How it works
Origami, explained.
No magic, no server, no lock-in. A deck is one HTML file that carries its own content, look, editor and fonts. The blocks are live, the AI edits it for real, and a file from a stranger opens safe. Here's the whole model.
1 — One file
The deck is the document.
There is no project folder, no .pptx zip of XML, no cloud doc. A whole deck is a single .origami.html — and that one file holds everything it needs to open itself in any browser:
Your content lives in plain <template> tags, one per fold. The look is ordinary CSS. The editor and viewer ride along as a small script. The fonts are embedded. Nothing is fetched from anywhere.
Double-click it and it just opens. Email it like a PDF; the person who receives it can read it, present it, or unlock it and edit it — with no app installed.
<!-- the whole deck, one file --> <html data-origami="1.0"> <style> the look (themeable) </style> <template data-kind="cover"> your title </template> <template data-kind="chart"> a chart </template> <script type="application/json"> order + theme </script> <script> the viewer + editor </script> </html>
2 — Live blocks
Not pictures of data — the data.
A chart, a roadmap, a tracker, a flowchart — each carries its numbers as a small block of inert JSON. The viewer reads it and draws the SVG when the fold opens. Edit the numbers and it redraws; there's no spreadsheet to round-trip, and you can even pull a range straight from Excel.
Because the block is just data, the same fold renders identically on your screen, in an email, and on a decade-old browser. And it stays inert — it can't do anything, so it's safe to carry around.
<figure class="o-chartfig"> <script type="application/json" data-odata="chart"> { "type": "bar", "labels": ["Q1","Q2","Q3"], "series": [ { "name":"Plan", … } ] } </script> <div data-chart-mount></div> <!-- drawn here --> </figure>
3 — The AI actually works
Hand one fold to a model. Get it back, snapped in.
Most "AI in your slides" pastes a wall of context and hopes. Origami does the opposite. Copy fold for AI puts a small, bounded envelope on your clipboard: just that one fold, the rules for its kind, and exactly how to reply.
You paste it into any chat model and ask for a change. It returns one <template>. Origami checks it — the fold's id and kind can't drift, broken structure is rejected — and snaps it back into the deck. One undo reverses it.
We test this for real: a panel of decks handed to Sonnet and Haiku, graded through the same checks the app uses. They land clean edits across prose, charts, roadmaps and long-form documents — small models included.
<!-- what lands on your clipboard --> <!-- Kind schema: what this fold allows --> <!-- HOW TO REPLY: return ONE <template>, keep its id + kind exactly --> <template data-kind="chart"> …the fold the model edits… </template> <!-- paste the reply back → checked → applied -->
4 — Safe by default
A file from a stranger opens locked.
HTML is powerful, which is the point — and the risk. Origami handles it the way your office suite handles macros. A deck you didn't author that contains anything active opens locked and sandboxed: scripts don't run, remote URLs don't load, and you see a padlock. Read it freely. Trust the sender? Unlock it, and it comes alive.
Motion that everyone should see — an animated logo, a diagram that breathes — is written as declarative SVG, which can't execute anything. So it always plays, locked or not, and never trips the padlock. That's why you can safely paste in HTML and animations: the unsafe parts are contained until you say otherwise.
5 — Live & shareable
Yours offline. Live when you want it.
By default a deck is a quiet, offline file — no account, no telemetry, no expiry. When you want more reach, Origami meets you there, without changing the file:
- Go LiveServe the deck from your own machine and embeds that were polite link-cards offline (a video, a dashboard) flip to real, playing iframes — same file, just a live address. Get Origami Live ↗
- Publish read-onlyHand someone a copy that opens straight into reading mode, with the edit affordances removed.
- Export when you mustSlides to PowerPoint, the long-form document to Word as real editable text, anything to PDF — for the world that still asks for those.
The file never changes shape to do any of this. It's one document that can be quiet or loud, on your terms.