pdfpc man page






SYNOPSIS

       pdfpc [options] PDF-file



DESCRIPTION

       pdfpc is a GTK based presentation viewer application which uses Keynote
       like multi-monitor output to provide meta information  to  the  speaker
       during the presentation.  It is able to show a normal presentation win‐
       dow on one screen, while showing a more sophisticated overview  on  the
       other  one  providing  information like a picture of the next slide, as
       well as the left over time till the end of the presentation.  The input
       files  processed by pdfpc are PDF documents, which can be created using
       nearly any of today's presentation software.

       To run pdfppc, simply type

              pdfpc file.pdf

       By default the presenter view appears in the primary  monitor  and  the
       presentation  view  in  the second monitor (provided you have two moni‐
       tors).  If you want to swith displays, start with the  -s  option  (see
       below).



OPTIONS

       -d, --duration=N
              Duration  in minutes of the presentation used for timer display.
              If not given or if a value of 0 is  specified,  the  clock  just
              measures the time in the presentation.

       -e, --end-time=T
              End time of the presentation. (Format: HH:MM (24h))

       -l, --last-minutes=N
              Time  in  minutes,  from  which  on the timer changes its color.
              (Default 5 minutes)

       -t, --start-time=T
              Start time of the presentation to be used as a countdown.  (For‐
              mat: HH:MM (24h))

       -u, --current-size=N
              Percentage  of  the  presenter screen to be used for the current
              slide.  (Default 60)

       -o, --overview-min-size=N
              Minimum width for the overview miniatures, in  pixels.  (Default
              150)

       -s, --switch-screens
              Force to use only one screen

       -L, --list-actions
              List actions supported in the config file(s)

       -h, --help
              Shows the help



KEYBINDINGS

       These are the default keybindings for pdfpc:

       Right cursor key / Page down / Return / Space / Left mouse button
              Go forward one slide

       Shift + Right cursor key / Page down / Return / Space / Left mouse but
       ton / Mouse wheel down or right
              Go forward 10 slides

       Down cursor key
              Go forward one user slide (see Overlays below)

       Left cursor key / Page up / Right mouse button / Mouse wheel up or left
              Go back one slide

       Shift + Left cursor key / Page up / Right mouse button
              Go back 10 slides

       Up cursor key
              Go back one "user slide" (see Overlays below)

       Home   Go to the first slide

       End    Go to the last slide

       Backspace
              Go back in history. Note that history is defined by "jump"  com‐
              mands, not by normal slide movement.

       Tab / Middle mouse button
              Overview mode

       g      Input a slide number to jump to

       Escape / q
              Exit pdfpc

       b      Turn  off  the  presentation  view  (i.e.   fill it with a black
              color)

       n      Edit note for current slide



FEATURES

   Caching / Prerendering
       To allow fast changes between the different slides of the  presentation
       the  pdf pages are prerendered to memory.  The progress bar on the bot‐
       tom of the presenter screen indicates how many percent  of  the  slides
       have  been  pre-rendered  already.   During the initial rendering phase
       this will slow-down slide changes, as most cpu power is  used  for  the
       rendering  process  in the background.  After the cache is fully primed
       however the changing of slides should be much faster,  as  with  normal
       pdf viewers.

       As  the prerendering takes a lot of memory it can be disabled using the
       --disable-cache switch at the cost of speed.

   Cache compression
       The prerendered and cached slides can be compressed in memory  to  save
       up  some  memory.  Without compression a set of about 100 pdf pages can
       easily grow up to about 1.5gb size.  Netbooks with only 1gb  of  memory
       would  swap  themselves  to  death if prerendering is enabled in such a
       situation.  The compression is enabled by default as it does  not  harm
       rendering  speed  in a noticeable way on most systems.  It does however
       slows down prerendering by about a factor of 2.  If you have got enough
       memory  and  want  to  ensure the fastest possible prerendering you can
       disable slide compression by using the -z switch. But be  warned  using
       the  uncompressed prerendering storage will use about 30 times the mem‐
       ory the new compressed storage utilizes (aka  the  1.5gb  become  about
       50mb)


   Timer
       If  a  duration  is  given (-d option), the timer will show a countdown
       with the given parameters.  If no duration is specified (or if a  value
       of  0 is given to the -d option), the timer will show how much time has
       been spent.  The duration is stored automatically, so you do  not  need
       to repeat it for every invocation.

