TeXora

Present PDF and LaTeX Beamer slides with confidence.
Free for non-commercial use, with its source code open to read, for macOS, Windows and Linux.

Download · Features · Guide · Shortcuts · Build

TeXora is a presenter for LaTeX Beamer and PDF slides. You see your notes, the current and next slide and the time; the room sees only the slide. Open a .tex file and edit it in the built-in LaTeX studio, beside a live preview, or in your own editor: the slides rebuild either way.

Screenshots

Home	Presenter view

Slide and notes, side by side	Every slide at a glance

The audience window shows only the slide, fullscreen on a projector or second screen:

Features

• Presenter view: notes, current and next slide, slide number and overlay step, elapsed time, talk duration with pace (ahead or behind), and a clock. Also a large-slide view and a split view.
• Audience window (F5): fullscreen on a second display, or press F11 on one display. Black screen (B), whiteboard (W) and freeze (F) to look ahead privately.
• LaTeX studio: edit the .tex source beside a live preview of the slide and its notes. Slides rebuild as you type, problems are listed with their line numbers, and a double-click on a slide finds its source.
• LaTeX Beamer: a .tex file compiles with pdfLaTeX, XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX (chosen for you from % !TEX program or the packages used). Editing it in your own editor works too: the slides rebuild when you save.
• Required packages: every package, theme and program your file needs, marked Installed or Needs download, with how to get it, in the studio and in Settings.
• Speaker notes from PDF notes pages (Beamer's show notes on second screen), from \note{} in the source, from a .pdfpc file, or from a Markdown file beside the presentation. Edit notes for any slide right in the notes panel.
• Animations and videos: animations made with the LaTeX animate package play on the slide, with autoplay, looping and play controls. Videos and GIFs placed with the built-in texoravideo package play inside the slide; \movie and media9 clips open in your video player.
• Drawing and pointing: pen, highlighter, eraser, a laser pointer in several colours, and zoom into an area. Ink is kept per slide.
• Zoom any slide with the wheel or a pinch, around the pointer.
• Bookmarks and questions: mark slides in their section's colour, and mark where questions came up. Only you see them.
• Contents and search in a sidebar, from the PDF outline and text.
• Analytics: time on each slide for every rehearsal, compared with the last one.
• Tabs: several presentations open at once, each keeping its place, ink and timer.
• Configurable shortcuts, a System check (? menu) that shows what your computer has, a command-line tool, and update notices: TeXora looks for a new release when it starts and every few hours while it is open, and tells you in a small notice with a download for your computer.

Download and install

Get TeXora from the latest release.

System	Installer	Portable
macOS, Apple chips (M1 and later)	TeXora-<version>-mac-arm64.dmg	…-mac-arm64.zip
macOS, Intel	TeXora-<version>-mac-x64.dmg	…-mac-x64.zip
Windows 10 and 11 (x64)	TeXora-<version>-windows-x64-setup.exe	…-windows-x64.zip
Debian, Ubuntu and relatives (x64)	texora_<version>_amd64.deb	TeXora-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz
Debian, Ubuntu and relatives (arm64)	texora_<version>_arm64.deb	TeXora-<version>-linux-arm64.tar.gz

• macOS: open the .dmg and drag TeXora to Applications. The first time, macOS asks you to confirm it; see Opening TeXora on a Mac the first time.
• Windows: run the setup program. It installs for you alone without administrator rights (or for everyone, if you choose), adds TeXora to the Start menu and to "Open with" for PDF and .tex files, and appears in Installed apps for uninstalling. Windows may warn about an unknown publisher.
• Linux: sudo apt install ./texora_<version>_amd64.deb, then start TeXora from the menu or run texora. Or unpack the .tar.gz anywhere and run ./TeXora. Needs glibc 2.31 or newer (Ubuntu 20.04, Debian 11 or later) and an X11 or Wayland desktop.

Opening TeXora on a Mac the first time

TeXora is signed ad hoc, not with a paid Apple Developer ID, so macOS cannot check who made it and blocks it the first time it is opened.

On macOS 15 Sequoia and later, the old right-click > Open shortcut no longer works. Instead:

1. Open TeXora once and click Done on the warning.
2. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security.
3. Scroll to the Security section, find the line saying TeXora was blocked, and click Open Anyway.
4. Enter your password or use Touch ID, and confirm.

On macOS 14 Sonoma and earlier, right-click (or Control-click) TeXora in Applications, choose Open, then Open again.

If you prefer Terminal, this removes the download mark so TeXora opens normally:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/TeXora.app

You only need to do this once; after that TeXora opens like any other app.

