[Tuglist] Presentation software

Radhakrishnan CV tuglist@tug.org.in
Sun, 19 May 2002 10:31:24 +0530 (IST)


On Sun, 19 May 2002 at 10:09, H.S.Rai wrote:

   I searched internet for slide show with LaTex, and found that
   ppower4 may serve the purpose. But its home site is not
   accessible ( connection failed: (60) connection time out ).
   Neither from ctan.org, I can download this.
   
   ctan.org is giving following links:
   
Here is the correct CTAN link:

ftp://ftp.dante.de/tex-archive/

2000/09/01 |       7758 | support/ppower4/beta/bug5test.pdf
2000/09/04 |      18416 | support/ppower4/beta/example.mmp
2000/09/01 |       5250 | support/ppower4/beta/index.html
2000/06/15 |      11359 | support/ppower4/beta/leveldemo.tex
2000/06/28 |     169084 | support/ppower4/beta/manual.pdf
2002/03/20 |       2910 | support/ppower4/beta/mpmulti.sty
2000/06/13 |       3096 | support/ppower4/beta/pause.sty
2000/06/18 |        993 | support/ppower4/beta/pp4link.sty
2000/08/31 |     275840 | support/ppower4/beta/pp4pb.jar
2000/02/11 |       1397 | support/ppower4/exampled.zip
2000/02/11 |       1313 | support/ppower4/examplee.zip
2000/04/05 |      70442 | support/ppower4/extension.pdf
2000/06/15 |       6236 | support/ppower4/faq.html
1999/09/07 |      24306 | support/ppower4/java-util.jar

You need Java virtual machine installed in your system, since 
ppower4 is a java program.

There is another program called TeXPower that does all that can be
accomplished with Ppower4. Here is the URL:

http://ls1-www.cs.uni-dortmund.de/~lehmke/TeXPower/

Both Ppower4 and TeXPower have many example files and related 
PDF output which might be of helpful for a first time user. Both the 
packages run with pdfscreen without any clashes. TeXPower bundle has 
a pdfscreen demo document too.
   
   In addition to this, on sourceforge there is also prosper ( Beta
   version ) for similar purpose.

But the route is clumsy, you need to depend upon ps2pdf to generate
pdf, you know the difficulties when you have third party application
generated graphics and font issues.
   
   Any comment from user about these two regarding, their features
   or capabilities. Can be get excellent slide show with it if we
   compare with MS powerpoint?

Yes, by all means. Your imagination is the limit. Ppower4 and
TeXPower help you to have:

 1. incremental builds 
    (a) even cell by cell in tables
    (b) line by line in equations
    (c) item by item in any lists
        and much more
    (d) TeXPower has reverse builds (start a build from right to 
        left)
    (e) highlights the current item alone while other items are
        grayed

 2. gradient backgrounds
 3. page transitions supported by Acrobat

and much more. TeXPower has the advantage of non-dependence on Java 
since pdfTeX does everything.

Negative points:

 1. no animation support
 2. no dynamic highlighting like marking a string with your pointer

-- 
Radhakrishnan