PDF Presentations Using AxPoint (O'Reilly)

[Posted June 26, 2002 by cook]

Kip Hampton examines the use of AxPoint for making PDF-based presentations. " All kidding aside, if you've ever attended The Perl Conference or one of the YAPC gatherings, you've probably experienced the vague sense of disappointment that comes from watching someone who's otherwise staunchly committed to Open Source software boot up proprietary OS to use a presentation application to deliver the slides for their talk. It doesn't have to be that way; there are alternatives."

Here are some others

Posted Jun 27, 2002 13:05 UTC (Thu) by leonbrooks (guest, #1494) [Link]

OO Impress works very well, has all of the fancy bells and whistles, and reads/writes PowerPoint (R)(C)(etc) presentations but is huge. It also does HTML slideshow pagesets.

MagicPoint is not XML so involves less typing, but is near as clunky to use for a GUI addict. OTOH, it is also small, fast and does all that it claims.

ActiveDVI previews and presents LaTeX slides.

DFBpoint does XML slides onto the console framebuffer.

I haven't tried ImPress, but in the best TCL tradition it appears to also be a useable drawing tool and can operate as a browser plugin. It will also spit out HTML slideshows.

I also haven't tried MechaPoint either, which turns XML into an OpenGL presentation. The hostname is probably signficant. (-:

IAHT the interestingly-named PLies, which produces HTML slides. PLies is PERL-based, there is also PyLize, written in, surprise, Python. Both are notable for having been used to make their own webpages.

SIAG Office's Egon Animator component takes a slightly different approach, in that the animation of objects is a bit more flexible. Being a SIAG component, it is programmable in several languages and integrates with the other SIAG parts.

If you really want 3D, White Dune will allow you to throw together (ha!) a VRML prsentation, which can also be displayed through any VRML browser plugin.