Every file is listed with its checksum in SHA256SUMS.txt, and VALIDATION.txt shows how each one was tested before the release.

Nothing else is needed to present PDFs: each package carries the program and its PDF engine. To compile .tex files, install a TeX distribution: MacTeX on macOS, MiKTeX or TeX Live on Windows, TeX Live on Linux.

Using TeXora

Getting started

1. Start TeXora. Home shows your recent files and ways to begin.

2. Choose New LaTeX presentation to start from a template, Open PDF presentation or Open LaTeX project, pick a recent file, or drop a file on the window. Try the sample lecture opens a ready-made talk to explore.

   New LaTeX presentation offers nine templates, each a complete Beamer file with speaker notes: Classic Green, Midnight, Minimal White, Conference and Sunrise, and four animated ones. Motion Lab shows animations drawn with TikZ, Flipbook plays the frames of a GIF and charts that grow, Media Studio has a video clip and charts that draw themselves, and Video Guide explains \includevideo slide by slide, with a video and a GIF that play inside the slides. Flipbook, Media Studio and Video Guide save their pictures and clips in a media folder beside the new file.

3. A .tex file is compiled for you. Edit it in the LaTeX studio (Cmd/Ctrl+E), or in your own LaTeX editor: the slides rebuild either way.

4. Press F5 to show the slides to the room, then move with the arrow keys or Space.

Each presentation opens in its own tab, and keeps its place, ink and timer. Hover over any button to see its name and shortcut.

The presenter screen

Area	What it shows
Top row	The open files; whether you are ready (displays, duration, notes) or, while presenting, what the audience sees; the time of day; and Present, which opens the audience window.
Notes	Your speaker notes for the slide on screen. Scroll or pinch to change the text size.
Current slide	What the room sees right now.
Next slide	What comes next, including the next overlay step.
Timer	Under the main panel, left of the slide number: time elapsed (click it to pause or resume), the duration (click it to set it), and play, pause and stop buttons.
Previous and next	Beside the timer: one step back or on, with the slide number and overlay step between them.
Sections	Your talk's sections in their colours, each as wide as its share of the slides. A black line marks where you are and ribbons mark bookmarks. Click a section to go there.
Pace	Under the sections: the time left, or how far ahead, behind or over you are. When you are behind, a button offers to skip the next slides that would make up the time.

In Large slide view (N) the slide fills the main panel, with the drawing tools beside it and the notes and next slide on the right:

Drag the dividers between the panels to resize them; View > Fit all panels automatically resets them.

The toolbar

The second row of buttons acts on the open presentation. From left to right:

Views

Button	Name	What it does	Key
	Presenter	Notes with the current and next slide.
	Large slide	A large current slide with the notes beside it.	N
	Slide and notes split	The slide and the notes side by side, with the next slide.	S
	Slide overview	Every slide at a glance. Click one to go there.	O
	LaTeX studio	Edit the .tex source beside the slide. See The LaTeX studio.	Cmd/Ctrl+E

The room's screen

Button	Name	What it does	Key
	Audience window	Opens the slides in their own window, fullscreen on a projector or second display.	F5
	Black screen	Blanks the room's screen. Press again to show the slide.	B
	Whiteboard	Shows a white page to draw on.	W
	Freeze	Keeps the room on this slide while you look ahead privately.	F

Notes

Button	Name	What it does	Key
	Edit notes	Opens the notes of this slide for editing, in the notes panel.	E
	Save notes	Shown while editing. Saves your changes.	Cmd/Ctrl+Enter
	Cancel	Shown while editing. Leaves the notes as they were.	Esc

Drawing and pointing

Button	Name	What it does	Key
	Pointer	The normal pointer: click to move on, no drawing.	V
	Pen	Draw on the slide. The room sees it too.	D
	Highlighter	A wide, see-through stroke to mark text.	H
	Laser pointer	A bright dot that follows your pointer, with a short trail.	L
	Eraser	Removes the strokes you touch.	X
	Zoom to area	Drag a box on the slide to enlarge that part for everyone.	Z
	Undo ink	Takes back the last stroke.	Cmd/Ctrl+Z
	Colour	Chooses the ink colour, or the laser colour while the laser is on.

Ink is kept with each slide, so it is still there when you come back. C clears the ink on the slide.

