iA Presenter uses Markdown syntax to format documents. If you know iA Writer, the majority of the concepts explained here will be familiar to you.
John Gruber, the author of Markdown, underlines that “Markdown is intended to be as easy-to-read and easy-to-write as is feasible.” Readability is key:
A Markdown-formatted document should be publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up with tags or formatting instructions.
Markdown’s syntax is comprised entirely of punctuation characters, which have been carefully chosen so as to look like what they mean. E.g., asterisks around a word actually look like emphasis. Markdown lists look like, well, lists. Even blockquotes look like quoted passages of text, assuming you’ve ever used email.
Built-in formatting commands are quicker and easier to use than manually typing the Markdown punctuation characters.
A paragraph is one or more lines of text separated by one or more blank lines.
First paragraph.
Second paragraph.
By default, iA Presenter keeps normal paragraphs as notes in your presentation. When you indent paragraphs in Editor, they will be instead be shown on your slides.
You can allow a single return to start a new paragraph in Markdown settings. However, this behavior is incompatible with other websites and apps that use Markdown and is available mainly for compatibility with older versions of iA Writer. We recommend always separating paragraphs with a blank line.
To insert a line break within a paragraph, write two spaces or a backslash \
at the end of the line.
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat\
How I wonder what you’re at!
# Heading 1
## Heading 2
### Heading 3
#### Heading 4
##### Heading 5
###### Heading 6
Unordered lists can use hyphens, pluses, and asterisks as list markers, interchangeably:
- Red
+ Green
* Blue
Ordered lists use numbers followed by periods:
1. Red
2. Green
3. Blue
To make a task list, use a space or a letter x between square brackets after a list marker:
- [ ] Milk
- [x] Bread
To make nested lists, indent list items by at least four spaces or a tab:
- Groceries
- [ ] Milk
To make a list item with more than one paragraph, indent additional paragraphs by extra fours spaces or a tab. You can use extra spaces after a list marker to align the first paragraph with subsequent paragraphs:
- First paragraph.
Second paragraph.
- First paragraph.
To make lists visible in the slide, prefix the items with a tab:
⇥- [ ] Milk
⇥- Green
⇥1. Red
Blockquotes are speaker notes without a tab prefix
> First level, first paragraph.
>
> > Second level, first paragraph.
>
> First level, second paragraph.
To make block quotes visible, add a Tab prefix
⇥> First level, first paragraph.
⇥>
⇥> > Second level, first paragraph.
⇥>
⇥> First level, second paragraph.
⇥Markdown
⇥: A lightweight markup language with plain text formatting syntax.
⇥: A deliberate reduction in the selling price of retail merchandise.
Horizontal rules are use to split slides.
---
You can use double asterisks or underscores to make bold text:
**bold**
__bold__
You can use single asterisks or underscores to make italic text:
*italic*
_italic_
You can use double tildes to make ~~strikethrough~~ text:
~~strikethrough~~
You can use double equals signs to ==highlight== text:
==highlight==
Simple superscript, without any whitespace or punctuation:
100m^2
More complicated superscript:
y^(a+b)^
Simple subscript, without any whitespace or punctuation:
x~z
More complicated subscript:
x~y,z~
Markdown supports inline and reference links:
This is an [inline link](https://example.com).
This is a [reference link][id].
[id]: https://example.com
Reference link identifier can be omitted:
[Google][]
[Google]: https://google.com
Markdown supports inline and reference footnotes:
This is an inline[^Footnote text.] footnote.
This is a reference[^id] footnote.
[^id]: Footnote text.
Footnotes are grouped at the end of the slide. They are visible only if the layout allow them.
This is a statement that should be attributed to
its source[p. 23][#Doe:2006].
[#Doe:2006]: John Doe. *Some Big Fancy Book*. Vanity Press, 2006.
You can use any text you want for the locator (e.g. p. 23), and it can also be omitted. Any citation key (e.g. #Doe:2006) format is allowed, as long as it begins with a hash sign:
This is a statement that should be attributed to its
source[][#Doe, 2006].
Use Not Cited
or notcited
as the locator to include a source that was not cited:
[Not Cited][#Doe, 2006]
In addition to Content Blocks, iA Presenter supports Markdown image syntax and HTML image tags:

<img src="Flowchart.png">
| Name | Price | Tax |
|:--|--:|--:|
| Widget | 10$ | 1$ |
| Gift | 0$ ||
[Recent Transactions]
|
per line|
|
:
-
and spaces:--
, right --:
, center :-:
|
at the end of the cellUse single backticks to indicate code within a line:
Keyword `func` indicates a function in Swift programming language.
Use three or more backticks with an optional code language on the first line on a line create a fenced code block:
```swift
class Shape {
var numberOfSides = 0
}
```
Indented code blocks are not supported.
iA Presenter supports $\LaTeX$ math expressions, which are typeset using $\KaTeX$ (see supported features for more info).
Equations can be placed within a paragraph using $…$
or \\(…\\)
:
An example of math within a paragraph $x+y^2$.
An example of math within a paragraph \(x+y^2\).
Equations can placed on their own using $$…$$
or \\[…\\]
:
$$\displaystyle \frac{1}{\Bigl(\sqrt{\phi \sqrt{5}}-\phi\Bigr) e^{\frac25 \pi}} = 1+\frac{e^{-2\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-4\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-6\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-8\pi}} {1+\cdots} } } }$$
\[\displaystyle \frac{1}{\Bigl(\sqrt{\phi \sqrt{5}}-\phi\Bigr) e^{\frac25 \pi}} = 1+\frac{e^{-2\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-4\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-6\pi}} {1+\frac{e^{-8\pi}} {1+\cdots} } } }\]
A tutorial video series to discover in less than 2 min the features of Presenter.
A quick tour of Presenter for first-time users.
Learn Markdown in a few minutes or refresh your knowledge with this guide designed for Presenter.
Your story-telling base. Focus on getting content down, Presenter will handle the design.
The default presentation you see when opening Presenter: a fun tutorial to get you started.
Great presentations are really great stories. It’s great stories that move people, not stock images, bullet points, or diagrams.
The interface of Presenter is in English but any Left to Right languages are supported for the presentation's content.