Create Beautiful Presentations with Markdown
Online & In-Person
450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
🎯 Why Markdown Slides?
Unlike PowerPoint or Keynote, your presentations are future-proof, portable, and completely under your control. No proprietary formats, no vendor lock-in, no subscription fees.
The Problem with Traditional Slides
PowerPoint & Keynote:
- 💸 Expensive licenses or subscriptions
- 🔒 Proprietary file formats (
.pptx,.key) - 💻 Platform-specific (Windows/Mac only)
- 📦 Large binary files
- 🚫 Difficult to version control
- 😰 Lost formatting when sharing
Google Slides:
- ☁️ Requires internet connection
- 🔐 Data stored on Google’s servers
- 📱 Limited offline editing
- 🎨 Formatting breaks when exporting
- 🔗 Dependency on Google’s platform
The Hugo Blox Solution
Write your presentations in simple, human-readable Markdown. Edit anywhere, present anywhere, own forever.
✨ What You Get
🎨 Professional Design, Zero Effort
- 15+ Built-in Themes — Black, white, sky, league, and more
- Syntax Highlighting — Beautiful code blocks with 50+ languages
- Math Support — LaTeX equations render perfectly: $E = mc^2$
- Responsive — Looks great on any screen size
📝 Write in Plain Text
## My Slide Title
- Point one
- Point two
- Point three
```python
def hello():
return "World!"
```
---
That’s it! No complex UI, no formatting headaches.
🔄 Edit Anywhere, Anytime
Your slides are just Markdown files. Edit them in:
- Lore Studio — Visual editing with live preview
- VS Code — With Markdown extensions
- Obsidian — Note-taking app that speaks Markdown
- Typora — Minimal distraction writing
- Any text editor — Even Notepad works!
🎯 Advanced Features
Dual Column Layouts:
<div style="display: flex; gap: 2rem;">
<div style="flex: 1;">Column 1</div>
<div style="flex: 1;">Column 2</div>
</div>
Fragment Animations:
{{< fragment >}}Appear on click!{{< /fragment >}}
Speaker Notes:
Note: Your private notes here
(visible in presenter view only)
Vertical Slide Stacks: Navigate down for sub-topics!
🚀 Getting Started is Easy
Step 1: Create Your Slides
Create content/slides/my-talk/index.md:
---
title: "My Amazing Talk"
type: slides
slides:
theme: black
---
# My Amazing Talk
### Your Name
---
## Main Points
- Point 1
- Point 2
- Point 3
---
## Thank You!
Step 2: Link to Your Event
In your event page (content/events/my-event/index.md):
---
title: "My Conference Presentation"
slides: "my-talk" # References the slides folder name
---
Step 3: Present!
Your slides are automatically:
- ✅ Embedded on the event page
- ✅ Available in fullscreen mode (click arrows-expand button)
- ✅ Accessible at a direct URL
- ✅ Keyboard-navigatable (→ ← keys)
💎 Why Academics & Researchers Love It
“I can finally version control my presentations with Git, collaborate using GitHub, and never worry about formatting breaking again. Game changer for reproducible research!” — Dr. Xin Liu, MIT
Perfect for Research
- Version Control — Track every change with Git
- Collaboration — Use GitHub pull requests for slide reviews
- Reproducibility — Slides are plain text, commit them with your code
- Open Science — Share presentations on GitHub, no barriers
- Citations — Include BibTeX references easily
- Jupyter Integration — Embed notebooks and visualizations
Perfect for Teaching
- Reusable Content — Mix and match slides across courses
- Student Contributions — Students can submit slide PRs
- Live Coding — Syntax highlighting for all languages
- Interactive Examples — Embed interactive visualizations
- Accessible — Keyboard navigation, screen reader friendly
🎬 See It In Action
Try it now! The slides embedded above demonstrate all these features:
- Code highlighting with Python
- Mathematical equations with LaTeX
- Dual column layouts (slides 4-6)
- Fragment animations
- Multiple themes
Click the arrows-expand fullscreen button (top right) to experience presentation mode!
Live Features to Try
- Navigate: Use arrow keys (→ ←) or click controls
- Fullscreen: Click the expand button to go fullscreen
- Speaker Notes: Press
Sto open presenter view (try it!) - Overview: Press
ESCto see all slides at once - Search: Press
/to search slide content - Zoom:
Alt+Clickto zoom into details
🆚 Comparison
| Feature | PowerPoint | Google Slides | Hugo Blox |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | $159.99/year | Free* | Free Forever |
| Format | Binary (.pptx) | Proprietary | Plain Markdown |
| Version Control | ❌ Difficult | ❌ Limited | ✅ Git Native |
| Offline Editing | ✅ Yes | ⚠️ Limited | ✅ Fully Offline |
| Platform Lock-in | ⚠️ Microsoft | ✅ None | |
| Code Highlighting | ⚠️ Basic | ⚠️ Limited | ✅ 50+ Languages |
| Math Equations | ⚠️ Clunky | ⚠️ Basic | ✅ Full LaTeX |
| Portability | ❌ Poor | ❌ Requires Google | ✅ Works Anywhere |
| Future-Proof | ❌ Format changes | ⚠️ API changes | ✅ Plain Text Forever |
| Open Source | ❌ No | ❌ No | ✅ Yes |
Hugo Blox wins on freedom, portability, and long-term sustainability.
🛠️ Advanced Capabilities
Code Blocks with Syntax Highlighting
import torch
import torch.nn as nn
class Transformer(nn.Module):
def __init__(self, d_model=512, nhead=8):
super().__init__()
self.attention = nn.MultiheadAttention(d_model, nhead)
def forward(self, x):
return self.attention(x, x, x)[0]
Mathematical Equations
Display equations with LaTeX:
$$
\nabla \times \vec{E} = -\frac{\partial \vec{B}}{\partial t}
$$
$$
\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} e^{-x^2} dx = \sqrt{\pi}
$$
Dual Column Layouts
Perfect for before/after comparisons, code + explanation, or image + text:
<div style="display: flex; gap: 2rem;">
<div style="flex: 1;">Left content</div>
<div style="flex: 1;">Right content</div>
</div>
See slides 4-6 in the embedded presentation above for live examples!
🎓 For Educators: Teach the Future
Teaching with Hugo Blox means teaching modern, transferable skills:
- Markdown (used everywhere: GitHub, Notion, Obsidian)
- Version control (essential for careers)
- Web technologies (HTML, CSS)
- Reproducible science practices
Course Integration
courses/
├── ml-101/
│ ├── lecture-1/
│ │ ├── index.md (slides)
│ │ └── notes.md
│ ├── lecture-2/
│ │ └── index.md
│ └── _index.md
Each lecture gets its own slide deck, all version controlled, all editable by students as PRs.
🌍 Join the Community
Hugo Blox is used by researchers at:
- 🎓 Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge
- 🏢 Google Research, Meta AI, OpenAI
- 🔬 CERN, NASA, NIH
- 🌐 Thousands of universities worldwide
Get Help & Connect
🚀 Ready to Create?
No installation required. No account needed. Just Markdown and your creativity.
📖 Additional Resources
Templates & Examples
Tips & Tricks
- Keep slides simple — one idea per slide
- Use dual columns for comparisons
- Add speaker notes with
Note:prefix - Test presenter view before your talk
- Use fragments to control pacing
- Version control your slides with Git
- Share source files for reproducibility
Have questions? Check out the FAQ or ask the community!
Want to contribute? Hugo Blox is open source! Contributions welcome.

Polina Beloborodova is a social psychologist researching the adverse impacts of social disconnection and loneliness on emotional well-being, as well as the potential of contemplative practices like meditation to address these issues.
She is currently a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She holds a PhD in Social Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University (United States) and a PhD in General and Personality Psychology from HSE University (Russia). Polina’s research has been funded by the Mind & Life Institute and American Psychological Association and has received multiple awards.
Before entering academia, Polina worked in human resources across several industries. Born and raised in Russia, educated in Europe and the US, and having traveled to over 50 countries, she brings a cross-cultural perspective to her research, teaching, and service. In her free time, Polina enjoys reading fiction and spending time in nature.