I have spent years watching presentation tools fight the wrong problem.
PowerPoint and Keynote ask you to move rectangles. Markdown slide tools ask you to sprinkle CSS into prose. Neither one asks the only question that matters: what are you trying to say? (ー_ー)
So I built a compiler for that question.
Today I am releasing Yumia-MD (npm: yumiamd) — an open-source programming language for visual documents. You describe communicative intent; Yumia handles structure, composition, design, and multi-format export to editable PPTX, vector PDF, and interactive HTML.
- Official docs & playground: biagio-scaglia.github.io/Yumia-MD
- Source on GitHub: github.com/biagio-scaglia/Yumia-MD
Why Yumia-MD Beats Canvas Dragging and Screenshot Decks ( ﾟ，_ゝ｀)
Traditional slide software models a deck as absolute canvas coordinates. Resize the frame and everything breaks. Rasterize to PPTX and you get pictures of slides, not slides.
Yumia starts from a semantic AST. You write intent primitives like hero, metric, compare, timeline, chart, card, and grid. The design system places them. The renderers emit real artifacts:
CONTENT & COMMUNICATIVE INTENT
│
▼
YUMIA SEMANTIC AST
│
▼
DESIGN SYSTEM & COMPOSITION
│
┌───────────────────────┼───────────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
│ Editable PPTX │ │ Vector PDF │ │ HTML + HUD │
│ OpenXML shapes │ │ mm precision│ │ live inspect│That last part still makes me smile late at night: PowerPoint output is native OpenXML — real editable shapes and charts, not screenshots glued into a deck.
Quick Start: Write a .yumia Deck and Compile It (d^_^)b
document "Q4 Financial Trajectory"
theme "corporate"
aspectRatio "16:9"
slide "Revenue & Growth"
hero title="Hyper-Growth Execution" subtitle="ARR beats quarterly target by 42%" badge="Q4 Audit" align="center"
grid columns=3 gap=20
metric "$24.8M" label="ARR Run-Rate" diff="+142% YoY" variant="success" trend="up"
metric "118%" label="Net Retention" diff="+4%" variant="primary" trend="up"
metric "9.2x" label="LTV / CAC" diff="+1.8x" variant="accent" trend="up"
chart type="bar" title="Quarterly ARR ($M)" labels="Q1,Q2,Q3,Q4" data="12.4,15.8,19.2,24.8"Then:
npx yumiamd init my-deck --theme corporate
npx yumiamd dev presentation.yumia.md --open
npx yumiamd build presentation.yumia.md --out presentation.pptxSame source, three surfaces. PPTX for the meeting room. PDF for the archive. HTML for the browser, with a Design HUD if you press I or Alt+click an element. (◡‿◡✿)
Beyond charts and metrics, Yumia also compiles PlantUML-style sequence/class diagrams, flow diagrams, reusable component macros, and KaTeX math — still from one semantic source.
Design Intelligence: yumia explain and Visual Audits
The piece I care about most is not the exporters. It is the compiler noticing when a deck is visually tired.
yumia explain presentation.yumiaIt reports typography scale, contrast, density, hierarchy, and awkward rhythm — the slide that suddenly has 38% more text than average, or three identical card layouts in a row. There is also yumia check for structured diagnostics, and yumia schema if you want LLMs to generate against a deterministic grammar instead of inventing broken HTML.
That was the quiet design goal: AI-friendly because the language is unambiguous, not because a chat box was bolted onto a canvas.
Who Yumia-MD Is For
I like tools that feel like late-90s personal software: small, opinionated, built for one clear craft. Yumia is my answer to “presentations as code” without pretending Markdown alone is enough design.
Reach for it if you want:
- one source file instead of fragile pixel layouts
- native editable PowerPoint instead of screenshot PPTX
- vector PDF with real typography
- a linter that cares about visual rhythm before you present
Clone it, break it, file issues, send pull requests. MIT, as usual.
Until the next compile (★｀･ω･)ゞ
Biagio