marp-team/marp-cli

@marp-team/marp-cli

A CLI interface, for Marp (using @marp-team/marp-core) and any slide deck converter based on Marpit framework.

It can convert Marp / Marpit Markdown files into static HTML / CSS, PDF, PowerPoint document, and image(s) easily.

Try it now!

npx

npx (npm exec) is the best way to use the latest Marp CLI if you wanted one-shot Markdown conversion without install. Just run below if you have installed Node.js v18 and later.

# Convert slide deck into HTML
npx @marp-team/marp-cli@latest slide-deck.md
npx @marp-team/marp-cli@latest slide-deck.md -o output.html

# Convert slide deck into PDF
npx @marp-team/marp-cli@latest slide-deck.md --pdf
npx @marp-team/marp-cli@latest slide-deck.md -o output.pdf

# Convert slide deck into PowerPoint document (PPTX)
npx @marp-team/marp-cli@latest slide-deck.md --pptx
npx @marp-team/marp-cli@latest slide-deck.md -o output.pptx

# Watch mode
npx @marp-team/marp-cli@latest -w slide-deck.md

# Server mode (Pass directory to serve)
npx @marp-team/marp-cli@latest -s ./slides

[!IMPORTANT] You have to install any one of Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Mozilla Firefox to convert slide deck into PDF, PPTX, and image(s).

Container image

Don't you like installing Node.js and Chrome to local? We have an official container image that is ready to use CLI.

⏩ Please refer how to use at Docker Hub.

Docker Hub

docker pull marpteam/marp-cli

GitHub Container Registry

docker pull ghcr.io/marp-team/marp-cli

Install

Use package manager

You can use the package manager to install and update Marp CLI easily.

Disclaimer: Package manifests are maintained by the community, not Marp team.

macOS / Linux: Homebrew

brew install marp-cli

Windows: Scoop

scoop install marp

Use Node.js

Node.js v18 and later is required to use Marp CLI.

Local installation

We recommend to install Marp CLI into your Node.js project. You may control the CLI version (and engine if you want) exactly.

npm install --save-dev @marp-team/marp-cli

The installed marp command is available in npm-scripts or npx marp.

Global installation

You can install with -g option if you want to use marp command globally.

npm install -g @marp-team/marp-cli

Standalone binary

We also provide standalone binaries for Linux, macOS (Apple Silicon), and Windows. These have bundled Marp CLI with Node.js binary, so no need to install Node.js separately.

⏩ Download the latest standalone binary from release page.

Basic usage

[!IMPORTANT] Several kind of conversions with 🌐 icon require to install any of compatible browsers, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Mozilla Firefox. When an unexpected problem has occurred while converting, please update your browser to the latest version. Check out browser options too.

Convert to HTML

The passed markdown will be converted to HTML file by default. In the below example, a converted slide-deck.html will output to the same directory.

marp slide-deck.md

You can change the output path by --output (-o) option.

marp slide-deck.md -o output.html

Marp CLI supports converting multiple files by passing multiple paths, directories, and glob patterns. In this case, --output option cannot use.

When you want to output the converted result to another directory with keeping the origin directory structure, you can use --input-dir (-I) option. --output option would be available for specify the output directory.

Convert to PDF (--pdf) 🌐

If you passed --pdf option or the output filename specified by --output (-o) option ends with .pdf, Marp CLI will try to convert Markdown into PDF file through the browser.

marp --pdf slide-deck.md
marp slide-deck.md -o converted.pdf

PDF output options

• --pdf-notes: Add PDF note annotations to the lower left when the slide page has Marpit presenter notes.
• --pdf-outlines: Add PDF outlines/bookmarks.

--pdf-outlines will make outlines based on slide pages and Markdown headings by default. If necessary, you may prevent making outlines from one of them, by setting --pdf-outlines.pages=false or --pdf-outlines.headings=false.

Convert to PowerPoint document (--pptx) 🌐

Do you want more familiar way to present and share your deck? PPTX conversion to create PowerPoint document is available by passing --pptx option or specify the output path with PPTX extension.

marp --pptx slide-deck.md
marp slide-deck.md -o converted.pptx

A created PPTX includes rendered Marp slide pages and the support of Marpit presenter notes. It can open with PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, LibreOffice Impress, and so on...

