powerpointpresentations a l - california institute of...

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LATEX for “Powerpoint” Presentations

Rick Muller

MSC Group Meeting

March X, 2002

Materials and Process Simulation Center 1

Overview

• PDF files have many of the same characteristics as PPT

presentations.

– Can display full-screen

– Most people have Acrobat Reader on their computers

• LATEX can produce very nice PDF files

• The Seminar package in LATEX has tools to define frame styles,

background colors, and other useful tricks.


Why not just use Powerpoint?

I’m not trying to bash Microsoft here. They’re a company that

makes lots of good software. However, I sometimes prefer an

alternative, because Powerpoint:

• is a proprietary program, only runs on Windows, and I can’t

run it on Linux

• uses a binary file format, which I can’t read from all computers

I use

• is often prone to crashing


Advantages to LATEX

• Free (speech, beer)

• Text file format

– Can write using a vast variety of programs

– Can read on any computer

– I’ve written LATEX on my Palm Pilot

• Much faster to write

• Much smaller files

• LATEX equations!


Disadvantages to LATEX slides

• Slide sorter mode in Powerpoint is brilliant

• Ability to make a poster by pasting/resizing powerpoint slides

is similarly brilliant

• WAG doesn’t speak LATEX (showstopper?)

• Making slides is inherently a graphical activity, and having a

WYSIWIG interface is useful (necessary?)


Slide Mode in LATEX

• Original slide mode: SliTeX

• Limited capabilities: can’t display colors

• Use via the \documentclass{slides} command.


Seminar Mode in LATEX

• Improvement to SliTeX, displays colors, advanced formatting

commands

• Use via the \documentclass{seminar} command.

• Can define custom headers and footers, and different slide styles


This is the default slide style in seminar mode. The slide is

enclosed in a box, nothing is in the header, and the page number is

in the footer.

This style is toggled by the \slideframe{plain} command.

8

There are other slides available as well. You can use a double box

with the \slideframe{double} command. . .

9

. . . a shadow box with the \slideframe{shadow}. . .

10

'

&

$

%

. . . or an oval-shaped box with the \slideframe{oval} command.

11

I prefer not having a slideframe at all so I can define my own

header and footer.

You can turn off the slideframe with the \slideframe{none}

command.

12

Defining your own headers and footers

I prefer not having a slideframe at all so I can define my own

header and footer.

You can turn off the slideframe with the \slideframe{none}

command.


Defining your own headers and footers

Here’s the command I use to define the header and the footer:

\newpagestyle{MSC-Logo}

{\hfil\Large\textbf{\textcolor{blue}{\thetitle}}\hfil

\includegraphics[scale=0.1]{cit_logo.eps}}

{\hfil

\tiny\textcolor{red}{Materials and Process Simulation Center}

\hfil\thepage}

Then I just use the command \pagestyle{MSC-Logo} to turn on

my new mode.


Backgrounds

You can also set the background to be a different color, but I’m a

fan of white backgrounds, so that’s what I use.


Other tricks

The package PPower4 is a Java program that can read in a

LATEX file and put pauses and other effects in the file.

I’m

not a big fan of these effects, so I don’t use them. But you can look at

http://www-sp.iti.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/software/ppower4

for more information.


Putting graphics in your slides

Can’t have a talk without graphics! LATEX can only input

encapsulated Post Script (EPS) files. Here are programs that

output EPS files:

Chemical structures Chemdraw outputs beautiful EPS

structures.

Vector graphics The dia program under Linux, or the Canvas or

Illustrator programs on Windows output very nice vector

graphics to the EPS format.

Plots Gnuplot outputs EPS structures on either Windows or

Linux.


Chemical Structures

Cl

Pd

NN

H

Cl

Pd

NN

Pd

NN

Pd

NN

Cl

+1.2

-9.3

0.0

-17.4

-30.7

+

Pd

NN

Cl

∆E (kcal/mol)

2,1 insertion

Cl

Pd

NN

Cl

-45.2

+4.7

-4.8

-13.9

-28.0

-17.2

Cl

Cl

-17.2Pd

NN

Pd

NN

Cl

Pd

NN

Cl

-9.9

Cl

Pd

NN

2,1 insertion

0.0

+14.5+14.4

-10.7

-9.9-8.3

-40.6

-12.6

Pd

N N

HCl 0.0

-9.4

Cl

+10.0

-15.2

+9.2

Pd

N N

HCl

-11.5

(probe radius = 2.33 Å -methylene chloride)

ε=1

ε=10

U'

Q

B

A

C

D

O

Q

O

US

T

QS'

T'

O

-0.3

-0.8 R

Cl

Pd

NN

Cl


Vector Graphics


Gnuplot Plots

-1

-0.8

-0.6

-0.4

-0.2

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

-10 -5 0 5 10

sin(x)sin(x)*sin(x)


Useful LATEX Macros

• The macro

\newcommand{\chem}[1]{\ensuremath{\mathrm{#1}}}

allows chemical formulae such as C2H6 to be input as

\chem{C_2H_6}.

• The macro

\newcommand{\bracket}[3]{\ensuremath{\left

\langle{#1}\left|{#2}\right|{#3}\right\rangle}}

allows Dirac brackets such as⟨

Ψ∣

∣

∣H

∣

∣

∣Ψ

⟩

to be input as

\bracket{\Psi}{\hat{H}}{\Psi}.


Making good PDF files in LATEX

• Need to use proper fonts

Screen Fonts are optimized to look good on computer

monitors

Printer Fonts are optimized to look good on printouts

Type1 Fonts generally are optimized for both

• LATEX now has Type1 versions of all of their fonts

• dvips -Ppdf -o file.ps file.dvi correctly includes the

Type1 fonts when making ps files.

• RPM will upgrade LATEX and properly patch the dvipdf file.


Presentations with PDF Files

• Ctrl-L in Acrobat Reader redisplays the file in full-screen

mode.

• PgDn and PgUp advance and go back in the presentation.

• Esc returns to normal Acrobat Reader display.


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