Quickstart

Installation

From a local clone:

git clone https://github.com/stormlightlabs/lantern.git
cd lantern
cargo install --path .

You can also run it without installing:

cargo run -- present presentation.md

The installed binary is named lantern.

Create a deck

Create presentation.md:

---
theme: nord
author: Your Name
---

# Welcome to lantern

A terminal presentation tool built with Rust.

---

## Features

- Markdown slides split with `---`
- Base16 themes
- Syntax-highlighted code blocks
- Tables, lists, blockquotes, and horizontal rules
- Image rendering in terminals supported by `ratatui-image`
- GitHub and Obsidian-style admonitions

---

## Code

```rust
fn main() {
    println!("Hello, lantern!");
}
```

---

## Images

![A local image](./image.png)

---

## Done

Press `q` to quit.

Present

lantern present presentation.md

Use a theme from the command line:

lantern present presentation.md --theme catppuccin-mocha

Print

Print a deck to stdout:

lantern print presentation.md

Set the output width:

lantern print presentation.md --width 100

Check a deck

Validate a slide deck:

lantern check presentation.md

Run stricter checks:

lantern check presentation.md --strict

Validate a Base16 theme file:

lantern check --theme theme.yml

Key	Action
`→`, `j`, `Space`, `n`	Next slide
`←`, `k`, `p`	Previous slide
`?`	Toggle help line
`Shift+N`	Toggle notes panel if a slide contains notes
`q`, `Ctrl+C`, `Esc`	Quit

Slide separators

Put three dashes on a line by themselves between slides:

# Slide 1

Content here.

---

# Slide 2

More content.

Separators inside fenced code blocks are ignored.

Front matter

Lantern accepts YAML front matter:

---
theme: oxocarbon-dark
author: Jane Doe
date: 2026-06-24
paging: "Slide %d / %d"
---

It also accepts TOML front matter:

+++
theme = "nord"
author = "Jane Doe"
+++

Current metadata fields are theme, author, date, and paging.

Theme selection is implemented.

Supported markdown

Headings # through ######
Paragraphs
Bold, italic, strikethrough, and inline code
Fenced and indented code blocks
Ordered and unordered lists with nesting
Horizontal rules
Blockquotes
Tables
Images
GitHub and Obsidian-style admonitions
Speaker notes with ::: notes blocks

Environment variables

Set the default theme with SLIDES_THEME:

export SLIDES_THEME=nord

Render with a Base16 YAML theme file:

lantern present presentation.md --theme-file ./theme.yml

Named custom themes can also be placed in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/lantern/themes, $LANTERN_CONFIG_HOME/themes, or ~/.config/lantern/themes.

If no author appears in front matter, lantern uses USER or USERNAME.

Current limitations

Search keys are reserved, but the search UI is not implemented yet.
author, date, and paging are parsed from front matter but not displayed in the presenter.

Lantern