[EXPERIMENTAL] Generate editable pptx (--pptx-editable)

A converted PPTX usually consists of pre-rendered background images, that is meaning contents cannot to modify or re-use in PowerPoint. If you want to generate editable PPTX for modifying texts, shapes, and images in GUI, you can pass --pptx-editable option together with --pptx option.

marp --pptx --pptx-editable slide-deck.md

[!IMPORTANT]

The experimental --pptx-editable option requires installing both of the browser and LibreOffice Impress.

If the theme and inline styles are providing complex styles into the slide, --pptx-editable may throw an error or output the incomplete result. (e.g. gaia theme in Marp Core)

[!WARNING]

Conversion to the editable PPTX results in lower slide reproducibility compared to the conversion into regular PPTX and other formats. Additionally, presenter notes are not supported. We do not recommend to export the editable PPTX if maintaining the slide's appearance is important.

Convert to PNG/JPEG image(s) 🌐

Multiple images (--images)

You can convert the slide deck into multiple images when specified --images [png|jpeg] option.

# Convert into multiple PNG image files
marp --images png slide-deck.md

# Convert into multiple JPEG image files
marp --images jpeg slide-deck.md

Output files have a suffix of page number, like slide-deck.001.png, slide-deck.002.png, and so on.

Title slide (--image)

When you passed --image option or specified the output path with PNG/JPEG extension, Marp CLI will convert only the first page (title slide) of the targeted slide deck into an image.

# Convert the title slide into an image
marp --image png slide-deck.md
marp slide-deck.md -o output.png

It would be useful for creating Open Graph image that can specify with image global directive and --og-image option.

Scale factor

You can set the scale factor for rendered image(s) through --image-scale option. It is useful for making high-resolution image from the slide.

# Generate high-resolution image of the title slide
marp slide-deck.md -o [email protected] --image-scale 2

[!TIP]

--image-scale is not affect to the actual size of presentation.

The scale factor is also available for PPTX conversion. By default, Marp CLI will use 2 as the default scale factor in PPTX, to suppress deterioration of slide rendering in full-screen presentation.

Export presenter notes (--notes)

You can export presenter notes in Marp / Marpit Markdown as a text file by using --notes option or specifying the output path with TXT extension.

# Export presenter notes as a text
marp --notes slide-deck.md
marp slide-deck.md -o output.txt

Security about local files

Because of the security reason, conversion that is using the browser cannot use local files by default.

Marp CLI would output incomplete result with warning if the blocked local file accessing is detected. We recommend uploading your assets to online.

If you really need to use local files in these conversion, --allow-local-files option helps to find your local files. Please use only to the trusted Markdown because there is a potential security risk.

marp --pdf --allow-local-files slide-deck.md

Conversion modes

Parallelism

When converting multiple files, Marp CLI will process them in parallel with 5 concurrency by default. You can set the number of concurrency by --parallel (-P) option, or disable parallelism by --no-parallel.

Watch mode (--watch / -w)

Marp CLI will observe a change of Markdown and using theme CSS when passed with --watch (-w) option. The conversion will be triggered whenever the content of file is updated.

While you are opening the converted HTML in browser, it would refresh the opened page automatically.

Server mode (--server / -s)

Server mode supports on-demand conversion by HTTP request. We require to pass --server (-s) option and a directory to serve.

In this mode, the converted file outputs as the result of accessing to server, and not to disk.

You would get the converted PDF, PPTX, PNG, JPEG, and TXT by adding corresponded query string when requesting. e.g. http://localhost:8080/deck-a.md?pdf returns converted PDF.

[!TIP]

You can set the server port by setting the environment variable PORT. For example, PORT=5000 marp -s ./slides would listen on port number 5000.

index.md / PITCHME.md

Marp CLI server will provide the list of served files by default, but you can place the default Markdown deck like a common web server's index.html.

Place Markdown named index.md or PITCHME.md (GitPitch style) to served directory. It would be redirected just accessing to http://localhost:8080/.

Preview window (--preview / -p)

When conversions were executed together with --preview (-p) option, Marp CLI will open preview window(s) to check the converted result immediately.

