The Ambrosia Guide / 0.1.0 PDF Manual ↗
Extra: Presenter Notes With Touying
Presenter notes and notes-output modes come from Touying and are re-exported by Ambrosia. This optional workflow is independent of the theme. You can use a compatible presenter viewer or editor; pdfpc is one option. See Touying’s documentation for its broader presentation and export workflows.
speaker-note stores notes alongside the slide content:
#slide(title: [The Main Result])[
A short statement for the audience.
#speaker-note[Explain the motivation.]
#pause
The evidence appears.
#speaker-note[Pause for questions.]
]
Notes accumulate across frames. speaker-note(subslide: 1)[...] restricts a note
to the first frame; subslide: none applies it to every frame.
Choose An Output
| Output | Use |
|---|---|
| Ordinary PDF with note metadata | Audience slides; a compatible tool must read the notes separately. |
| Split slide/notes PDF | Presenter software that separates the page into audience and notes regions, such as pympress or pdfpc. |
| Notes-only document | Rehearsal or printing. |
An ordinary PDF viewer has no private presenter pane. With a split PDF it shows both halves; use presenter software and an extended display to send only the slide region to the audience. Share the ordinary PDF without visible notes when distributing the deck.
One Option: Private Notes In pdfpc
With the default theme settings, notes are metadata and are not painted into the
PDF. For a source named talk.typ:
typst compile talk.typ talk.pdf
typst eval --in talk.typ 'query(<pdfpc-file>).first().value' > talk.pdfpc
pdfpc --notes=none talk.pdf
Keep the PDF and sidecar together with matching stems. Use the same root/input
settings for both exports and regenerate them after edits. Leave enable-pdfpc
enabled. speaker-note(mode: "md") exports Markdown; arbitrary Typst graphics
are better suited to typeset notes.
Touying’s Typeset Notes And Handouts
config-common option | Output |
|---|---|
show-notes-on-second-screen: right | Slide left, typeset notes right. Also accepts left, top, bottom. |
show-only-notes: true | Rehearsal/print notes with slide thumbnails. |
handout: true | Final animation frame of each logical slide. |
For a split PDF, select its notes region in your presenter software. In pdfpc,
use --notes=right (or the corresponding side).
Project the audience window. In pdfpc, --switch-screens exchanges the
displays. A notes-only document does not synchronize a second audience PDF
on its own.
Optional Bundle Export
The editable notes example includes an opt-in Typst bundle that writes the PDF and sidecar together:
typst compile --features bundle --format bundle --root . \
--input bundle=true --input output=audience \
examples/speaker-notes.typ target/speaker-bundle
Bundle export is experimental; ordinary compile/eval remains available.