DeckTape is a high-quality PDF exporter for HTML5 presentation frameworks. It supports all the features that you would expect from a PDF exporter like font embedding, selectable text, hyperlinks, SVG graphics objects, file compression.

DeckTape is built on top of PhantomJS which relies on Qt WebKit for laying out and rendering Web pages and provides a headless WebKit scriptable with a JavaScript API.

DeckTape currently supports the CSSS, deck.js, DZSlides, flowtime.js, HTML Slidy, impress.js, remark.js, reveal.js and Shower presentation frameworks out-of-the-box. Besides, DeckTape provides a generic command that emulates the end-user interaction and that can be used to convert presentations from virtually any kind of frameworks. That is particularly useful to support HTML presentation frameworks that don't expose any API nor accessible state, like Bespoke.js for example.

DeckTape's plugin-based architecture exposes an extension API so that it is possible to add support for other frameworks or tailored existing plugins to your specific needs.

DeckTape can optionally be used to capture screenshots of your slide decks in various resolutions, similarly to pageres. That can be useful to make sure your presentations are responsive or to create handouts for them.

You can browse some slide deck examples below that have been exported with DeckTape.

1. Shallow clone DeckTape Git repository:

    git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/astefanutti/decktape.git
   

2. Change into the decktape directory:

    cd decktape
   

3. Download PhantomJS executable: DeckTape currently depends on a forked version of PhantomJS. You can get the corresponding binaries for the platforms above:

    # Windows (MSVC 2013), 64-bit, for Windows Vista or later, bundles VC++ Runtime 2013
    curl -L http://astefanutti.github.io/decktape/downloads/phantomjs-msvc2013-win64.exe -o bin\phantomjs.exe
   
    # Mac OS X (Cocoa), 64-bit, for OS X 10.6 or later
    curl -L http://astefanutti.github.io/decktape/downloads/phantomjs-osx-cocoa-x86-64 -o bin/phantomjs
    chmod +x bin/phantomjs
   
    # Linux (CentOS 7), 64-bit
    curl -L http://astefanutti.github.io/decktape/downloads/phantomjs-linux-centos7-x86-64 -o bin/phantomjs
    chmod +x bin/phantomjs
   
    # Linux (Debian 8), 64-bit
    curl -L http://astefanutti.github.io/decktape/downloads/phantomjs-linux-debian8-x86-64 -o bin/phantomjs
   

   If the executable isn't available for your target platform, see the Build section and follow the instructions.

Into DeckTape install directory:

bin/phantomjs decktape.js -h

Usage: phantomjs decktape.js [options] [command] <url> <filename>

command      one of: automatic, csss, deck, dzslides, flowtime, generic, impress,
             remark, reveal, shower, slidy
url          URL of the slides deck
filename     Filename of the output PDF file

Options:
   -s, --size                Size of the slides deck viewport: <width>x<height>  [1280x720]
   -p, --pause               Duration in milliseconds before each slide is exported  [1000]
   --screenshots             Capture each slide as an image  [false]
   --screenshots-directory   Screenshots output directory  [screenshots]
   --screenshots-size        Screenshots resolution, can be repeated  [--size]
   --screenshots-format      Screenshots image format, one of [jpg, png]  [png]

Defaults to the automatic command.
Iterates over the available plugins, picks the compatible one for presentation at the
specified <url> and uses it to export and write the PDF into the specified <filename>.

In addition to the general options listed above, command specific options can be displayed the following way:

phantomjs decktape.js <command> -h

Iterates over the available plugins, picks the compatible one for presentation at the specified url and uses it to export and write the PDF into the specified filename.

Emulates the end-user interaction by pressing the key with the specified keycode and iterates over the presentation as long as any change to the DOM is detected by observing mutation events to the body element and its subtree. The keycode value must be one of the PhantomJS page event keys and defaults to Right, e.g.:

phantomjs decktape.js generic --keycode=Space

Captures each slide as an image at the screenshots-size resolution, exports it to the screenshots-format image format and writes the output into the screenshots-directory directory. The screenshots-size option can be set multiple times, e.g.:

phantomjs decktape.js --screenshots --screenshots-size=400x300 --screenshots-size=800x600

To build the forked version of PhantomJS whose DeckTape relies on, you have to execute the following commands from the DeckTape install directory:

1. Initialize and check out the phantomjs submodule:

    git submodule update --init
   

2. Change into the phantomjs directory:

    cd phantomjs
   

3. Launch the build script:

    build
   

More information can be found in Compiling PhantomJS from source and in Building Qt 5 from Git.

✏️

The following slide deck examples have been exported using DeckTape: