dais: A Native PDF Presenter Console

dais is a cross-platform PDF presentation console written in Rust for researchers and academics who build slides in LaTeX/Beamer, Typst, PowerPoint, or Keynote. dais is designed for straightforward installation, reliable operation in real presentation setups, and compatibility with existing slide workflows.

Features

• Multi-monitor presenter view with an audience display and a presenter console with notes, timer, and navigation.
• Overlay and build-step support for pdfpc metadata, Beamer \pdfpc, and manual grouping.
• Presentation tools including laser pointer styles, freehand ink, highlighter, eraser, whiteboard, spotlight, zoom, freeze, blackout, and a slide overview grid.
• Browser remote at /remote for phone and tablet control, with slide previews, notes editing, annotation, text boxes, timer controls, navigation, pairing URLs, and QR codes.
• Local remote-control API and dais remote ... subcommands for scripts, Stream Decks, classroom automation, and other external controllers.
• Per-logical-slide target durations in .dais sidecars, with presenter timer color changes when a slide runs over.
• Markdown speaker notes from --notes <path>, with edits saved back to the Markdown file.
• Annotated export with saved ink annotations, Typst text boxes, whiteboard pages, SVG/PNG output, layer selection, and handout export.
• .pdfpc compatibility and a native .dais sidecar format.
• Fully remappable keybindings with presenter-console defaults.
• Single-binary distribution with no runtime dependencies or installers.

Installation

Install from crates.io with Cargo (requires Rust 1.92+):

cargo install dais

Or download a pre-built binary from GitHub Releases.

Quick Start

dais presentation.pdf

Usage

dais <file.pdf>                  # Present with auto-detected display mode
dais --single <file.pdf>         # Single-monitor mode (no audience window)
dais --screen-share <file.pdf>   # Screen-share mode (audience as normal window)
dais --edit <file.pdf>           # Open the slide grouping editor
dais --config <path> <file.pdf>  # Use a specific config file
dais --notes <path> <file.pdf>   # Use a Markdown speaker notes file
dais --portable <file.pdf>       # Skip OS user config for portable/USB use
dais --time-ignore <file.pdf>    # Do not update slide timing data on save
dais --test-input                # Diagnostic mode for clicker/remote setup
dais export <file.pdf> --out <file.pdf> [--handout]
                                  # Export a copy with annotations and text boxes applied
dais --remote <file.pdf>         # Start the local remote-control API and web remote
dais --remote-lan <file.pdf>     # Start the web remote for phone/tablet pairing
dais remote action next_slide    # Control a running presentation

Display Modes

• Dual (default with 2+ monitors): Presenter console on primary, audience fullscreen on secondary. Press F6 to swap the presenter and audience monitors for the current session.
• Single (--single): Single-window mode. Press F5 to switch between the presenter console and the presentation HUD.
• Screen-share (--screen-share): Audience is a normal resizable window for Zoom/Teams sharing.
• Remote (--remote, --remote-lan): Local HTTP API, browser remote at /remote, presenter QR pairing, and dais remote ... commands for scripts, Stream Decks, phone/tablet controls, and other external adapters.

With one monitor, dais automatically falls back to single mode.

Grouping Editor

For PDFs without embedded overlay metadata (e.g., PowerPoint exports), use the built-in editor:

dais --edit slides.pdf

Click between thumbnails to set group boundaries. Save writes the configured sidecar format. When loading, dais checks .dais before .pdfpc.

Building from Source

Requires Rust 1.92+ (for the hayro PDF renderer). For a local version, simply run:

cargo install --path crates/dais

To install from the git repository without cloning:

cargo install --git https://github.com/christopherkenny/dais.git --package dais --bin dais

The binary will be at target/release/dais (or dais.exe on Windows).

Configuration

• Windows: %APPDATA%\dais\config.toml
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/dais/config.toml
• Linux: ~/.config/dais/config.toml

dais also reads a project-local dais.toml next to the PDF you open, and --config <path> can override both. Use --portable to skip the OS user config layer while still reading project-local and explicit config files.

Use --notes <path> to keep speaker notes in a Markdown file that dais can load, edit, and save during the presentation.

See docs/configuration.md for the full reference. See docs/notes.md for Markdown speaker notes. See docs/export.md for annotated PDF, SVG, PNG, whiteboard, and handout export.

For display assignment, audience_monitor and presenter_monitor can be monitor names or simple display numbers like "1" and "2".

Keybindings

See docs/keybindings.md for the full reference.

Clicker & Remote Support

See docs/clicker-setup.md for clicker profiles, custom mappings, and the --test-input diagnostic mode. See docs/remote.md for the browser remote, REST API, CLI remote commands, LAN pairing, and external-controller examples.

Architecture

dais is organized as an 8-crate Cargo workspace:

Crate	Role
dais	Binary for CLI parsing and app launch
dais-core	Commands, state types, command bus, config, keybindings
dais-engine	Presentation engine that processes commands and owns state
dais-document	DocumentSource trait, hayro PDF renderer, and page cache
dais-sidecar	.pdfpc parser/writer, metadata extraction
dais-platform	Platform-specific monitor enumeration
dais-remote	HTTP remote-control server, browser remote, and REST API
dais-ui	egui UI for the presenter console, audience window, and grouping editor

Key architectural decisions:

• Command bus: All user actions flow through a Command enum dispatched via crossbeam-channel. New input sources (REST API, remote control) just get another sender.
• State broadcast: The engine owns the authoritative PresentationState. UI reads via Arc<RwLock<>> and never mutates state directly.
• DocumentSource trait: PDF rendering is isolated behind a document-source abstraction. The default backend is hayro.
• SidecarFormat trait: Pluggable sidecar formats for .pdfpc compatibility and dais-native metadata.

Contributing

# Run tests
cargo test --workspace

# Lint
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings

# Format
cargo fmt --all

CI runs on all three platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux) on every push and PR.

Design Notes

The original project proposal is archived at docs/design-proposal.md.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.