already exist.
Format
new_file: ctrl+n
open_file: ctrl+o
save: ctrl+s
save_as: ctrl+shift+s
focus_mode: ctrl+shift+f
hide_slide: ctrl+shift+h
Modifiers and keys
Modifiers: ctrl · shift · alt
Keys: single characters (n, s, f, …) or named keys:
| Named key | Description |
|---|---|
escape |
Escape |
tab |
Tab |
space |
Space bar |
enter |
Enter / Return |
backspace |
Backspace |
delete |
Delete |
f1 – f12 |
Function keys |
up, down, left, right |
Arrow keys |
page_up, page_down |
Page Up / Page Down |
home, end |
Home / End |
Combine modifiers and keys with +: ctrl+shift+s, alt+f4, ctrl+f1.
Example remapping
Omitted keys retain their defaults. Edit the file and restart Kova for changes to take effect.
Limitations
Editor shortcuts (Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, heading toggles) and presentation navigation keys are not currently remappable via the keybindings file. See Keyboard Shortcuts for the full list.