Slides usually live in a file on someone's laptop. Then the laptop isn't there, the projector wants a PDF, and the organiser wants a PowerPoint.
The problem
BUDE Global runs talks for students and newcomers: open source, Git, Python, AI-assisted development. The decks needed to be in one place, viewable on any screen, easy for others to add to, and exportable to whatever format a venue asks for.
What I built
Version one was a static site on Reveal.js. Each deck is a JSON file, and the site discovers the files, validates them, and shows only the ones that pass. It added search, keyboard navigation and speaker notes. That version holds 82 JSON decks.
Version two is a Next.js 15 app built as a static export, now with 115 content files:
content/*.json ──► Zod schema (lib/schema.ts) │ validate-content (CI step) ▼ Next.js static export ├─ catalog · search · categories ├─ slide view └─ export: PPTX · PDF · DOCX │ GitHub Actions ──► Cloudflare Pages ──► ppt.budeglobal.in
A deck is data, not a document. The schema describes sections, slides and content types; a parser turns the JSON into slides, and Vitest covers the parser. Export runs in the browser: pptxgenjs builds the PowerPoint file, jsPDF the PDF, and docx the Word handout.
Decisions that mattered
Fail the build, not the talk. CI runs the content validator before building. A deck with a broken field never reaches the live site, so nobody discovers it in front of an audience.
Static all the way. The site is a static export on Cloudflare Pages: nothing to keep running, and nothing to break between one talk and the next.
Export on the client. Generating PowerPoint, PDF and Word in the browser means no conversion server, and the deck that is exported is exactly the deck on screen.
A local copy. Small scripts can start a local server at boot on a Windows machine, so one PC can serve the decks without the internet.
Run it like an open project. GitHub workflows assign issues, apply labels and greet first-time contributors. Writing a deck means writing JSON, so non-developers can contribute too.
What was hard
Two versions share one repo: the Reveal.js original under legacy/ and the Next.js rewrite beside it. Until every old deck is carried over, both have to keep working.
Where it stands
Live at ppt.budeglobal.in. I presented my September 2026 guest lecture from it; the deck is linked from the blog post about that day.
The repository has 206 commits since November 2025, nearly all mine.
Still to tidy: the README's demo link still points to the old GitHub Pages address instead of ppt.budeglobal.in.