Revealjs Slides

June 22, 2025

Overview

What is Reveal.js?

Web-based presentation framework that enables the creation of interactive presentations using HTML
Supports dynamic transitions, embedded media, and interactive elements
Works across devices and platforms, ensuring your presentation looks great everywhere
Offers a wide range of plugins and extensions to enhance your presentations, from analytics to themes
Share your presentations as a URL, making it accessible to anyone, anywhere

Why Revealjs?

You can also make PowerPoint and Beamer (pdf) slides with Quarto
Revealjs is more fun and has some key advantages
- It’s web-based and interactive
- It’s more accessible
- It’s easy to share
But sometimes other formats can be useful
- Can you think of some scenarios where you might want to use PowerPoint or Beamer?

Basic Authoring

Setup

Setting up a reveal.js presentation in Quarto is easy. You just specify the revealjs format. From there you can use the usual YAML arguments like title:, subtitle:, etc. that you would use in any Quarto document. Here’s a simple example:

---
title: "Revealjs Presentation"
subtitle: "For Demonstration Purposes"
author: "Your Name"
date: today
format: revealjs
---

Creating Slides

Slides are created using the standard markdown syntax. # gives you a new section, while ## gives you a new slide. Then you can write text and use - for bullet points.

# Section Header

## Slide 1

This is the first slide.

- Bullet 1
- Bullet 2
- Bullet 3

Spacing

Sometimes you want to have more spacing than the default spacing between lines on each slide.
The easiest way to handle this is to insert <br> tags where you want the extra space.

## Slide 2

<br>

This is the content for my second slide. It is going to have this line and then a line break and then some code. 

<br>

::: {.cell}
::: {.cell-output .cell-output-stdout}

[1] 4



:::
:::

If perchance you don’t want a title slide, just eliminate title, subtitle, etc. from the YAML header.

---
format: revealjs
---

Incremental Lists

There are two ways to get incremental lists. The first is to specify incremental: true in the YAML header.

---
format: 
  revealjs:
    incremental: true
---

Incremental Lists

The other is to surround the relevant bullet points in a div with the class incremental.

::: {.incremental}
- Bullet 1
- Bullet 2
- Bullet 3
:::

Incremental Lists

Or, let’s say you have incremental: true in the YAML header, but you want to turn it off for a particular slide. In this case, you can use nonincremental.

::: {.nonincremental}
- Bullet 1
- Bullet 2
- Bullet 3
:::

Your Turn!

Start a new Quarto project
Create a new Quarto document in your project folder
Add the YAML header and specify the revealjs format
Add slides and sections
Use the incremental class to create incremental lists
Now try setting incremental: true in the YAML header
Use nonincremental to turn off incremental lists for a particular slide

10:00

Advanced Authoring

Content Overflow

Sometimes you have too much material to fit on a slide. In this case, you can use the .smaller or .scrollable class. You can use curly braces to add these to a particular slide…

## Slide Title {.smaller}

## Slide Title {.scrollable}

Content Overflow

Or you can add them to the YAML header to apply them to the entire presentation…

---
format:
  revealjs:
    smaller: true
    scrollable: true
---

Adding Images

To add an image, you can use the standard markdown syntax.

![](images/your-image.png)

Adding Images

To control the width of the image, you can use the width attribute.

![](images/your-image.png){width=50%}

Columns

To put content in columns, you can create a div with the columns class.

:::: {.columns}

::: {.column width="40%"}
Left column
:::

::: {.column width="60%"}
Right column
:::

::::

Your Turn!

Try making a long slide with the .smaller class
Now use the .scrollable class instead
Add an image to a slide
- Go to Wikimedia Commons and download an image
- Add the image to your project folder
Make a slide with two columns
- On the left, write a few bullet points
- On the right, add an image
- Use the width attribute to control the size of the image

10:00

Code and Output

Code Blocks

To add a code block, use the standard markdown syntax
You can specify the language for syntax highlighting
Just like a normal HTML document, you can add chunk options

Code Blocks

```{r}
#| label: leaflet_map1
#| eval: false

library(leaflet)
leaflet() %>% 
  addTiles() %>%   # Add default OpenStreetMap map tiles
  addMarkers(lat = 38.90243843683386, lng =  -77.0443814477152, 
             label = "Elliott School of International Affairs")
```

If your echo: is set to false, then you will just see the output.

