Tips & workflows

Start with one model in one slide, check it in a real presentation, then expand the parts that help your work.

Try one slide from your own work#

Choose a question you already explain — for example, “What happens to a filter’s cutoff when resistance increases?” Keep the rest of your existing presentation in its current tool while you test this one part.

1. Try the existing example. The public filter sample lets you change R and inspect the linked cutoff readout without an account or Python.
2. Confirm the tools you need. Your own saved deck requires an invited beta account. Describe the task, existing tool and presentation date on the evaluation contact path if you need to confirm access or feature availability.
3. Build the smallest useful slide. In a blank deck, add one parameter and a {{name}} text readout using Your first deck. Then bind a supported object property or a numeric table cell feeding a chart. Add Python only when the calculation needs it.
4. Bring only what you need. If you need an existing slide’s layout, make a small copy of the source presentation and import that. Keep the original. Read the conversion report and format limits: PowerPoint charts and SmartArt need rebuilding; importing a figure does not recover its original model or code.
5. Rehearse and prepare a static fallback. Open the deck on the device and browser you will use. Load any Python runtime and packages while connected, review and trust imported code, and run the required cells successfully. Check save status. Export and inspect a PDF or image snapshot at the result you intend to discuss; this gives you a static fallback if the live session is unavailable.
6. Use it alongside your current slides. Present the connected example from Quodra’s presenter, or insert an exported slide image into your existing presentation. Images do not retain controls. A share link is a read-only viewer, not a replacement for the editor’s computation or a synchronized audience window.

Judge the trial on a concrete result: can you change the chosen assumption, explain the linked result and recover the prepared static version? Expand to more slides only after that works for your task.

Organising a term's work#

Tag by course, file by semester. Tags live inside the document and travel with it; folders are a filing scheme this browser keeps. So the durable label — thermo-201, lab-notes — belongs in Tags… on the deck card, and the disposable grouping — Autumn term — belongs in a folder.

Filter with one click. Clicking a tag chip on any card narrows the whole library to it; All clears it again. Search matches tags as well as titles, so a half-remembered course code finds the deck.

Let the samples carry the same vocabulary. Sample decks are tagged with their field, so filtering to Chemistry narrows your own decks and the gallery at once — the fastest way to put a worked example next to your own attempt.

Use All Presentations to find a mis-filed deck. It ignores whichever folder happens to be open, which is exactly what you want when you cannot remember where something went.

Live in Recent while a deck is in flux. The sort menu disappears there because recency is the view — no clicking to get back to what you had open yesterday.

Starting from something that works#

Duplicate, then edit. Opening a sample creates your own copy, so you can take a finished reactive deck apart without fear. Duplicate on a card's menu makes "Title (copy)" — the safe way to rework a talk you already gave.

Keep a personal starter deck. One slide with your title style, your parameter panel, and a code cell importing what you always import. Duplicate it whenever you start something new; it beats any template because it is yours.

Import once, then read the report. A PowerPoint or Slides import lands as a new deck and never overwrites one. If anything failed to convert, an Import review lists it before the deck opens — worth reading, because charts and SmartArt arrive as things you will want to rebuild.

Building a slide that computes#

Name parameters for what they are. damping, gain, temperature — not x1, x2. Your equations and code then read like the physics, and {{damping}} in a sentence is self-documenting.

Drive a property, not just a number. A variable can bind straight to a slot on another object — a resistor's resistance, a phase diagram's temperature, a trajectory's frame. The slot advertises its unit, so a mismatch is visible before it is confusing. That turns one slider into a whole demonstration.

Keep the reactive chain short. One parameter feeding one cell feeding one figure reads clearly to a room. Long chains are hard to follow live, however elegant they were to build.

Keep the part you need to change as an object. Native charts, tables and equations remain editable in Quodra. Use supported bindings for connected updates; pasted images are static. PDF uses captured slide images, and PowerPoint conversion has separate fidelity limits.

Declare only the packages you import. The preparing… chip on a cell is package download. A shorter list is a faster first run, and a faster first run in front of an audience is worth real effort.

Learn the tool keys. T text, H heading, E equation, C code, P parameter, W chart. They are the only real speed-up in building. See Keyboard shortcuts.

Use the layers panel to pick an object hidden behind another, to hide one without deleting it, and to lock the ones you keep dragging by accident.

Check the required outputs before you save. With nothing selected, ⌘↩ runs auto-run cells. Run any manual cells you need separately, and check for blocked or failed runs before presenting.

Reviewing with other people#

Choose the right sharing route. A public link opens a read-only slide viewer with navigation. It does not run Python, recompute the deck or offer comments. Collaborators opening the editor can use its comment drawer; PDF is a static snapshot.

Decide roles deliberately. Can edit opens the editor; Can view opens the read-only viewer. Give edit access only to people who should be able to change the deck. Only the owner manages access.

Watch Shared with Me. Decks other people add you to land there with a can edit or can view chip. That view, not your inbox, is the reliable list.

Presenting#

Rehearse against the presenter view, not the slides. Notes and up-next live on your side; N shows and hides them.

Keep one parameter to drag. Choose the assumption you want to discuss and check which readouts and figures actually follow it. For Python output, confirm a successful run and the cell’s run mode before presenting.

Lock what must not move. Every variable carries a presentation policy — editable, locked, or hidden while presenting, and reset on re-entry for a demo that must start clean every time. A locked slider still shows its value; the control simply refuses the drag.

Open the audience window before the call starts. Present to Meet / Zoom opens a clean window; in Meet or Zoom pick Share › Window › "Quodra — Audience." Doing this while people watch is the classic way to show the room your speaker notes.

Highlight text to emphasise it. Selecting a phrase on the slide highlights it for the room, and the audience window shows it too.

B blacks the screen when you want all eyes on you and none on the slide.

Next#

• Keyboard shortcuts — the full list.
• Presenting — the presenter cockpit in depth.
• The dashboard — folders, tags, search, and trash.