Pandoc: -t revealjs: no speaker notes and no content on horizontal slides if --slide-level=2

[karland]

@jgm pandoc is great. Thanks a lot.

I like to use pandoc to generate slides with reveal.js. I would like to generate horizontal (level 1) and vertical (level 2) slides, which means --slide-level=2. However pandoc eats up all content and speaker notes from level 1 slides. If I set --slide-level=1, I do not get vertical slides any longer.

I know, that this is the described behavior according to the manual, but I do not understand why? Is there any chance or way around it. Many thanks.

[jgm]

I use revealjs with 2D slides. I do not set --slide-level.

My slides are like this:

# Section One

## Slide A

content

## Slide B

content

# Section Two

## Slide C

content

With this setup, you'll get the main section headers as the "top"
slides in the horizontal dimension, and the subsections in the vertical
dimension. Just don't put any content directly under the level one
headers.

+++ karland [Sep 10 14 13:15 ]:

@jgm pandoc is great. Thanks a lot.

I like to use pandoc to generate slides with reveal.js. I would like to generate horizontal (level 1) and vertical (level 2) slides, which means --slide-level=2. However pandoc eats up all content and speaker notes from level 1 slides. If I set --slide-level=1, I do not get vertical slides any longer.

I know, that this is the described behavior according to the manual, but I do not unserstand why? Is there any chance or way around it. Many thanks.

---

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/1618

[karland]

@jgm Thanks a lot. I understand what you suggest and how pandoc constructs 2D presentations, but this is not what I would like to achieve. Ideally, I would like to produce a presentation in the form of the reveal.js presentation. Unfortunately and to my understanding, at the moment pandoc cannot produce a presentation like this. pandoc structures every 2D presentation in 'vertical sections' as opposed to a horizontal path with vertical details or options.

My concept of the presentation is that the main path through the presentation is horizontal. This means that I would also need to put content on your # Section One, # Section Two slides.

During the presentation, only If I decide to cover more details or if time permits I would drill down vertically. This gives an option to me as the presenter. But I am also free to skip the vertical paths individually or alltogether. I think this is one of the beauties that comes with reveal.js and its 2D navigation mechanism.

The solution for this is that pandoc also permits content on # Section One, # Section Two etc slides. Best.

[jgm]

Why not just put the things you want at the top of each vertical
stack in the first level-two section under each level-one header?
Won't you then get exactly what you're looking for? You still have
the option as presenter to just surf across the top-level slides.
I do this all the time.

The reason pandoc behaves the way it does is that it has a uniform
slide behavior across all formats, including beamer.

+++ karland [Sep 11 14 03:42 ]:

@jgm Thanks a lot. I understand what you suggest and how pandoc constructs 2D presentations, but this is not what I would like to achieve. Ideally, I would like to produce a presentation in the form of the reveal.js presentation. Unfortunately and to my understanding, at the moment pandoc cannot produce a presentation like this. pandoc structures every 2D presentation in 'vertical sections' as opposed to a horizontal path with vertical details or options.

My concept of the presentation is that the main path through the presentation is horizontal. This means that I would also need to put content on your # Section One, # Section Two slides.

During the presentation, only If I decide to cover more details or if time permits I would drill down vertically. This gives an option to me as the presenter. But I am also free to skip the vertical paths individually or alltogether. I think this is one of the beauties that comes with reveal.js and its 2D navigation mechanism.

The solution for this is that pandoc also permits content on # Section One, # Section Two etc slides. Best.

---

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/issues/1618#issuecomment-55247403

[karland]

@jgm I understand what you are suggesting and I think it is a good working solution. However, I am still not 100% convinced. I guess it is a matter of personal preference and your solution requires at least 2 slides for every new section (in 2D), which in my opinion unneccessarily increases the slide deck.

For small topics that would otherwise fit on one page you would zig-zag through the presentation instead of just going horizontally. Also, for marketing presentations that in parts have less to no text but only pictures instead, I would find it odd to announce with the section header slide "where we are". Sometimes I just do not want to have text at all.

Finally, from a user point of view I do not see the advantage of a uniform slide behaviour across several slideshow packages. I think this is one of the beauties of pandocand the --to option that you can generate different formats independent from each other.

But anyway, I still think pandoc is fantastic and I can always choose to not use the 2D style or change the generated HTML code for a final polishing. From my side I am happy to close this thread. Best and thanks.

[jgm]

+++ karland [Sep 12 14 06:27 ]:

For small topics that would otherwise fit on one page you would zig-zag through the presentation instead of just going horizontally. Also, for marketing presentations that in parts have less to no text but only pictures instead, I would find it odd to announce with the section header slide "where we are". Sometimes I just do not want to have text at all.

A header could just contain an image. ANd you could use header
attributes to add a class so that the image is positioned and styled
as you like.

Finally, from a user point of view I do not see the advantage of a uniform slide behaviour across several slideshow packages. I think this is one of the beauties of pandocand the --to option that you can generate different formats independent from each other.

The advantage is that you can take the same slide show that works
in revealjs, and when you convert to beamer, it will work the same way,
and vice versa.

[karland]

A header could just contain an image. ANd you could use header attributes to add a class so that the image is positioned and styled as you like.

Good point.

The advantage is that you can take the same slide show that works in revealjs, and when you convert to beamer, it will work the same way, and vice versa.

Fair enough.

[azrdev]

@jgm @karland -- while I understand the reason content is avoided on the header-slides, I think speaker notes should still be possible, which were also covered by this report.