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Show HN: Excalideck – Use Excalidraw to make slides

by pscanf on 11/7/21, 2:14 PM with 24 comments

  • by pscanf on 11/7/21, 2:18 PM

    Hello HN, here's an open source app I've been working on for the past few weeks.

    I love Excalidraw[1], the virtual whiteboard (discussed recently here on HN[2]). Its UX is great - simple and intuitive - and really makes it easy for me to express my thoughts and explain complex concepts with a quick sketch. I want to use it to make slides!

    However Excalidraw is not specifically designed for that. I used it for that many times actually, but the workflow is quite cumbersome: drawing a same-sized perimeter for each slide, adding to each slide watermarks and other common elements, exporting each slide as PNG into a powerpoint... it takes a long time!

    So well, here's Excalideck to simplify that workflow. :)

    It's still in early development, so it's not very polished. But you're welcome to give it a try, make some slides, and let me know how it goes!

    [1] https://excalidraw.com [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29109995

  • by boberoni on 11/7/21, 4:20 PM

    Very cool! Even though the name suggests that Excalideck is for slide presentations, this is incredibly useful for me to organize multiple Excalidraw canvases for personal use. I often create system architecture diagrams that are separate but related. Rather than having to scroll around the infinite Excalidraw canvas or use multiple Excalidraw links (which I organize in a Google doc), now I can just flip through Excalideck slides. Small but very convenient

  • by stuzenz on 11/7/21, 4:37 PM

    I like it - I am also a fan of Excaldraw.

    I noticed some kind of error coming up in trying to export to pdf - other than that it seems to be working well.

    I am using the following set up ``` uname -a Linux arch-t460p 5.14.16-arch1-1 #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue, 02 Nov 2021 22:22:59 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux (base) ~ via 🅒 base firefox --version Mozilla Firefox 94.0

    ```

    I am not sure, but this message that pops up seems to suggest that it might not be establishing a good naming convention for the save.

    ``` application/vdn.excalideck+pdf (92.6 KB) ```

    I will put an issue on the github project if I see it persists in the next day or two.

    Thanks for sharing - great work! Between presentation tools like this and reveal-md we have some nice options for building out presentations.

    Thinking about it. It would be great if it was possible to export each of the slides as independent png/svg as well. That would allow some possibilities to open up for using it with reveal-md

  • by arendtio on 11/7/21, 6:18 PM

    I like it, but is there a presentation mode? So far I found fullscreen and zen-mode, but it was still showing the slide overview.

    It would be awesome if it would be using the JS API for presentations!

  • by avinassh on 11/8/21, 11:29 AM

    In the past I have used Excalidraw Slides [0], which is open source [1] too. Any chance you looked into this as well?

    [0] - https://excalidraw-slides.netlify.app

    [1] - https://github.com/scastiel/excalidraw-slides

  • by Fnoord on 11/7/21, 4:56 PM

    I would appreciate an official Docker image. It also helps with a consistant dev env

  • by omk on 11/7/21, 4:52 PM

    Loved it.

    Is there no way to start a slideshow? As in fullscreen slides? If there is such a control, it isn't obvious to me. If it isn't would be awesome to have it.

  • by bertman on 11/7/21, 4:15 PM

    This looks very nice and useful, thanks! Bookmarked :D

  • by sgt on 11/7/21, 6:32 PM

    When loading a library I get an error "There was an error loading the third party library." Using Safari on macOS.

  • by amitoz_azad on 11/8/21, 7:42 AM

    This is amazing! As a student I am always looking for tools to make good presentations fast. Wonderful !

    However, I am wondering is there any way to add equations through latex of mathjx? Write now I feel that only way to include equations is via images or hand draw them.

  • by factorialboy on 11/7/21, 8:28 PM

    This is great. I'd love an electron app, excalitron?

  • by zekenie on 11/7/21, 10:01 PM

    This is amazing and I will use this.