10.1 Structuring the slide show

By default, the slide level is the highest heading level in the hierarchy that is followed immediately by content, and not another heading, somewhere in the document. In the example above, level-1 headings are always followed by level-2 headings, which are followed by content, so the slide level is 2. This default can be overridden using the --slide-level option.

The document is carved up into slides according to the following rules:

• A horizontal rule always starts a new slide.

• A heading at the slide level always starts a new slide.

• Headings below the slide level in the hierarchy create headings within a slide. (In beamer, a “block” will be created. If the heading has the class example, an exampleblock environment will be used; if it has the class alert, an alertblock will be used; otherwise a regular block will be used.)

• Headings above the slide level in the hierarchy create “title slides,” which just contain the section title and help to break the slide show into sections. Non-slide content under these headings will be included on the title slide (for HTML slide shows) or in a subsequent slide with the same title (for beamer).

• A title page is constructed automatically from the document’s title block, if present. (In the case of beamer, this can be disabled by commenting out some lines in the default template.)

These rules are designed to support many different styles of slide show. If you don’t care about structuring your slides into sections and subsections, you can either just use level-1 headings for all slides (in that case, level 1 will be the slide level) or you can set --slide-level=0.

Note: in reveal.js slide shows, if slide level is 2, a two-dimensional layout will be produced, with level-1 headings building horizontally and level-2 headings building vertically. It is not recommended that you use deeper nesting of section levels with reveal.js unless you set --slide-level=0 (which lets reveal.js produce a one-dimensional layout and only interprets horizontal rules as slide boundaries).

10.1.1 PowerPoint layout choice

When creating slides, the pptx writer chooses from a number of pre-defined layouts, based on the content of the slide:

Title Slide

This layout is used for the initial slide, which is generated and filled from the metadata fields date, author, and title, if they are present.

Section Header

This layout is used for what pandoc calls “title slides”, i.e. slides which start with a header which is above the slide level in the hierarchy.

Two Content

This layout is used for two-column slides, i.e. slides containing a div with class columns which contains at least two divs with class column.

Comparison

This layout is used instead of “Two Content” for any two-column slides in which at least one column contains text followed by non-text (e.g. an image or a table).

Content with Caption

This layout is used for any non-two-column slides which contain text followed by non-text (e.g. an image or a table).

Blank

This layout is used for any slides which only contain blank content, e.g. a slide containing only speaker notes, or a slide containing only a non-breaking space.

Title and Content

This layout is used for all slides which do not match the criteria for another layout.

These layouts are chosen from the default pptx reference doc included with pandoc, unless an alternative reference doc is specified using --reference-doc.