I first wrote about Deckset back in 2014. Since then I’ve continued to love it as an alternative to Keynote, using it whenever I can for presentations. At CMD-D last summer, I hadn’t expected to be speaking, but when Andy Ithnako had to call in sick, I wrote a full slide deck in Markdown on breaks between talks. I’m very excited to let you know that version 2.0 has been released, and it covers some of the requests I and other users have had over the years.

First, you can customize the themes. It comes with a wide selection of styles, but I’ve always longed to be able to change them just slightly for my needs. Now you can adjust colors, fonts, and general layout, and even export and share the theme with others.

You can also just use Markdown headers as slide dividers (as opposed to horizontal rules), making presentation creation that much faster. You can also add customization to a single slide using metadata headers to do such things as temporarily disable slide numbering or change a footer.

With the release of version 2, Deckset has announced they’re leaving the Mac App Store. The new version is available exclusively via direct purchase, which — as a side effect — gives them a lot more flexibility with coupons, pricing, and educational discounts.

Deckset is definitely the coolest, easiest tool I’ve found for creating slide decks quickly and beautifully. The current version runs $29 US, with site licenses available. If you bought Deckset after March 1st, 2017, you can receive a free upgrade. Check it out!