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Presentations with Pylize (Linux.com)
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suggestion for grumpy editor topic
Posted Jan 2, 2006 21:53 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
Presentation software has made me grumpy on more than one occasion, and I know our editor gives the odd presentation, how about a Grumpy Editor's guide to text-file-based presentation software?
Right now I use magic point, but I find it very basic -- or maybe it's just that I haven't found a decent tutorial. Here's an example of a magicpoint file I've used, and here's the html output of the standard mgp2html tool (although the links were added by hand). Making nice html output isn't too important, but it would be a nice bonus.
Presentations with Pylize (Linux.com)
Posted Jan 2, 2006 22:21 UTC (Mon) by rknop (guest, #66) [Link]
I used magicpoint once upon a time.
I really like the idea of text-based presentation software, since I generally like the idea of text based everything, but...
...I fear that I've completely fallen in love with OpenOffice.org Impress for presentations, and use that for everything. Since I generally make illustrations with OpenOffice.org draw, it's convenient for me. I *can* now import postscript into OOo draw (as native objects, not as a single monolithic object), more or less, and while the results aren't ideal, it sort of works.
It bugs me that most of the world uses the term "PowerPoint presentation" when they really mean "computer presentation." It's a Kleenex/tissue thing, complete with my feeling like there is a gross gummy greenish yellowish substance being spread around.
However, in this day and age, if I were forced to go to a text-based alternative, I suspect I'd just make my slides in LaTeX and export them to PDF. Or, something, and export them to PDF. But I haven't really seriously thought about text based presentation software in a few years, since I started seriously using OOo Impress, and stopped using MagicPoint.
-Rob
Presentations with Pylize (Linux.com)
Posted Jan 3, 2006 14:36 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
From the comments here, I think I'll try Latex at some point. Latex beamer was also recommended previously by some friends. I don't think I'll move away from text-files though. I do want eye-candy, but it takes second place to being able to do my work in emacs.
Presentations with Pylize (Linux.com)
Posted Jan 5, 2006 15:09 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]
LaTeX + beamer + xemacs (comes with AUC-TeX here), then run pdflatex. Easy enough to use for simple stuff, and can be used to create stunning presentations. As a bonus, most of the more exotic LaTeX stuff works too, and it is even possible to create a paper and presentation from the same source. It is simple to change the theme of the presentation.
MagicPoint has its nice features, but its page format is too rigid for my needs (or I haven't been able to find the right docu...). Besides, it made quite a mess with some Latin-1 text (yes, some of us do need to go futher than plain ASCII), so I gave up.
For some reason, I've never managed to create anything more than very basic bullet-pointed lists with Power Point or any of the WYSIWYG packages, OOo Impress included. Must be some permanent damage from using text interfaces too much...
Slightly off topic...
Posted Jan 3, 2006 1:31 UTC (Tue) by kornak (guest, #17589) [Link]
Is Python taking over the world or something? I am beginning to feel likea second class citizen with all the Python talk. I still prefer Perl. Am
I alone? Is Perl dead? Where are all the Perl projects? My favorite Linux
distribution (Fedora/Redhat) seems to do everyhing with Python. Maybe I'm
just too sensitive. I'm so lonely :,(
Slightly off topic...
Posted Jan 3, 2006 2:04 UTC (Tue) by danielthaler (subscriber, #24764) [Link]
Oh, I use perl for quick'n dirty scripts, too. They tend to get extremely messy once they grow beyond "small" (say 100 lines or so).
I don't know python either, but I intend to learn: I like that it looks so much cleaner.
Besides, it bugs me that perl development has effectively stopped. Perl6 must be closely related to Duke Nukem Forever...
Slightly off topic...
Posted Jan 3, 2006 3:14 UTC (Tue) by rqosa (guest, #24136) [Link]
> Besides, it bugs me that perl development has effectively stopped. Perl6 must be closely related to Duke Nukem Forever...
Why do you say that? Pugs is still under active development.
Slightly off topic...
Posted Jan 3, 2006 18:00 UTC (Tue) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link]
You may find The Year in Perl 2005 an interesting read:http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/8894
Slightly off topic...
