我们怎么想这件事。
不写「Plain 怎么用」,写「我们怎么看 AI 时代的 Office」。产品决策的来源、试过的弯路、被验证的判断,都在这里。
- No.012026-06-226 min
A Tableau alternative for small teams
Tableau is built for analysts who live in dashboards all day. If your team just needs to share a few charts from a CSV, here's a lighter way to do it.
Read - No.022026-06-216 min
Convert Markdown to DOCX: Markdown to Word, the Reliable Way
How to convert Markdown to DOCX (Word): three reliable ways to turn an .md file into an editable .docx, what each preserves, and when a link beats a Word file entirely.
Read - No.032026-06-216 min
Why Gamma's PowerPoint export breaks (and what it tells you)
Gamma decks often lose formatting and editability when exported to .pptx. Here's why it happens, which parts break, and what the breakage reveals about web-first decks.
Read - No.042026-06-206 min
How to embed Mermaid diagrams in a document
Mermaid lets you write diagrams as text, right inside your Markdown. Here's the syntax, the common diagram types, and how to keep the diagram a living part of the doc instead of a pasted image.
Read - No.052026-06-1910 min
Open-source AI presentation tools in 2026: the honest landscape
Presenton, ALLWEONE, Slidev, Marp, and the web-first path. A clear-eyed look at the self-hosted and open-source ways to generate slides with AI, and how to choose.
Read - No.062026-06-189 min
How to turn a CSV into a dashboard with AI
You have a CSV of numbers and need a dashboard, not a 5,000-row grid. Here are the real ways to get there with AI, and how to make one that stays a living link.
Read - No.072026-06-189 min
How to write a memo with AI that people actually read
A decision memo is a recommendation with its reasoning attached. Here is a paste-ready structure, the AI drafting loop, and the two things you must fix by hand.
Read - No.082026-06-189 min
How to present from the browser (no install, no app, just a link)
You don't need PowerPoint or Keynote installed to give a presentation. Here's how browser-based slideshows work, what they fix, and when a link beats a file.
Read - No.092026-06-179 min
How to turn Markdown into Google Slides (and when not to)
Three real ways to convert a Markdown file into Google Slides, what each one loses, and why a web-first link is often the better destination than a slide file.
Read - No.102026-06-147 min
Markdown to web slides: Marp, Presenterm, MkSlides, and the AI + link option
The open-source CLI tools turn Markdown into slides for free — you install and host them. Here's how they compare, and when AI generation plus a shareable link wins.
Read - No.112026-06-109 min
You can build a Dune-style dashboard without a chain indexer or a warehouse
Dune's value isn't the data pipeline — it's the loop where a SQL query becomes a shareable panel. That loop runs on your own CSV, in the browser.
Read - No.122026-06-109 min
Google Docs bolted AI onto a page; the better move is AI that owns the source
A suggestion box inside a WYSIWYG doc can nudge a paragraph. AI that writes the Markdown source can rebuild the whole document — and re-render it as a doc, a deck, or a dashboard.
Read - No.132026-06-109 min
For long-form writing, a Notion doc fights you; Markdown gets out of the way
Notion's block model is built for wikis and relational databases. For one author writing one 4000-word argument, every paragraph becomes a draggable object — and that structural friction is the real cost.
Read - No.142026-06-109 min
Running SQL in the browser means your dashboard has no backend to break
How in-browser SQL engines actually work, what they can load, where they fall over — and paste-ready queries that run entirely client-side.
Read - No.152026-06-1010 min
A Q3 strategy doc written in Markdown beats one trapped in a slide template
Strategy is an argument, not a bullet list. Write the reasoning first as one Markdown file, then render it as a doc for readers and a deck for the room.
Read - No.162026-06-109 min
If you can't diff a slide, you can't trust the AI that changed it
Binary decks make every AI edit a black box. Text-source slides turn each change into a reviewable diff you can revert line by line.
Read - No.172026-06-078 min
How to make a pitch deck from one Markdown file (and ship it as a link)
Markdown as source. Web as render. One source generates the deck, a backup .pptx, and a sharable URL.
Read - No.182026-06-0711 min
Picking an AI deck tool in 2026 — Tome, Beautiful.ai, Pitch, Gamma, Plain
Honest selection guide. What each tool is actually for, who they're for, and where they break.
Read - No.192026-06-069 min
Plain vs Gamma in 2026 — an honest comparison from someone who used both
I built decks in Gamma for three months. Then I built Plain. Here's how to pick — without the marketing spin.
Read - No.202026-05-265 min
The document is a link, not a file
Why the right unit of delivery for AI-era work is a URL — and what changes when you stop attaching .pptx, .docx, and .xlsx to email.
Read - No.212026-05-266 min
What AI deck tools got right in 2026 — and what they're still missing
The first wave of AI presentation tools nailed one half of the problem. Here's what we think the second half looks like.
Read - No.222026-05-265 min
Eight design philosophies, and why AI shouldn't be allowed to mix them
Why we don't ship a theme picker — and what we ship instead.
Read - No.232026-05-264 min
Plug Plain into Claude Code in 30 seconds
How to give your coding agent the ability to ship decks, docs, and dashboards — without leaving the terminal.
Read - No.242026-05-264 min
Office files belong in the safety net, not the workflow
Why we still export to .pptx, .docx, and .xlsx — but only when you really need to.
Read - No.252026-05-264 min
Building dashboards without a data warehouse
Most dashboards don't need ClickHouse, Snowflake, or BigQuery. Here's the case for keeping it small, fast, and on your laptop.
Read - No.262026-05-265 min
From Excel to dashboard: the case for narrative data
Most spreadsheets aren't records — they're arguments. Here's why narrative dashboards beat grids.
Read - No.272026-05-264 min
Diffable documents: why every artifact in Plain is git-ready
What happens when documents become version-controllable like code.
Read - No.282026-05-106 min
HTML is for reading, not for source
trq212's thesis — HTML as the output format for agents — got 5.4M views on X. We agree with half of it and push back on the other half. That other half is the entire reason Plain exists.
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28 posts · 不强求 cadence