Unlike opening with browser, you may present deck with the immersive window. Watch mode is automatically enabled while using preview window.

[!NOTE]

--preview option cannot use when you are using Marp CLI through official Docker image.

Browser options

Choose browser (--browser)

You can specify the kind of browser for conversion by --browser option. Available browsers are chrome, edge, and firefox. If set comma-separated browsers, Marp CLI will try to use the first available browser among them.

# Use Firefox for image conversion
marp --browser firefox ./slide.md -o slide.png

# Prefer to use Firefox first, then Chrome
marp --browser firefox,chrome ./slide.md -o slide.png

The default is a special value auto, which means to use the first available browser from chrome,edge,firefox.

Browser path (--browser-path)

If you have a browser binary that cannot find out by Marp CLI automatically, you can explicitly set the path to the browser executable through --browser-path option.

# Use Chromium-flavored browser (Chromium, Brave, Vivaldi, etc...)
marp --browser-path /path/to/chromium-flavored-browser ./slide.md -o slide.pdf

# Use Firefox with explicitly set path
marp --browser firefox --browser-path /path/to/firefox ./slide.md -o slide.png

Other browser options

• --browser-protocol: Set the preferred protocol for connecting to the browser.
  • cdp: Chrome DevTools Protocol (default)
  • webdriver-bidi: WebDriver BiDi
• --browser-timeout: Set the timeout for each browser operation in seconds. (default: 30 seconds)

Template

You can choose a built-in HTML templates by --template option. Default template is bespoke.

marp --template bespoke slide-deck.md

bespoke template (default)

The bespoke template is using Bespoke.js as the name implies. It has several features to be useful in a real presentation. A few features may control by CLI options.

Features

• Navigation: Navigate the deck through keyboard and swipe gesture.
• Fullscreen: Toggle fullscreen by hitting f / F11 key.
• On-screen controller: There is a touch-friendly OSC. You may also disable by --bespoke.osc=false if unnecessary.
• Fragmented list: Recognize Marpit's fragmented list and appear list one-by-one if used * and 1) as the bullet marker.
• Presenter view: Open presenter view in external window by hitting p key. (It may become disabled when not fulfilled requirements for working)
• Overview view: Toggle overview view with o or Esc key in presentation and presenter views.
• Progress bar (optional): By setting --bespoke.progress option, you can add a progress bar on the top of the deck.
• Slide transitions: Support transitions (transition local directive) powered by View Transition API.

Docs

• Slide transitions in bespoke template
  Learn all about of slide transitions for bespoke template: Built-in transitions, custom transitions, and morphing animations.

bare template

The bare template is a primitive template, and there is no extra features. It only has minimum assets to give your presentation with browser.

Zero-JS slide deck

When the conversion engine is changed to Marpit framework by setting engine option, it would not use any scripts. Even then, it has enough to use for the browser-based presentation.

marp --template bare --engine @marp-team/marpit slide-deck.md

Metadata

Through global directives or CLI options, you can set metadata for a converted HTML, PDF, and PPTX slide deck.

When a title was not defined, Marp CLI may assign the title from the first heading of Markdown automatically. If not wanted this detection, specify the title as empty string "".

By global directives

Marp CLI supports additional global directives to specify metadata in Markdown. You can define meta values in Markdown front-matter.

---
title: Marp slide deck
description: An example slide deck created by Marp CLI
author: Yuki Hattori
keywords: marp,marp-cli,slide
url: https://marp.app/
image: https://marp.app/og-image.jpg
---

# Marp slide deck

By CLI option

Marp CLI prefers CLI option to global directives. You can override metadata values by --title, --description, --author, --keywords, --url, and --og-image.

Theme

Override theme

You can override theme you want to use by --theme option. For example to use Gaia built-in theme in Marp Core:

marp --theme gaia

Use custom theme

A custom theme created by user also can use easily by passing the path of CSS file.

marp --theme custom-theme.css

[!TIP]

Marpit theme CSS requires @theme meta comment in regular use, but it's not required in this usage.

Theme set

--theme-set option has to specify theme set composed by multiple theme CSS files. The registered themes are usable in Marpit's theme directive.

# Multiple theme CSS files
marp --theme-set theme-a.css theme-b.css theme-c.css -- deck-a.md deck-b.md

# Theme directory
marp --theme-set ./themes -- deck.md

Engine

Marp CLI is calling the Marpit framework based converter as "Engine". Normally we use the bundled Marp Core, but you may swap the conversion engine to another Marpit based engine through --engine option.

You can use Marp (and compatible markdown-it) plugins while converting, or completely swap the converter to the other Marpit-based engine which published to npm.

Use Marpit framework

For example, you can convert Markdown with using the pure Marpit framework.

# Install Marpit framework
npm i @marp-team/marpit

# Specify engine to use Marpit
marp --engine @marp-team/marpit marpit-deck.md

Notice that Marpit has not provided theme. It would be good to include inline style in Markdown, or pass CSS file by --theme option.

[!TIP]

If you want to use the Marpit-based custom engine by the module name, the specified module must be exporting a class inherited from Marpit as the default export.

Functional engine

When you specified the path to JavaScript file (.js, .cjs, or .mjs) in --engine option, you may use more customized engine by a JavaScript function.

Spec

The functional engine should export a function as the default export, which should have a single argument representing the constructor option of Marpit/Marp Core.

The function must return a class that inherits from Marpit, or an instance of a Marpit-based engine created with the constructor options passed as an argument.

// engine.mjs
import { MarpitBasedEngine } from 'marpit-based-engine'

export default () => MarpitBasedEngine // Return a class inherited from Marpit

// or return an instance of Marpit-based engine
// export default (constructorOptions) => new MarpitBasedEngine(constructorOptions)

// engine.cjs (CommonJS)
const { MarpitBasedEngine } = require('marpit-based-engine')

module.exports = () => MarpitBasedEngine

// module.exports = function (constructorOptions) {
//   return new MarpitBasedEngine(constructorOptions)
// }

Async function

This function can return Promise object so you can use async function too.

export default async (constructorOptions) => {
  const { MarpitBasedEngine } = await import('marpit-based-engine')
  return new MarpitBasedEngine(constructorOptions)
}

marp getter property

Marp CLI also exposes marp getter property to the parameter. It returns a prepared instance of the built-in Marp Core engine, so you can apply several customizations to Marp engine with simple declarations.

import marpPlugin from 'marp-plugin-foo'
import andMorePlugin from 'marp-plugin-bar'

export default ({ marp }) => marp.use(marpPlugin).use(andMorePlugin)

It allows converting Markdown with additional syntaxes that were provided by Marp (or compatible markdown-it) plugins.

Example: Use markdown-it-mark plugin

import markdownItMark from 'markdown-it-mark'

export default ({ marp }) => marp.use(markdownItMark)

# Install markdown-it-mark into your project
npm i markdown-it-mark --save

# Specify the path to functional engine
marp --engine ./engine.mjs slide-deck.md

The customized engine will convert ==marked== to <mark>marked</mark>.

Confirm engine version

By using --version (-v) option, you may confirm the version of engine that is expected to use in current configuration.

$ marp --version
@marp-team/marp-cli v4.x.x (w/ @marp-team/marp-core v4.x.x)

Use specific version of Marp Core

Marp CLI prefers to use an installed core to local project by user than the bundled.

If the current project has installed @marp-team/marp-core individually, it would show its version and the annotation: w/ user-installed @marp-team/marp-core vX.X.X or w/ customized engine.

$ npm i @marp-team/marp-cli @marp-team/marp-core@^4.0.0 --save-dev
$ npx marp --version
@marp-team/marp-cli v4.x.x (w/ user-installed @marp-team/marp-core v4.0.0)

Configuration file

Marp CLI can be configured options with file, such as marp.config.js, marp.config.mjs (ES Modules), marp.config.cjs (CommonJS), .marprc (JSON / YAML), and marp section of package.json.

It is useful to configure settings for the whole of project.

