Presentation Program w/ Equation Editor?

ElJefe asks: "I've got to give a presentation next weekend on my summer research. The paper that I wrote up has a lot of equations in it, and so will the presentation. I wrote the paper using Lyx, and really like its equation editing features. Unfortunately, I'm doing the presentation in Powerpoint, and it's equation editor sucks (although it's fine otherwise). You also can't embed equations in text; they have to be free-floating objects. Does anybody know if there's some sort of Powerpoint-like application, either for Windows or Linux, that can give me the usefullness of Powerpoint with the the freedom of Lyx (or even LaTeX)?"

Re:Various Options

[Bazman]

If you do go the pdf route, you'll be in trouble if you have included PostScript graphics in your LaTeX and try pdflatex - it wont have it.
Instead, just run vanilla LaTeX and then dvips to get a PS file, and run ps2pdf.
Or render your PostScript graphics to gifs/jpegs and then pdfltex should handle them...

On the plus side of pdf, you can do some 'reveal' type effects. Let page N of your presentation be a basic header, and then N+1 be the header and the first line. N+2 is the header and the first and second lines. As you go through the presentation, the lines will reveal as you page.

Baz

ConTeXt, LaTeX, and Acrobat

[jakewb]

Although not as mouse friendly as PowerPoint, I've seen some beautiful, math heavy, presentations created with LaTeX and then displayed as pdf files in Acrobat's full-screen mode. (As someone else noted, be sure to embed the Type1 fonts into the pdf files when you create them --- I use dvipdfm, but ps2pdf probably also works. You could also use pdftex.)

Also, I think that some of these beautiful presentations have used ConTeXt (which is another macro package for TeX, with some literature about it available here: http://www.pragma-ade.com/pragma-ade/publish.htm)

If mouse friendlyness is most important, then try the PowerPoint-esque apps within either StarOffice (free) or Wordperfect Suite (not free). I bet that they wouldn't do math quite as nicely as anything TeX-like. Good luck!

Star Office!

[bab5freak]

Star Office can do this. And it should be able to do a good job of importing your current slides.

http://www.sun.com/staroffice [sun.com]

Various Options

[e271828]

Here are a few options to consider.

i) MathType [mathtype.com]. It's a souped up version of the free Equation editor. I haven't used it myself, but I've heard good things about it. Pros: You can still use Powerpoint. Cons: It costs money!

ii) Use LaTeX/LyX to create the slides (the seminar class works fairly well). Then convert the whole thing to pdf and display using the full screen feature of Acrobat Reader. If you're running LaTeX under Unix/Linux, remember to first generate the postscript with Type 1 fonts [adobe.com], or the pdf file will look awful on screen. Pros: Everything is free (except Acrobat distiller, and maybe you could use something like dvi2pdf or pdftex instead). Cons: You can't use snazzy Powerpoint effects, although acrobat will let you use some transitions effects between slides.

iii) Another untried solution: Mathematica [mathematica.com]. If you don't have Mathematica, you could try Publicon [wolfram.com], which is essentially the Mathematica front-end being marketed separately as a technical publishing tool. Look here [wolfram.com] for some examples. This is another free solution.

SliTeX

[big.ears]

I remember seeing stuff about a TeX macro set for making slides call SliTeX. From what I saw, it did'nt look like it was that great, but I have never tried it. But, some people use it. Has anybody here used it?

MagicPoint

[Nishi-no-wan]

You might want to try MagicPoint. It has the fancy effects that PowerPoint has. And you can embed any X application in a page. To display things like embedded PostScript, a viewer application is run in a given page. I'm sure the same could be done for a DVI segment. (Convert it to embedded PostScript if not.)

I know it's available from the /usr/ports/japanese/magicpoint port on FreeBSD. I'm sure a search of the web will provide a Linux port.

There are examples in both Japanese and English which you can use as a template to create a presentation pretty quickly. The entire presentation can be edited with your favorite text editor. The design is very simple, yet it is a very powerful presentation tool.

Not many Japanese Open Source projects have made it to the mainstream, but this is one that has - or at least should.

Re:Various Options

[gordon_schumway]

I find LaTeX with Acrobat to produce very nice results (using either ps2pdf or pdftex to produce the pdf files). The FoilTeX package (check here [tex.ac.uk] ;, for example) I think does a dramatically better job than the seminar class.

tth and ttm

[grammar nazi]

As you probably know, MathML isn't meant to be written manually. If you could get a good MathML generator, then using a MathML enabled browser such as Mozilla (Linux, Windows, or whatever) or a Amaya (Linux) might provide a good solution. However, you will lose the 'ease of creating' that PowerPoint provides.

If you are fluent in LaTeX, than using ttm (TeX to MathML) is a nice way to generate pages.

tth (TeX to HTML) is a nice program, but I wouldn't recommend it since it uses HTML tables to render complicated equation. Doing such can make for ugly equations.

On a side note, if you do use Mozilla, make sure that you download a MathML enabled binary, or that you enable it from the source. I don't think that MathML comes on the default download.

LaTeX or Applixware work

[Johnny Rocket]

If you know LaTeX, you can use that, just use slides as your documenttype. i.e.: \documenttype{slides} at the top. Or, get a copy of Applixware [vistasource.com].