Posted Jan 4, 2006 13:30 UTC (Wed) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]
There's still plenty of good stuff around in Perl and you have to usePerl to maintain/improve/learn it. In my case I need to get my head further into SpamAssassin. You'd probably learn Python in a couple of days though. Having used Perl before I learned Python, I now prefer the latter and can get a lot more work done in Python more quickly if I know a new program is going to grow to more than 100 lines of code. I still use Perl occasionally for new programs which are not going to need more than 20 lines of code or maintaining, e.g. where the regex or file globbing syntax makes the job a little bit easier, and bash/sed/awk/grep would be too messy. Also understanding someone elses Python is a lot quicker for me than understanding someone else's Perl - GNU Mailman being easier for me to read and understand, for example, than SpamAssassin.
LaTeX Rules
Posted Jan 3, 2006 5:57 UTC (Tue) by s52d (guest, #2199) [Link]
Hi!
I am using daily pdfscreen.sty. With a little preprocessor,
making a slide is as simple as:
Slides with pdfscreen
- 98\% of time spend on contents
- easy to spellcheck with ispell
- simple ascii file
with nice output
- screen as pdf
- paper version in A4
If you are willing to spend more time on appearance, then context is the way to go.
BR
Iztok
LaTeX Rules
Posted Jan 3, 2006 8:22 UTC (Tue) by asamardzic (subscriber, #27161) [Link]
I completely agree that LaTeX rules here. I was before using prosper package a lot for making presentations, now am also happy with beamer package for this purpose.
LaTeX Rules
Posted Jan 3, 2006 12:41 UTC (Tue) by Zenith (subscriber, #24899) [Link]
Having tried both PSTricks and beamer, I give a big thumbs up for beamer as well!The fact that it's TeX makes it integrate nicely with whatever VCS you are using, and it takes the pain out of making all slides appear alike, unlike OO.org Impress and PowerPoint (if you are working in groups at least, where different members do different parts of the presentation).
The only snag with beamer is, that you really ought to use Xfig to make the figures, and it has a somewhat steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, Xfig is actually quite nice.
LaTeX Rules
Posted Jan 3, 2006 15:12 UTC (Tue) by nicku (subscriber, #777) [Link]
Why I like beamer:- I can get nice handouts and nice presentation slides from the same source
- I can move towards my goal of integrating practical workshops in the same file that contains the presentation.
- it is as flexible as I want, and it makes me happy to use it.
- I am already very familiar with LaTeX.
- the auctex package makes it easy to edit in emacs.
I would say pstricks and pgf have steep learning curves, but xfig?
LaTeX Rules
Posted Jan 3, 2006 23:23 UTC (Tue) by Zenith (subscriber, #24899) [Link]
As another comment points out, the "steep learning curve" mainly relates to the fact that Xfig is so different from anything I have ever tried before, and thus seems quite arcane (B/W, ugly interface - although very effecient once you get to know it).
Also, it has some really strange problems with switching the "units" setting, or the orientation (landscape/portrait), which messes with the grid settings, sometimes making it impossible to do proper aligns afterwards, and also the lines starts snapping to a grid that is some pixels off.
I have also problems understanding the way that it colours the fonts sometimes, if you choose to use LaTeX fonts, and their colour is *not* black (often the case with the beamer theme I use), in the way that sometimes the font is black, sometimes the colour of the fonts that the theme has.
All in all, though, I like Xfig a lot, now that I know its quirks.
LaTeX Rules
Posted Jan 3, 2006 15:31 UTC (Tue) by aaa27 (guest, #13650) [Link]
May I suggest using Dia for your pictures? It's point and click, and can export in eps. You can easily group objects, then align various groups (left right and center)
Switched to Dia 5 years ago from XFig that I never understood, never looked back.
[and agree entirely with the comments suggesting latex-beamer]
André
Dia
Posted Jan 3, 2006 16:58 UTC (Tue) by bastiaan (subscriber, #5170) [Link]
Well, yes, Dia is very nice for diagrams. Except for that super annoying font size bug: add some text objects, switch to a different zoomlevel and all half of the characters switch to a larger or smaller font size :-( The worst part is that it shows in the Postscript and PNG exports as well.Does anyone known a good workaround for it?
Thanks,
Bastiaan
LaTeX Rules
Posted Jan 3, 2006 17:23 UTC (Tue) by asamardzic (subscriber, #27161) [Link]
There are many tools able to create nice EPS figures for including in LaTeX presentations, but what I think is setting Xfig apart is its ability to include LaTeX formulas directly in figure. On the other side, I could imagine Xfig user interface is strange for a regular user of another vector (or raster) drawing package; for casual user, like myself, I guess it's fine.
LaTeX Rules
Posted Jan 3, 2006 18:05 UTC (Tue) by droundy (subscriber, #4559) [Link]
How do you do that? (use latex formulas directly in figure in xfig)