PDF presentations /again/ [was Re: [OS X TeX] Equation Service]

[Ross Moore]

> At 8:57 PM +0100 3/21/02, U. Steiner wrote:
> >why don't you use Acrobat to do presentation.  Works very well and
> >you can use LeTeX typesetting to make the entire presentation,
> >including equations.
 
> Mac OS X, 'doze, etc.). What should be smooth lines come out all 
> clumpy looking. Complex graphics (like a particular logo used here in 
> the lab) could actually be seen rendering element-by-element (I think 
> because they were using gradients) on every flipping slide. Rather 
> than quick transitions with the same logo remaining static at the 
> bottom of the page, every page rerenders the stupid thing. I've tried 
> ps2pdf with a variety of gs implementations and Distiller; all with 
> the same results.
> 
> A graphic arts friend here in the business affairs unit of the lab 
> said she had the same problem and that, after /much/ prodding, Adobe 
> engineers eventually admitted to her that this was their problem and 
> that they weren't going to fix it. Ironically, Preview.app displays 

Report it on:  http://www.tug.org/twg/tfaa/
Provide a description and an example (or two).

> everything just the way I want, but it's not (yet? ever going to be?) 
> an adequate app to do presentations with. Rendering the ps to a 
> bitmap produces a reasonable screen appearance, but makes the process 
> of creating a PDF presentation even more cumbersome than it already 
> is.

If your logo is built up as a vector graphic, with many elements,
why don't you just render it as a JPEG at a resolution suitable
for your presentation slides. 
Then put this .jpg as the logo that repeats on every page.

Besides, the result obtained this way will be useful also for web pages.

Take care with the resolution, otherwise font characters may
be blocky, rather than being nicely anti-aliased.
Adobe products like Photoshop and Illustrator should do a good job,
else use GhostScript with its JPEG device, or its PNG device.
 

> As much as I preferred the look of the textual and mathematical 
> output (and the pleasure of not using PowerPoint), I eventually gave 
> up and went to the Dark Side. I /do/ ultimately have work to do. I'd 
> love to find out this isn't necessary. Am I delusional? Does anybody 
> else see this? Was this all covered in earlier discussions and I just 
> missed it?

Logos can be annoying, since they look like single graphics,
but are usually constructed from smaller pieces that need high-quality
rendering to show the desired information.
Expect to have to spend time getting it looking the best.


> 
> [*] These are generally Encapsulated PostScript figures generated 
> from Igor Pro, either directly or with the LW8 driver. I pretty much 
> went through this hell and gave up on it before Mac OS X was a 
> credible platform, so perhaps this issue is moot now. Igor Pro is now 
> Carbon, so I can print directly to PDF and thus use pdflatex, 
> skipping ps->pdf translation altogether. I'll have to try it and see. 
> Also, I often decide it's not worth the trouble, but it can be nice 
> to be able to label graphs with TeX. Is there a "pdffrag" equivalent 
> to psfrag?

Yes. It's called WaRMreader, built on top of Xy-pic.
Visit  http://www-texdev.mpce.mq.edu.au/WARM/ 
Look at the examples of labelled mathematics; in particular
the ones done using  pdfLaTeX .
There are links to the necessary files, and Xypic driver for pdftex.


Hope this helps,

	Ross Moore

> 
> -- 
> 
> 
>    Jonathan E. Guyer
>    <http://www.his.com/jguyer/>
> 
> 
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