But if echo: is set to true, then you will see the code and the output…

library(leaflet)
leaflet() %>% 
  addTiles() %>%   # Add default OpenStreetMap map tiles
  addMarkers(lat = 38.90243843683386, lng =  -77.0443814477152, 
             label = "Elliott School of International Affairs")

And just like in a normal HTML document, you can also set these options in the YAML header.

execute:
  echo: false
  message: false
  warning: false

For presentation purposes, you may oly want to show specific lines of code.

library(leaflet)
leaflet() %>% 
  addTiles() %>%   # Add default OpenStreetMap map tiles
  addMarkers(lat = 38.90243843683386, lng =  -77.0443814477152, 
             label = "Elliott School of International Affairs")

To do this, you would use the code-line-numbers option in the YAML header.

library(leaflet)
leaflet() %>% 
  addTiles() %>%   # Add default OpenStreetMap map tiles
  addMarkers(lat = 38.90243843683386, lng =  -77.0443814477152, 
             label = "Elliott School of International Affairs")

Your Turn!

Start a new slide
Add an R code chunk to it
Add a leaflet map to it
Render the slide
Try different chunk options
- Display only the output
- Display code and output
- Display just the code
- Display only particular lines
Try adjusting evaluate options in the YAML header

10:00

Customization

Themes

You can customize the look of your slides by using a different theme, e.g.

theme: dark

Themes

You can also add a custom SCSS file to tweak an existing them or create your own:

/*-- scss:defaults --*/

$body-bg: #191919;
$body-color: #fff;
$link-color: #42affa;

/*-- scss:rules --*/

.reveal .slide blockquote {
  border-left: 3px solid $text-muted;
  padding-left: 0.5em;
}

Syntax Highlighting

Quarto offers 20 different syntax highlighting themes. Click here to see the available themes.

You can select your preferred theme by adding highlight-style to the YAML header, e.g.

highlight-style: github

Background Styling

You can change the color of your background by adding the background-color attribute to a slide.

## Slide Title {background-color="aquamarine"}

Background Styling

You can change the color of your background by adding the background-color attribute to a slide.

## Slide Title {background-color="aquamarine"}

Background Styling

Similarly, you can add a background image to your slide by adding the background-image attribute.

## Slide Title {background-image="/images/drr6502-img.png" data-background-size="contain" data-background-opacity="0.5"}

Background Styling

Similarly, you can add a background image to your slide by adding the background-image attribute.

## Slide Title {background-image="/images/drr6502-img.png" data-background-size="contain" data-background-opacity="0.5"}

Background Styling

And you can add a background image to the title slide by adding the title-slide-attributes attribute to the YAML header.

---
title: My Slide Show
title-slide-attributes:
    data-background-image: /path/to/title_image.png
    data-background-size: contain
    data-background-opacity: "0.5"
---

A Few More Tricks and Tips

Fade your slide transitions with transition: fade
Add slide numbers with slide-number: true
Use footer:to add a footer your slides
Use logo: to add a logo to your slides
You can add a chalkboard to your slides by adding chalkboard: true to the YAML header
You can add speaker notes by creating a div and adding the notes attribute to it.
- Then you can view them by running the presentation in speaker mode
You can use multiplex: true to advance slides for your audience
And much much more! Check out the guide for details

My YAML for This Presentation

 ---
title: "Revealjs Slides"
subtitle: "Session 4--Visualizing Data"
footer: "[DRR Website](https://quarto.training)"
logo: images/drr6502-logo.png
format:
  revealjs:
    theme: [simple, custom.scss]
    transition: fade
    slide-number: true
    chalkboard: true
execute:
  echo: false
  message: false
  warning: false
  freeze: auto
---

Your Turn!

Add a theme to your presentation
Try a different type of syntax highlighting
Change the background color of a slide
Add a background image to a slide
Add a background image to the title slide
Try using SCSS to modify the theme style
Try a cool trick like chalkboard or multiplex
Upload your presentation to Quarto Pub
- quarto publish quarto-pub mydocument.qmd