Kova
Kova turns plain Markdown into polished slides — with live preview, multiple layouts, theming, and PPTX, PDF, and HTML export — all in a native desktop app.
Features
- Markdown-first — write slides in plain text, separated by
---
- Live preview — editor and preview stay in sync as you type
- Auto layout — title, section, split, two-column, grid, quote, full-bleed, and more
- Themes — 11 built-in themes, community themes, and custom YAML
- Math, code & diagrams — KaTeX math, highlight.js syntax highlighting, and Mermaid charts
- Icons —
:name: shortcodes (e.g. :rocket:) from a bundled Nerd Fonts symbol set, carried through to PPTX export
- Rich media — images, local video, YouTube embeds, and QR codes
- Fullscreen presentation — keyboard and click navigation, plus a presenter view with speaker notes, next-slide preview, and an elapsed or countdown timer
- Build-reveal animations — mark a bullet, image, or other element with
<!-- step --> to reveal it on its own click, in presentation, the interactive HTML export, and native PowerPoint builds
- Export — PowerPoint (16:9 and 4:3, including build animations), PDF (with speaker notes and multi-slide handouts), and standalone HTML
- Import — convert Marp decks, PowerPoint files, or a web page URL into Kova Markdown
- Computed tables — annotate a table with
!sheet and write formulas in the cells (=qty * unit, =sum(total)); Kova computes them, the source keeps only the formulas. See examples/sheet-basics.md
Download
Both Windows installers add Kova to PATH by default so kova works from a terminal, and both let you opt out. The .exe (per-user) always uses your own user PATH; the .msi (all users) lets you pick system PATH, your user PATH only, or neither.
Linux
Debian/Ubuntu and Fedora/RHEL/openSUSE users should install from the repo below — it keeps Kova updated automatically. Arch, Nix, and Flatpak have native options too, or grab the self-updating AppImage if you'd rather not add a repo.
sudo curl -fsSL https://deb.kova.md/key.gpg \
| sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/kova.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/kova.gpg] https://deb.kova.md stable main" \
| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kova.list
sudo apt update && sudo apt install kova
Debian 13+ — use the DEB822 source format.
sudo rpm --import https://rpm.kova.md/key.gpg
sudo curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/kova.repo \
https://rpm.kova.md/kova.repo
sudo dnf install kova # openSUSE: zypper install kova
nix run github:KovaMD/Kova # run without installing
nix profile install github:KovaMD/Kova # install into your profile
Or add github:KovaMD/Kova as a flake input and use packages.<system>.default.
yay -S kova-bin # or: paru -S kova-bin
Flathub's current policy excludes LLM-assisted apps, so Kova ships from a self-hosted Flatpak repo:
flatpak install https://flatpak.kova.md/kova.flatpakref
flatpak run md.kova.app
Or build it locally from the manifest:
flatpak install flathub org.gnome.Platform//49 org.gnome.Sdk//49
curl -fsSL -o packaging/flatpak/kova.deb \
https://github.com/KovaMD/Kova/releases/latest/download/Kova_Linux.deb
flatpak-builder --user --install --force-clean build packaging/flatpak/md.kova.app.yml
flatpak run md.kova.app
Bundled graphics libs are stripped for compatibility with Arch/Fedora/etc., and the AppImage is signed so in-app auto-update works. See issue #3 for background.
chmod +x Kova_Linux.AppImage
./Kova_Linux.AppImage
Download .AppImage
Prefer a plain package file over adding a repo? Raw .deb and .rpm builds are attached to every release — just note that manual installs like these won't get automatic updates.
Building from source
Prerequisites: Node.js 20.19+ or 22.12+, Rust (stable), and Tauri prerequisites for your platform.
git clone https://github.com/KovaMD/Kova.git
cd Kova
npm install
npm run tauri dev # development — hot-reload
npm run tauri build # release binary
Nix users can skip the prerequisites: nix develop drops you in a shell with Rust, Node, and Tauri ready.
See the Contributing guide for more details, or TRANSLATING.md if you'd like to add a language.
Command line
Kova also runs from a terminal (kova --help for all options):
kova --present talk.md # open straight into presentation
kova --check talk.md # validate and exit
kova --export pdf talk.md talk.pdf # pptx | pdf | html
kova --import pptx deck.pptx deck.md # marp | pptx | url
Keybindings
To customise, edit your keybindings file (created automatically on first launch), or open it from Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts → Open file.
| Platform | Path |
|---|
| macOS | ~/Library/Application Support/kova/keybindings.yaml |
| Linux | ~/.config/kova/keybindings.yaml |
| Windows | %APPDATA%\kova\keybindings.yaml |
Custom themes follow the same base path, under a themes/ subfolder. Full reference on the Keyboard Shortcuts wiki page.
Themes
Theme library — open the Inspector, expand Theme, and click More Themes… to browse and install community themes from the KovaMD/Themes repository. Each download is verified against a SHA-256 checksum. Installed themes appear in the picker immediately.
Custom themes — place YAML theme files in the themes/ subfolder of your config directory (see Keybindings above for platform paths). They appear in the Inspector alongside built-in themes. See the Themes wiki page for the full YAML format.
Support
Kova is free and community funded. If you'd like to support development, you can donate via Open Collective.
License
Kova is free and open source software, released under the GNU General Public License v3.0.
You are free to use, study, modify, and distribute this software under the terms of the GPL v3. Any modified versions distributed to others must also be made available under the GPL v3.
See LICENSE for the full license text.
Windows builds are code signed for free courtesy of SignPath.io, using a free code signing certificate from the SignPath Foundation.
