Covers and social previews

One rule with no settings: the cover is your deck as it opens, and that same image is what Slack, iMessage, and email previews show.

The first impression of a shared deck happens in a chat window, before the click. HoldFast handles that moment with one rule: the cover is a screenshot of the deck as it opens.

How the cover is made

When you upload or embed a deck, HoldFast captures its opening view automatically: the first page of a PDF, the first slide of a PowerPoint, the first screen of a web deck or embedded Slides file. That image becomes the tile in your Presentations list and the deck's public face. No cover picker, no forgotten placeholder image.

The social preview IS the cover

When your /d/ link lands in Slack, iMessage, LinkedIn, or an email client, the preview image those apps unfurl is the same cover. What the recipient sees before clicking is the deck itself, which is both honest and better marketing than a generic logo card.

New version, new cover

Upload a new version and the cover re-captures from it automatically, so the preview never advertises a deck that is no longer behind the link. (Chat apps cache previews on their end for a while; the cover itself is already current.)

The practical upshot

Design your opening slide knowing it is also your thumbnail: it will be read at postage-stamp size in a chat bubble before it is ever read as a slide. A bold title beats a wall of text twice here.