Zoom

Button	Name	What it does	Key
	Zoom out	Makes the slide smaller again.	-
	Zoom in	Enlarges the slide. The mouse wheel or a pinch zooms around the pointer.	+
	Fit to page	Shows the whole slide again.	0

Moving through the slides

Button	Name	What it does	Key
	First slide	Goes to the start.	Home
	Previous	One step back.	Left
	Next	One step on: the next overlay or the next slide.	Right, Space
	Last slide	Goes to the end.	End

Between Previous and Next, the box shows the slide number: click it, type a number and press Enter. Shift+Right and Shift+Left skip whole slides, and Backspace goes back to where you were.

The buttons at the top right

Button	Name	What it does	Key
	Bookmark	Marks this slide in the colour of its section, to find it again quickly.	M
	Question	Marks that someone asked a question on this slide. Analytics counts them.	Q
	Contents and bookmarks	Opens the sidebar with sections, bookmarks and questions.	T
	Search	Finds a word or phrase in the slides and notes.	Cmd/Ctrl+F
	Analytics	Shows how long you spent on each slide.	Y
	Settings	Text size, LaTeX engine, required packages, notes, updates and shortcuts.	Cmd/Ctrl+,
	Help	Documentation, system check, command-line tool, shortcuts, updates and About.

These open a sidebar on the left. Click the same button again, or the cross, to close it.

Speaker notes

TeXora shows notes from any of these:

• Beamer notes pages: add \setbeameroption{show notes on second screen=right} to your preamble.
• \note{...} in your .tex source.
• A .pdfpc file beside the PDF.
• A notes file saved next to the presentation (see below), with a ## Slide N heading for each slide. You can also write it yourself in any text editor.

Where notes are saved. It depends on what you opened:

You opened	Notes are saved in
Lecture.pdf	Lecture.note.md, in the same folder
Week 3 - Graphs.pdf	Week 3 - Graphs.note.md, in the same folder
Thesis defense.tex	Thesis defense.tex itself, as \note{...} in each slide (or Thesis defense.note.md, with Also save in the .tex file unticked)

For a PDF, keep the .note.md file with the presentation when you move or share it, and the notes come along. Notes saved by earlier versions as Lecture.notes.md are still read, and take the new name the next time you save.

For a LaTeX presentation, the source is the one place its notes live, so the presenter and the LaTeX studio always show the same notes: a note edited in the presenter is written into that slide's \note{...} and the slides rebuild, and a \note edited in the studio (or in your own editor) shows in the presenter after the rebuild. A note you save in the presenter shows at once, without waiting for the rebuild. To leave the .tex file alone, untick Also save in the .tex file under the note editor (or in Settings > Speaker notes); the notes then go into the .note.md file beside it. Settings > Speaker notes shows where the open presentation's notes are.

Edit notes. Click or press E, type, then click or press Cmd/Ctrl+Enter to save; Esc cancels. On a slide without notes, Write notes in the notes panel does the same. Your notes are saved where the table above says, so they open with the presentation next time. Markdown works: **bold**, *emphasis*, - lists and # headings (in a .tex file they become \textbf, \emph and a list). Clearing all the text removes the slide's note.

Any language. Notes can be written in any language, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and emoji. The fonts come from your computer. Arabic notes are shown right to left, aligned to the right, both while you type them and when they are shown. Notes are saved as UTF-8; files saved as UTF-16 or in older encodings are read too.

The LaTeX studio

Open a .tex file, then click , choose View > LaTeX studio or press Cmd/Ctrl+E. The source is on the left, the slide and its notes on the right, and compile messages along the bottom.

Control	What it does
Compile	Saves the source and builds the slides now. Also Cmd/Ctrl+B.
Save	Saves the source, and rebuilds if Rebuild on save is on. Also Cmd/Ctrl+S.
Engine (Auto)	pdfLaTeX, XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX. Auto picks from % !TEX program or the packages used.
Check packages	Lists every package, theme and program the file needs, and how to get any that are missing.
Live	Saves and rebuilds shortly after you stop typing.
Rebuild on save	Rebuilds each time the file is saved, here or in your own editor.
Follow cursor	Shows the slide for the line the cursor is on.
Wrap text	Wraps long lines at the editor's width instead of scrolling sideways.
Present	Back to the presenter view.

• Comment lines: Cmd/Ctrl+/ comments out the line the cursor is on, or every selected line, with %; if they are all commented already, it uncomments them. Cmd/Ctrl+] always comments and Cmd/Ctrl+[ always uncomments. Change these keys in Settings > Keyboard shortcuts.
• Find the source of a slide: double-click anywhere on the slide preview; the editor jumps to that line. The < and > buttons above the preview move between slides, and the wheel zooms.
• Problems, Packages, Full log: the panel along the bottom. Errors show their line number; click one to go there. The panel's buttons wrap long lines, copy the text, and hide or show the panel. Drag its top edge to resize it.
• Drag the edge between the source and the preview to make either wider; double-click it to split them half and half again.
• If a presentation does not compile when you open it, it opens in the studio with the problems listed.
• Linking slides and source uses SyncTeX, which comes with TeX Live, MacTeX and MiKTeX.