// package.json
{
  "marp": {
    "inputDir": "./slides",
    "output": "./public",
    "themeSet": "./themes"
  }
}

# .marprc.yml
allowLocalFiles: true
options:
  looseYAML: false
  markdown:
    breaks: false
pdf: true

// marp.config.mjs
import markdownItContainer from 'markdown-it-container'

export default {
  // Customize engine on configuration file directly
  engine: ({ marp }) => marp.use(markdownItContainer, 'custom'),
}

By default we use configuration file that is placed on current directory, but you may also specify the path for a configuration file by --config-file (--config / -c) option.

If you want to prevent looking up a configuration file, you can pass --no-config-file (--no-config) option.

Options

Some of options that cannot specify through CLI options can be configured by file. (e.g. options field for the constructor option of used engine)

{
  "options": {
    "markdown": {
      "breaks": false
    },
    "minifyCSS": false
  }
}

Auto completion

When Marp CLI has been installed into the local project, for getting the power of auto completion for the config, such as IntelliSense, you can annotate the config object through JSDoc, with Marp CLI's Config type.

/** @type {import('@marp-team/marp-cli').Config} */
const config = {
  // ...
}

export default config

Or you can import Vite-like defineConfig helper from Marp CLI instead.

import { defineConfig } from '@marp-team/marp-cli'

export default defineConfig({
  // ...
})

Config type with custom engine

If you've swapped the engine into another Marpit based engine, you can provide better suggestion for options field by passing the engine type to generics.

/** @type {import('@marp-team/marp-cli').Config<typeof import('@marp-team/marpit').Marpit>} */
const config = {
  engine: '@marp-team/marpit',
  options: {
    // Suggest only Marpit constructor options, not Marp Core
  },
}

export default config

TypeScript (marp.config.ts)

If you installed typescript into your local project together with Marp CLI, you can write a config by TypeScript marp.config.ts. Marp CLI will try to transpile .ts with the project configuration tsconfig.json.

In TypeScript configuration, you can specify the custom engine as the generics for defineConfig helper, like this:

// marp.config.ts
import { Marpit } from '@marp-team/marpit'
import { defineConfig } from '@marp-team/marp-cli'

export default defineConfig<typeof Marpit>({
  engine: Marpit,
  options: {
    // Suggest only Marpit constructor options
  },
})

API

You can use Marp CLI through Node.js if installed Marp CLI into your local project.

import { marpCli } from '@marp-team/marp-cli'

try {
  const exitStatus = await marpCli(['test.md', '--pdf'])

  if (exitStatus > 0) {
    console.error(`Failure (Exit status: ${exitStatus})`)
  } else {
    console.log('Success')
  }
} catch (err) {
  console.error(err)
}

marpCli() accepts an argument of CLI options as array, and returns Promise to resolve an expected exit status in CLI. It would be rejected with the instance of Error if CLI met an error to suspend the conversion process.

Error handling

We have exported CLIError class and CLIErrorCode enum, to allow handling for specific errors that have already known by Marp CLI.

If CLIError instance was thrown, you can identify the reason why CLI threw error by checking errorCode member.

import { marpCli, CLIError } from '@marp-team/marp-cli'

try {
  await marpCli(['foobar.md', '--pdf'])
} catch (err) {
  if (err instanceof CLIError) {
    console.error(`Marp CLI Error (Error code: ${err.errorCode}):`, err)
  } else {
    console.error('Unexpected error:', err)
  }
}

Wait for observation

marpCli() would not be resolved initiatively if started some observation: Watch mode, server mode, and preview window.

waitForObservation() is helpful for handling them. It returns a Promise that resolves with a helper object when ready to observe resources in marpCli().

import { marpCli, waitForObservation } from '@marp-team/marp-cli'

// This call is not awaited so the server startup will continue in the background
marpCli(['--server', './slides/'])
  .then((exitCode) => console.log(`Done with exit code ${exitCode}`))
  .catch(console.error)

// Wait for the server to be ready
const { stop } = await waitForObservation()
console.log('Observed')

// ... Do something while observing resources ...

// Stop observing, and resolve the Promise from `marpCli()`
stop()

The resolved helper has stop() method for telling Marp CLI to stop observation and resolve the Promise from marpCli().

Contributing

Are you interested in contributing? Please see CONTRIBUTING.md and the common contributing guideline for Marp team.

Author

Managed by @marp-team.

• Yuki Hattori (@yhatt)

License

This tool releases under the MIT License.