[Techtalk] Linux for Presentations HOWTO

[Jacqueline McNally]

At 08:04 AM 02/17/2003, Akkana wrote:
>A couple of us got involved in a discussion on the local LUG mailing
>list about how presentations at the LUG are almost always given
>using Microsoft software, with the result that I decided there
>ought to be a HOWTO to help people who want to give presentations
>using linux and free software but aren't sure what the options are.
>
>Here's the first release:
>
>   http://www.shallowsky.com/LinuxPresentations.html
>
>I'd love corrections and additions, particularly from those
>of you who actually give presentations regularly, and especially
>from folks who give presentations in PDF, since I know a lot of people
>use PDF but I don't know enough about it to write those sections.

Thank you for this resource, I will have a play with your suggestions. I 
often get asked how to do PP presentations on a Linux box :-|

As a result of attending workshops and seminars presented by Rasmus Ledorf 
at LCA2003, I'm currently all fired up with PHP.

I prefer to single source documents, so I'm excited at the idea that I can 
conduct a presentation, put it up on a web site, and dynamically create PDF 
all from the same HTML/PHP files.

Unfortunately, the linux.conf.au domain is unavailable wrt the Perth 
workshop and seminar notes, but I have found a simple demo here:
http://talks.php.net/
Select "Presentation System".

You can step through the slides using the left and right arrow keys, 
clicking the previous and next topics in the heading, or click on the page 
count to display a hyperlinked slide listing that disappears when you click 
on a link.

There are special effects available, e.g. sliding text, image manipulation 
and dynamic creation (PNG), and generate Flash (www.opaque.net/ming).

Generating PDF docs from slides was demonstrated and why I thought this was 
cool is that you can modify slides on the fly and regenerate the PDF files.

The disadvantages are that while most web hosts have Apache and PHP, you 
need a computer with a web server and PHP if you wish to do a presentation 
locally. Rasmus mentioned something about Apache 1.3 vs 2.0 but I can't 
remember what this was. Also, if you wish to generate PDF you need a 
library. There are open source, commercial (low cost), and one under it's 
own license (The Aladdin Free Public License).

The advantages are being able to single source presentations and navigate 
easily during the presentation and on the web. I feel that it will be easy 
to get started as I consider that the PHP project is well documented on 
www.php.net and elsewhere.

I'm still catching up from having a week off for a conference, so I have 
not had the opportunity to put anything into practise yet.

All the best
Jacqueline McNally
http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/users/zenryaku/

Community Contact, Australia/New Zealand
OpenOffice.org Marketing Project
(www.openoffice.org)

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