Click to toggle between before/after. This determines whether
new slides will be added before or after the current slide.
The GUI, written in tcl/tk, is still in development. Although it
is fully functional, it needs some more polishing. Also, note that
all the drawing of slides is done via inkscape.
Download Installation
svgslides can be installed on any Linux system easily (I am
sure it can run on other operating systems as well, but that might
require some work to do, because the shell script uses some other
programs, such a awk, sed, xml, and pdfjoin).
Install:
- Download this file and
unpack with tar -xf svgslides_src_1.3_tar.gz
- Goto the newly created directory svgslides1.3 and follow
instructions of the README file. Make sure you have the
dependencies is installed as well. They are listed in the README
file.
Please note that the tutorial slides files are included in a
subdirectory tutorial. Read the README file for details.
Besides svgslides, the install program will install a few more
programs. Here is a complete list of installed files (in /usr/bin)
(or elsewhere).
- svgslides
- svgslides-gui
- svgslides-svg2pdf
- svgslides-multipage
- svgslides-bp
- svgslides-readlines
Further, it will install man pages for each of these 6 programmes.
Usage
- Create your slides using inkscape. Preferably use a landscape
document size.
- If you use object label names (which can be set with ctrl-shift-o
in inkscape) like 'part1','part2', these parts will be incrementally
added to different slides.
- Create a list with your filenames (the svg extension on each
line of that list is optional), and call the file list (or
something else).
- Call svgslides list_of_svgfilenames.txt, optionally with
slidelist filename if it is not "list", and a pdf file will be
created.
- Read the svgslides manpage if you need to know more about
options.
Syntax of svgslides
svgslides options
filename
The default filename is list A filename can be a text file
with an svg file on each line (you can leave the .svg extension out on
each line).
Example of my_list_of_svgfilenames.txt:
introduction.svg
overview
yet_another_drawing
svg_extension_not_neceesary
conclusion
Options of slides:
- -b create thumbnail bitmaps (as png) of slides (for use
with other programs)
- -c clean all cached files before starting
- -d dpi (default 90)
- -h short help
- -i use the inkscape internal PDF export (this does not work
for blur and clipping)
- -l use id instead of label in xml for incremental slides (for old slidesshows only)
- -o output filename (default slides.pdf)
- -p prefix of label for incremental slides (default= part)
- -s size of paper: letter or a4 (default: /etc/papersize)
- -t if a slide is missing, copy template.svg to the name of this file
- -v verbose, shows information on ongoing process
- -x do not use the incremental slide info
- -k keep a numbered list of the partial svg's
- -n do not actually render to pdf
Info: The caching of PDF files speeds up slides the next time you
use svgslides. Creating picture perfect PDF files is relatively
slow, and the cache stores the PDF files until the corresponding svg
slide file gets changed. The cache even keeps track of the dpi you
have used.
If your svg file includes an external bitmap which has been changed
while the svg file itself has not been changed, your slide will not
show the lates file, of course, because it would still use the cached
ps file. In that case you could use the -c option.
More helpful related programmes
The following programmes can be used in conjunction with svgslides,
and there is a seperate tutorial explaining how they work. Here is a
short introduction:
- svgslides-bp This program can be used to create a bullet pointed
slides really quickly from the command line. It can read from the
command line or from file (using the smaller than sign).
- svgslides-bp-readerlines This program can be used to read a list
of slides with title and bullet points.
- svgslides-multipage to create multiple slides on one page for
handouts of your slideshow
Both svgslides-bp and svgslides-readlines create files that can later
be used with slides to create a pdf file.
Another helpful programme is svgslides-svg2pdf. It calls
inkscape to create a bitmap file (png) of your svg file and then
prints this to a postscript file (all using inkscape via command line
options), and then transforms that into a PDF. This is helpful,
because other programs do not always do the transformation in a
perfect way.
The reason for using svgslide-svg2pdf instead of the builtin
PDF export funtion is that it it creates an exact copy of your
svg file. This is nice, because the builtin PDF export function does
not always work (e.g., when I last tried it, it did not work with
Gaussian blur - this will be changed, though). But, it is relatively
slow if you want a high resolution, and it creates large files.
Hopefully, Inkscape progresses quickly and this intermediate step is
no longer necessary. This might be reached soon.
Obviously, if you are just looking for a program to creat PDF files
based on inkscape files, and which are always 100% correctly rendered,
you can use svgslides-svg2pdf.
svgslides-multipage
Often, it is nice to have a compact overview of all your slides on one
or on a few pages. The utility svgslides-multipage is designed
for exactly this purpose. Alternatively, you could used your printer
driver to print multiple pages on one page; the latter option does not
always work though, and that is why I created multipage. Multipage
does itself also not always work perfectly!
The arguments of multipage are individual filenames (with or without
the svg extension) or a textfile.
You can open the output file of multipage with inkscape. You can, of
course, export it with the PDF option. Note that inkscape .45
supports excellent PDF export, except for a few minor things (blurring
and clipping).
Potential problems and solutions
Question: The program does not work at all, what is wrong?
Answer: Maybe not all dependencies have been installed, such as
xmlstarlet (see bugs below), pdfjoin, latex, inkscape?
Question: Why is the size of the paper is wrong?
Answer: This can happen when the default papersize is set to
letter or a4 on your system (check with paperconf). You can force
slides to use a particular papersize with the -s option.
Question: Why is the slideshow rotated?
Answer:This is due to the way the pdf is produced. In your PDF
view program you can rotate. The PDF reader Evince memorizes
the rotation of specific documents. In both evince and acrobat reader
you can rotate the view. In acroread: menu->view->rotate view, in
evince: menu->edit->rotate.
Limitations
Svgslides and its associated tools can do a lot, but not everything!
In particular, it is not (yet) possible to show movies and sounds. It
is also not yet possible to use internet links.
In case of bugs, please email Gijsbert Stoet:
Thanks
Thanks to the various people who have made helpful comments, including
Yaroslav Halchenko.
Links
