Getting started

This page covers the life of a presentation in Nixt Slides: starting one, opening one, saving it and closing it. Get Nixt Slides from the Download page.

The start screen

When Nixt Slides opens with no presentation, it shows the start screen:

• New presentation — “A blank .pptx, saved wherever you choose.”
• Open a presentation — opens a file from your computer.
• Open a file — the wide bar under the two cards. It does the same as Open a presentation and lists the file types the app opens: .pptx, .pptm, .potx and .ppsx.
• RECENT — the presentations you opened most recently, with the number of entries on the right. Until you open one, it says “Presentations you open appear here.”
• A line at the bottom confirms that the app opens presentations only, and that it has no account, no sync and no telemetry.

Switch between light and dark

The button at the top right of the start screen switches the app between a light and a dark appearance. Its tooltip reads Switch to dark or Switch to light.

Create a new presentation

1. On the start screen, click New presentation.

The editor opens a presentation called “Untitled presentation” with one slide. The slide has a title box and a content box. The title bar shows “Not saved yet” until you save it.

The layout menu next to Add a slide and the slide master view are available once you save the new presentation and open it again.

Open a presentation

1. On the start screen, click Open a presentation or Open a file.
2. In the dialog, which is titled “Open a document”, select a .pptx, .pptm, .potx or .ppsx file.
3. Click the dialog’s open button.

The presentation opens in the editor on its first slide. Each file you open is added to the top of the RECENT list.

Open a recent presentation

1. On the start screen, under RECENT, click the presentation. Each row shows the file name and where the file is.

The list shows up to six presentations, newest first. On macOS the app keeps its permission to open each one after you quit, and a presentation you moved in Finder is still found. A file that no longer exists is left out of the list. If a file was moved or deleted after the list was drawn, clicking it shows “Cannot open” with the message “That file is no longer where it was.” and the suggestion “It may have been moved, renamed or deleted.” The entry is then removed.

Files that open read-only

If your account can’t write to a file — for example, a file on a read-only disk or a locked download — the presentation opens read-only:

• A lock icon appears next to the name in the title bar.
• The Save button is unavailable.
• You can still edit, present and export. To keep your changes, use Save a copy as (see below) and save to a folder you can write to. Pressing ⌘S (Ctrl+S) also opens the save dialog.

After you save a copy in the presentation’s own format, the editor works on the copy: the lock icon goes away, the title bar shows the name you gave it, and Save writes to it.

When a file won’t open

If Nixt Slides can’t open a file, a dialog titled “Cannot open” followed by the file name explains why, and usually suggests what to do. Close it with OK. The messages are listed in Troubleshooting.

When unsaved work is waiting

If the app closed while a presentation had unsaved changes, opening that presentation again may show Unsaved work from followed by a time. Choose Restore to get that work back, or Discard it to delete the copy. See Recovery copies.

Save a presentation

Save in any of these ways:

• Click Save in the title bar (tooltip “Save ⌘S”).
• Press ⌘S (Ctrl+S on Windows and Linux).

What happens next depends on where the presentation came from:

While a presentation has changes you haven’t saved, an amber dot appears next to its name in the title bar (tooltip “Unsaved changes”). A small spinner appears at the right of the status bar while a save is running.

If a save fails, the status bar says “Could not save:” followed by the reason. See Troubleshooting.

Save a copy in another format

1. In the title bar, click the download icon (tooltip Save a copy as).
2. Choose a format:
   • PowerPoint presentation (.pptx)
   • PDF (.pdf)
   • Markdown outline (.md)
   • Plain text (.txt)
3. In the save dialog, choose a folder and a name, and save.

If you choose PowerPoint presentation for a presentation that is already a .pptx, this works like Save As: the editor switches to the new copy. Choosing any other format writes the copy and leaves the editor working on the original presentation. What each format contains is described in Printing and exporting.

Close a presentation

1. Click the back arrow at the left of the title bar (tooltip Close).
2. If there are unsaved changes, a dialog asks Save changes to followed by the presentation’s name, with the message “Your changes will be lost if you close without saving.” Choose one:
   • Don’t save — close and lose the changes.
   • Cancel — go back to the presentation.
   • Save — save, then close. For a new presentation, the save dialog opens first; if you cancel it, the presentation stays open.

You return to the start screen.

Closing the app’s window or quitting the app with unsaved changes asks the same question. Cancel keeps the app open; Don’t save quits and loses the changes.

Switch to another presentation

The window shows one presentation. To work on a different one, close the current presentation and open the next from the start screen.

Next steps

• The editor window explains the title bar, ribbon, slide list, canvas and panes.
• Working with slides shows how to build the deck.