Documentation

Everything you need to create presentations with Lecta — from getting started to using AI with Claude.

Getting Started

A Lecta presentation is just a folder with a lecta.yaml file, markdown slides, and optional code files. Open the app, create a new presentation, and start writing.

1
Create

Open Lecta and click "New Presentation". Give it a name and pick a theme.

2
Write

Add slides using Markdown or the visual editor. Attach code files, images, and PDFs.

3
Present

Hit F5 to enter presenter mode. Run code live, navigate with arrow keys, and sync with an audience window.

Use with Claude

Lecta includes an MCP server that connects to Claude Desktop and Claude Code. This means you can create and edit presentations just by talking to Claude — no clicking required.

What you can say

“Create a 10-slide presentation about microservices”
“Add a slide about error handling with a Python code example”
“Change the theme to keynote-dark”
“Add a two-column slide comparing React vs Vue”
“Delete slide 3 and move the conclusion to the end”

Presentations are saved to ~/Documents/Lecta by default. They appear in your Lecta home screen automatically.

Setup

1
Enable MCP Server

Open Settings in Lecta and turn on MCP Server under Claude Integration.

2
Add to Claude Desktop

Click the "Add to Claude Desktop" button in Settings. This automatically configures Claude to use Lecta.

3
Start using it

Restart Claude Desktop. You'll see "lecta" in the MCP tools list. Start asking Claude to create slides!

Changes from Claude appear live in Lecta thanks to the file watcher. No terminal commands needed.

Available Tools

create_presentation

Create a new deck with title, theme, and starter slides

add_slide

Add a slide with markdown, code, layout, and speaker notes

edit_slide

Update content, layout, code, notes, or transitions

delete_slide

Remove a slide from the deck

list_slides

See all slides and their metadata

set_theme

Switch between the 8 built-in themes

add_artifact

Attach files (PDFs, images, docs) to a slide

Themes

Lecta comes with 8 built-in themes. Set the theme in lecta.yaml or change it from the app.

DarkLightExecutiveMinimalCorporateCreativeKeynote DarkPaper

Slide Layouts

Choose a layout per slide to control how content is arranged.

defaultStandard top-down flow
centerCentered vertically and horizontally
titleBig centered title with subtitle
sectionSection break with accent bar
two-colTwo equal columns
two-col-wide-left60/40 left-heavy split
two-col-wide-right40/60 right-heavy split
three-colThree equal columns
top-bottomContent split top and bottom
big-numberLarge stat with context below
quoteBlockquote-style centered
blankFull canvas, no padding

Keyboard Shortcuts

← / →Previous / Next slide
⌘ + EnterRun code
F5Enter presenter mode
EscExit presenter mode
NToggle speaker notes
Shift + NAdd new slide
⌘ + /Toggle chat agent

Import Formats

Open any of these file types from the file dialog — Lecta converts them into editable presentations or notebooks.

Jupyter Notebook (.ipynb)Full cell structure with markdown, code, and outputs. Kernel auto-detected (Python, JS, SQL, etc.). Interactive Jupyter-style view with cell execution, reorder, and kernel picker.
PowerPoint (.pptx)Layout detection (title, section, two-column, etc.), rich text formatting (bold, italic, links), images linked to slides, tables as GFM markdown, speaker notes preserved.
Lecta File (.lecta)Portable archive containing slides, code, and artifacts. Open on any machine with Lecta.

AI Providers

Lecta supports 8 AI providers with 20+ models. Add your API keys in Settings or in a .env file. Ollama runs locally with no key required.

AnthropicClaude Sonnet 4, Opus 4, Haiku 4
OpenAIGPT-4o, GPT-4o Mini, o3, o3-mini, o4-mini
Google GeminiGemini 2.5 Pro, 2.5 Flash, 2.0 Flash
MistralLarge, Medium, Small
Meta LlamaLlama 4 Maverick, Scout, 3.3 70B
xAIGrok 3, Grok 3 Fast, Mini, Mini Fast
PerplexitySonar Pro, Sonar, Reasoning Pro, Reasoning
Ollama (Local)Any model — Llama, Mistral, Phi, Qwen, and more. No API key.