Animations and videos

Animations. Animations made with the LaTeX animate package play on the slide: \begin{animateinline}...\end{animateinline}, or \animategraphics with a series of pictures (for example the frames of a GIF). TeXora follows these settings of the animation:

Setting	What TeXora does
autoplay	Starts when its slide is shown and stops when you move on. Without it, the animation waits for a click.
loop	Starts again from the first frame.
palindrome	Plays forward, then backward.
Frame rate	Uses the rate set in the source, including changes with \newframe[rate].

Other animate options have not been tested. Click the animation to play or pause it, in either window. In the presenter view, a bar under the animation has first, previous, play/pause, next and last frame buttons, and shows which frame is on show. The audience sees the same frame.

Using a GIF. LaTeX cannot include a .gif file directly, so split it into pictures first and play them with \animategraphics. With ffmpeg:

mkdir frames
ffmpeg -i anim.gif frames/f%d.png
ls frames | wc -l

The last command prints the number of frames. Use it as the last number below (30 here):

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{animate}
...
\animategraphics[autoplay,loop,width=0.5\textwidth]{10}{frames/f}{1}{30}

For a large GIF, shrink it while splitting, for example ffmpeg -i anim.gif -vf "fps=10,scale=640:-1" frames/f%d.png, and keep the frames folder beside the .tex file.

Videos inside the slide. TeXora comes with its own LaTeX package, texoravideo, and finds it by itself when it compiles; there is no package to install or copy. GIFs play by themselves. MP4 playback uses VLC or ffmpeg installed on your computer: with ffmpeg the clip plays inside the slide, with VLC in VLC's own window. TeXora contains no video decoder and never downloads or installs one.

\usepackage{texoravideo}
\hypersetup{hidelinks}
...
\includevideo[width=0.5\textwidth]{clip.mp4}
\includevideo[height=5cm][loop,autoplay]{media/wave.gif}
\includevideo[width=\textwidth][poster=cover.png,posterat=25]{talk.mp4}

• The first optional argument goes to \includegraphics as it is. The second takes autoplay, loop, posterat=<percent> (where the poster is taken from; default the first frame) and poster=<image>.
• The video must be in the .tex file's folder, or in a folder inside it (any name). If it is in a folder, write the folder name too: {videos/clip.mp4}. Otherwise TeXora shows "Video not found".
• Before LaTeX runs, TeXora makes one poster per video in a texora-video folder beside the presentation, again only when the clip changes; if a video is used with different posterat values, the first counts. texora-video/index.json keeps what was found, so the PDF still plays when opened later. Every PDF viewer shows the poster; only TeXora plays the clip.
• Click to play, click again to pause; another slide stops it, and overlay steps of the same slide keep it playing. GIFs work the same way, with no splitting.
• GIFs always play. MP4 and other formats play when ffmpeg or VLC is installed; ffmpeg also makes their posters. Choose the player in Settings > Video (Auto, ffmpeg, VLC or Off); each has a path field and a Test button.
• No player installed: the clip says "This video needs VLC or ffmpeg installed on your computer.", with Get VLC (videolan.org), Get ffmpeg (ffmpeg.org/download.html) and, on macOS and Linux, Copy install command (brew install ffmpeg, or sudo apt install ffmpeg). TeXora copies the command; you run it yourself.
• A missing file, a file that is not a video, or a path outside the presentation's folder (an absolute path, .., a link leading out, a web address) shows a message over the poster and under Problems. Names may have spaces and accents, but not % or #.
• ffmpeg and VLC run as separate programs, with a list of arguments and never through a shell; TeXora ends ffmpeg when you leave the slide. Sound is not played yet.
• ffmpeg reads a clip with -nostdin -protocol_whitelist file and real video formats only, so a file that is really a playlist or concat list cannot reach other files or the web. VLC gets the full path after --, and only real video files. Which program runs comes only from your Settings: a presentation or anything in its folder can never set it or add arguments.

Videos in your video player. Use Beamer's \movie (the multimedia package) or media9's \includemedia. Each shows a play button in the presenter view. Click it and the video opens in your computer's video player, which you can move to the projector. The player may start paused, so press play there.

