The package
Pptalk is a LaTeX-based style
file which allows you to achieve the following things:
- Using a multi-media projector, you can project your talk on the
screen in different slides. The slides can be divided into different
segments which can appear one at a time, at the push of one key on the
keyboard or one click of the mouse.
- If you change your mind and decide to give the talk with
transparencies, you can use the same file, with one announcement in
the preamble, to generate a hard copy which will not divide a page
into segments.
- If you further want to print out the talk where you would not
care about the division of the text into slides, you can again do it
with a different announcement in the preamble.
The files in the distribution
These are the names of the files in the package, along with
an upper limit of their sizes given in parentheses:
Only the first file is indispensable. The others are for helping the
user at the initial stage. Read more about these files to decide
which ones you need to download.
The pdf file
I suggest that you first download the file samptalk.pdf, open it with any pdf viewer
and go through it. Acroread (also known as Acrobat Reader) is
recommended, version number 5.0 or higher.
When you first open it, you might find that all the lines are running
vertically upwards. If that happens, use the View menu to rotate it clockwise by
90°. If the file appears in normal orientation, ignore this step.
Go to the full-screen view now. This
can be accessed in the pull-down menu under the option View, or alternatively, by pressing Ctrl-L. Use the left
mouse button, or the PageDown
button on the keyboard to go forward in the file.
You may use some special features of this mode. For example, in
the PREFERENCES menu, you can set up such that new slides appear in
the DISSOLVE mode, or in some other mode that you like. These, of
course, have to be set before you enter the full-screen view mode.
You cannot fail to notice that this file is a manual for Pptalk. It is also an example created with Pptalk. If you are satisfied with the example and
want to use Pptalk for your presentations,
continue.
The style file
As already said, the file pptalk.sty is the
main file which does all the tricks for you. You need to install it.
-
Log in as the superuser (root), and move the file pptalk.sty to any place on your computer under the
\texmf directory, preferably to some subdirectory
where other style files are kept, or in a new subdirectory created for
your personal use.
Run the command
texhash
so that the LaTeX compiler knows about Pptalk. Believe it or not, that's all you need to
do for the installation.
- If you don't have superuser access, you can put the file pptalk.sty within any directory, but then it will
work only within that directory.
The inessential files
The file samptalk.tex is the source
file from which samptalk.pdf has been
produced. You may want to look into the source file to get some idea
of how to write a Pptalk file.
The file slidekey.pl is useful only if
you use an emacs editor. It is a little script that you can insert
into your emacs configuration file (called .emacs).
Once this is done, a push of the keyboard function key F11 will write
the commands \beginslide and \endslide
into a file, provided the emacs version is 19 or higher. You can
change it trivially to any other key of your choice.
How to use Pptalk
All instructions regarding the use of Pptalk
have been given in the sample file samptalk.pdf mentioned earlier. In
case of any problem, send a message to the creator of Pptalk.
License
Pptalk is protected by the GNU General
Public License (GPL). To know more about GPL, go to the GPL home page.
This page is created and maintained by Palash B. Pal
Click on the
name to send a message if you find some bug or have any other comment.