pdfLaTeX presentation How-Toby brian gerkeygerkey@robotics.usc.edu What is this?This document describes one method for making PowerPoint-style presentations with PDFs created by pdfLaTeX, with the help of some other nifty free software packages. I assume that you are already familiar with LaTeX, and I'll just go over the basics of how I make PDF presentations. For more information on the topic of non-PowerPoint presentation methods in general, see: Why is this?There are many advantages to making presentations with pdfLaTeX instead of PowerPoint, including:
Packages to be usedYou'll need the following packages in order to create presentations:
OverviewThe necessary steps:
Writing the presentationMost of the work is done by the foils document class, which is provided by FoilTeX. You should consult the FoilTeX manual for details on how to use the foils class, and I won't replicate that information here. However, I will address some common questions and provide examples to get you on your way.ExamplesSince all of these tools are fully documented in their respective manuals, the most useful thing will probably be example code, so here are some:Previewing your presentationWhen you write a normal LaTeX document, you usually use xdvi to preview the result. Since pdfLaTeX directly creates a PDF, you can't use xdvi, but you still need to periodically (probabaly frequently) look at the typeset version of your presentation as you're writing it. Unfortunately, acroread doesn't work very well for these purposes, because it doesn't properly reload documents. Instead, I use xpdf, which renders poorly, but reloads well (Alt-R). Setting the page geometryTo setup the document for landscape display and to maximize usage of screen real estate, I always use the geometry package: \usepackage[pdftex]{geometry} \geometry{headsep=2.0em,hscale=0.80} Hyperlinking and fullscreen displayAlthough it's not strictly necessary, you'll probably want to use the hyperref package, since it allows hyperlinking and gives you control over some display options for your presentation. See the hyperref manual for details on using the package. I usually include something like the following in my preamble: \usepackage{hyperref} \hypersetup{ pdftitle={Simple Talk}, pdfauthor={Brian P. Gerkey, USC Robotics Research Lab}, pdfpagemode={FullScreen}, pdfborder={0 0 0} } These arguments to hypersetup set some document meta-data, configure acroread to automatically go to fullscreen mode when the document is opened, and disable the border that is normally placed around hyperlinks in the document (I find them distracting). ColorsAlthough black-on-white is a great color scheme for technical papers, it's a little bland for presentations. Luckily you can easily add colors to your document with the color package: \usepackage[pdftex]{color}A variety of standard colors (e.g., red, white) are predefined, and you can define new ones with the \definecolor command: \definecolor{myred}{rgb}{0.6,0,0} \definecolor{myblue}{rgb}{0,0.2,0.4}You can set the default text color with the \color command: \color{myblue}You can change the color of a block of text with the \textcolor command: {\textcolor{myred} Hello World} Including graphicsYou can include graphics in pretty much the same way as you normally do in LaTeX, with an important difference: pdfLaTeX does not support the inclusion of postscript (.ps) or encapsulated postscript (.eps) files. As far as i know, the only supported graphics formats are:
As a corollary, you cannot use the epsf or epsfig packages; instead use graphics or graphicsx. Including moviesAs far as I know, you cannot include movies or animations in PDFs. However, with a couple of tricks, you can make it seem like you have done so. Here's the way that I do it:
\begin{center} \fbox{\href{file:///mnt/win/users/gerkey/videos/fail_push_hi.avi}{ \includegraphics[height=100mm]{fail_push_hi}}} \end{center}See the next section for some extra tips about movies. Finessing the displayTo make the presentation super-smooth, I've also done the following things:
/usr/bin/X11/xanim +q +Ss2 -Zr -geometry +192+175 %s >/dev/null 2>/dev/null |