\usepackage{multimedia}
...
\movie[width=4cm,height=2.25cm]{\fbox{Play}}{clip.mp4}

• A clip set to start by itself (activate=pageopen in media9) opens when its slide is shown while the audience window is open. Otherwise, click it.
• Keep a \movie file in the same folder as the presentation. Clips packed into the PDF by media9 are unpacked by TeXora.
• Write \movie without externalviewer. \movie[externalviewer] and \href{run:...} links are not opened yet, and links to local files (\href{file:...}) are not opened.
• These clips do not play inside the slide; use \includevideo for that.

Presenting to the room

• F5 opens the audience window. With a second display it goes fullscreen there; on one display, press F11 to make it fullscreen.
• B blanks the screen, W shows a whiteboard, and F freezes the room on one slide while you look ahead.
• Ink, the laser pointer and zoom are shown to the room as you use them.

Contents, bookmarks and search

The Contents sidebar lists the sections of your talk, each in its own colour, with your bookmarks and questions above them. Click any entry to go there; Back to where I was returns.

Analytics

Every rehearsal is timed slide by slide. Analytics shows the total time, the time on each slide compared with your previous run, what stands out, and where questions came up. Save as CSV keeps the numbers.

Settings

Settings has sections you can open and close: text size, the LaTeX engine, the packages your file needs, where your notes are saved, updates, and every keyboard shortcut, which you can change.

Help menu

The ? button holds Documentation (a short guide inside the app), System check (what this computer has for TeXora), Command-line tool (the path of your copy, with examples), Keyboard shortcuts, Check for updates and About TeXora.

Updates

When a new version is published, TeXora shows a notice in the lower right corner by itself, with See what's new, Later and Skip this version, and a dot on the ? button. The update box offers the package for your computer and the release page; install it over your copy and your settings stay. ? > Check for updates asks at any time. Turn the automatic look off in Settings > Updates. TeXora 1.0.0 shows the dot on ? only. See CHANGELOG.md for what changed in each version.

Keyboard shortcuts

All can be changed in Settings. On macOS Cmd is used; on Windows and Linux, Ctrl.

Action	Keys	Action	Keys
Next / previous step	Right, Space / Left	Next / previous slide	Shift+Right / Shift+Left
First / last slide	Home / End	Go to slide	G
Audience window	F5	Fullscreen	F11
Black / white screen	B / W	Freeze audience	F
Overview	O	Split view	S
LaTeX studio	Cmd/Ctrl+E	Save source	Cmd/Ctrl+S
Large slide	N	Back	Backspace
Start or pause timer	P	Stop and reset timer	R
Set talk duration	U	Bookmark slide	M
Mark a question	Q	Contents	T
Search	Cmd/Ctrl+F	Analytics	Y
Pointer / pen / highlighter	V / D / H	Eraser / laser	X / L
Zoom to area	Z	Zoom in / out / fit	+ / - / 0
Undo ink / clear ink	Cmd/Ctrl+Z / C	Compile LaTeX	Cmd/Ctrl+B
Comment / uncomment lines (studio)	Cmd/Ctrl+/	Comment / uncomment only	Cmd/Ctrl+] / Cmd/Ctrl+[
Edit notes	E	Save notes	Cmd/Ctrl+Enter
Check required packages	Cmd/Ctrl+K	Open file	Cmd/Ctrl+O
Home	Cmd/Ctrl+L	Close tab	Cmd/Ctrl+W
Settings	Cmd/Ctrl+,	Cancel	Esc

Command line

TeXora talk.pdf                          # open a presentation
TeXora --self-test                       # check this copy works (exit code 0 means it passed)
TeXora --help                            # every option

? > Command-line tool in the app shows the exact path of your copy.

Building from source

Needs Rust (stable). The PDF engine (PDFium) is downloaded on the first build.

git clone https://github.com/khalidt/TeXora.git
cd TeXora
cargo build --release
./target/release/TeXora
cargo test

Project layout

Path	What it holds
src/	The app, in Rust with egui and PDFium.
assets/	App icon (assets/icon.png), Home picture, fonts and the sample lecture.
scripts/	Packaging, installer, release and icon scripts.
installer/	The Windows installer (Inno Setup).
.github/workflows/	Continuous tests and the release workflow.
screenshots/	The pictures in this README.

Licence

Copyright 2026 Khalid Alkhaldi. Licensed under PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 (https://polyformproject.org/licenses/noncommercial/1.0.0): free to use, change and share for any non-commercial purpose, including personal use, study, teaching, research and non-profit work. Commercial use needs the author's permission. The app icon and Home picture are the author's artwork and are not covered by the licence. See CREDITS.md for the libraries and fonts used.