MaTiSSe.py 1.5.1

MaTiSSe.py, Markdown To Impressive Scientific Slides

MaTiSSe

Markdown To Impressive Scientific Slides — a KISS CLI that compiles plain Markdown into high-quality, self-contained HTML presentations with full scientific-content support, powered by impress.js or reveal.js — your choice, one flag.

📝 Markdown-first authoring Write clean, readable Markdown — no HTML, no LaTeX preamble. MaTiSSe extends standard syntax with chapter/section/subsection headings, a $titlepage directive, and $include() for multi-file compositions. Syntax reference	🎨 YAML theme system Define canvas, headers, footers, sidebars, and content areas entirely in YAML blocks. Apply per-slide overrides with overtheme. Six built-in LaTeX-Beamer-style themes ready to use out of the box. Theme reference
🔢 LaTeX equations Inline $…$ and display $$…$$ math rendered by MathJax 3 — no extra setup required. Works in slide content, box captions, figure captions, and headers. Math guide	🔬 Scientific environments First-class environments for figures, boxes, notes, tables, videos, and multi-column layouts — each fully customizable via CSS and YAML. Figures · Boxes · Columns
✨ Syntax-highlighted code Code blocks rendered by highlight.js 11 with 100+ bundled styles. Tab-completion on --highlight-style lets you preview styles instantly. CLI reference	📦 Offline & PDF modes --offline bundles all JS/CSS assets locally for air-gapped environments. --pdf disables impress.js animations for clean PDF printing. CLI reference
🆓 Free and open source Released under the GNU GPL v3 license. Free to use, study, modify, and distribute. Contributions welcome — see the contributing guidelines.	🖥️ Two rendering backends --backend impress (default) gives full impress.js 3D canvas effects. --backend reveal switches to reveal.js: speaker notes, overview mode, built-in PDF export, and a large plugin ecosystem — same source file, one flag. reveal.js guide

Full documentation — installation, quick start, CLI reference, theme gallery

Why MaTiSSe?

LaTeX Beamer produces beautiful slides, but its compile cycle is slow and its syntax is noisy. PowerPoint and Keynote are WYSIWYG and therefore hard to version-control or script. Modern presentation frameworks like impress.js are impressive but require hand-written HTML.

MaTiSSe takes a different path: you write clean, readable Markdown — with optional YAML theme blocks and a handful of scientific-content environments — and MaTiSSe compiles it into a self-contained HTML/CSS/JS presentation.

# Generate a sample and build it immediately
matisse build --sample mytalk.md --theme beamer-madrid
matisse build -i mytalk.md -o mytalk/

Open mytalk/index.html in a browser and navigate with arrow keys or spacebar.

Title page	Figure environment
LaTeX equations	LaTeX-Beamer themes

Main features

• markdown-to-html slides builder with extended Markdown syntax;
• structured presentations: chapters, sections, subsections, slides;
• presentation metadata (title, authors, affiliations, …) with $key interpolation into themes;
• automatic table of contents slides (--toc-at-chap-beginning, --toc-at-sec-beginning, …);
• flexible theme system defined entirely in YAML:
  • canvas, headings, headers, footers, sidebars, content areas;
  • per-slide theme overrides (overtheme);
  • six built-in LaTeX-Beamer-style themes (beamer-antibes, beamer-berkely, beamer-berlin, beamer-madrid, matisse, sapienza);
• LaTeX equations via MathJax 3 (inline $…$ and display $$…$$);
• scientific content environments:
  • $figure…$endfigure with captions and custom CSS;
  • $box…$endbox fully customizable;
  • $note…$endnote;
  • $table…$endtable;
  • $video…$endvideo;
  • $columns…$endcolumns multi-column layout;
• syntax-highlighted code listings via highlight.js 11 (100+ styles);
• $include(file) for composing presentations from multiple source files;
• --offline mode: all JS/CSS assets bundled locally (air-gapped environments, impress backend);
• --pdf mode: animations disabled for clean PDF printing (impress backend);
• shell tab-completion for --theme and --highlight-style;
• dual rendering backends selectable with --backend:
  • impress.js — 3D canvas, spatial slide transitions (default);
  • reveal.js — speaker notes, overview mode, built-in PDF export.

Author

Stefano Zaghi — [e-mail] · GitHub

Copyrights

MaTiSSe is an open source project distributed under the GPL v3 license. Anyone interested in using, developing, or contributing to MaTiSSe is welcome — see the contributing guidelines.