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.

• 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
• Rich media — images, local video, YouTube embeds, and QR codes
• Fullscreen presentation — speaker notes, slide counter, keyboard and click navigation
• Export — PowerPoint (16:9 and 4:3), PDF (with speaker notes), and standalone HTML
• 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

Both Windows installers let you skip adding Kova to PATH so kova works from a terminal. 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.

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

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

yay -S kova-bin   # or: paru -S kova-bin

flatpak install https://flatpak.kova.md/kova.flatpakref
flatpak run md.kova.app

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

chmod +x Kova_Linux.AppImage
./Kova_Linux.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.

Prerequisites: Node.js 18+, 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.

To customise, edit your keybindings file (created automatically on first launch), or open it from Settings → Keyboard Shortcuts → Open file.

Custom themes follow the same base path, under a themes/ subfolder. Full reference on the Keyboard Shortcuts wiki page.

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.

Kova is free and community funded. If you'd like to support development, you can donate via Open Collective.

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.