       The timer is started if you are navigating away from the first page for
       the first time.  This feature is quite useful as you may want  to  show
       the  titlepage of your presentation while people are still entering the
       room and the presentation hasn't really begun  yet.   If  you  want  to
       start  over  you  can use the r key which will make the presenter reset
       the timer.

       If a duration is given, at the moment the  timer  reaches  the  defined
       last-minutes  value it will change color to indicate your talk is near‐
       ing its end.  As soon as the timer reaches the zero mark (00:00:00)  it
       will  turn  red and count further down showing a negative time, to pro‐
       vide information on how many minutes you are overtime.


   Notes
       or with the arrow keys.  You can also define overlays and the end slide
       (see next sections) in this mode.


   Overlays
       Many slide preparation systems allow for overlays, i.e.  sets of slides
       that are logically grouped together as a single, changing slide.  Exam‐
       ples  include  enumerations  where  the  single items are displayed one
       after another or rough "animations", where parts of  a  picture  change
       from  slide  to  slide.   Pdf Presenter Console includes facilities for
       dealing with such overlays.

       In this description,  we  will  differentiation  between  slides  (i.e.
       pages  in  the  pdf  document)  and "user slides", that are the logical
       slides.  The standard forward movement command (page down, enter, etc.)
       moves  through one slide at a time, as expected.  That means that every
       step in the overlay is traversed.  The backward movement command  works
       differently depending if the current and previous slides are part of an
       overlay:


       · If the current slide is part of an overlay we just jump to the previ‐
         ous slide.  That means that we are in the middle of an overlay we can
         jump forward and backward through the single steps of it

       · If the current slide is not part of an overlay (or if it is the first
         one),  but  the  previous  slides  are,  we jump to the previous user
         slide.  This means that when going back in the  presentation  you  do
         not  have to go through every step of the overlay, Pdf Presenter Con‐
         sole just shows the first slide of the each overlay.  As you normally
         only  go  back  in  a presentation when looking for a concrete slide,
         this is more convenient.

       The up and down cursor keys work on a user slide basis.   You  can  use
       them  to  skip  the  rest of an overlay or to jump to the previous user
       slide, ignoring the state of the current slide.

       When going through an overlay, two additional previews may be activated
       in  the  presenter view, just below the main view, showing the next and
       the previous slide in an overlay.

       Pdf Presenter Console tries to find  these  overlays  automatically  by
       looking  into  the  page  labels in the pdf file.  For LaTeX this works
       correctly at least with the beamer class and also  modifying  the  page
       numbers  manually  (compiling with pdflatex).  If your preferred slide-
       producing method does not work correctly with this detection,  you  can
       supply  this information using the o key for each slide that is part of
       an overlay (except  the  first  one!).   The  page  numbering  is  also
       adapted.  This information is automatically stored.


   End slide

       There  are however cases where you may want to edit the files manually.
       The most typical case is if you add or remove  some  slides  after  you
       have  edited  notes or defined overlays.  It may be quicker to edit the
       pdfpc file than to re-enter the whole information.  Future versions may
       include external tools for dealing with this case automatically.

       The  files are plain-text files that should be fairly self-explanatory.
       A couple of things to note:

       · The slide numbers of the notes refer to user slides

       · The [notes] sections must be the last one in the file

       · For the programmers out there: slide indexes start at 1


CONFIG FILE

       The main configuration file for pdfpc is located in /usr/local/etc/pdf‐
       pcrc.  Additionally, $HOME/.pdfpcrc is also read, if present. Following
       commands are aceepted

       bind <key> <func>
              Bind a key to a function

       unbind <key>
              Unbinds the given key

       unbind_all
              Unbinds all the keybindings

       mouse <button> <func>
              Binds a mouse button to a function

       unmouse <button>
              Unbinds a mouse button

       unmouse_all
              Unbinds all the mouse bindings

       switch-screens
              Switches screens, in the same way as the command line  parameter
              with the same name.

       Key  names  can be obtained with the help of the xev utility. Note that
       names are case sensitive.  Modifiers  can  be  specified  in  the  form
       <mod>+<key>  where  <mod>  is one of S (for shift), C (for control) and
       A/M (for Alt/Meta). E.g.

       bind S+Next    next10

       A list of all possible functions can be obtained  via  the  -L  command
       line option.


CONTACT

       Comments and suggestion are welcome. Write an email to davvil@gmail.com



SEE ALSO

       pdfpc is a fork of pdf-presenter console, available at http://westhoff
       swelt.de/projects/pdf_presenter_console.html



                                   Jun 2012                           pdfpc(1)

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