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Prosper

Examples of creating a presentation using Prosper

These examples will illustrate how you can create a presentation using Prosper.

Here is a link to notes from when I created a simple example, and all the problems I ran into then.

Files

First of all you need Prosper. This may be available from your distribution, for example:

• On MacOSX/Fink: fink install prosper
• On Gentoo: emerge prosper

You then need some layout files:

• prosper.layout - same as prosper-by-Weiss.layout...
• prosper2.layout — originally Dekel's version, but now modified by Bas Spitters.
• prosper-by-Dekel.layout — slightly modified.
• prosper-by-Weiss.layout — slightly modified.
• theorem.inc — defines theorem/lemma etc
• embedMovies.inc — used by Weiss
• theorem-unnumbered.inc - defines unnumbered theorem/lemma etc (used by Dekel?)

Save all the .inc files, and some of the .layout files into ~/.lyx/layouts, or wherever you keep your layouts.

Examples

First you should try an example using plain LaTeX:

• sampleTex.tex — Prosper example using plain latex (allows you to test that it works).

Using Dekel's layout

• layout_Dekel-sample.lyx — sample using Dekel's layout
• layout_Dekel-fancy.lyx — fancy example using Dekel's layout

Using Weiss' layout

• layout_Weiss-sample.lyx — sample using Weiss' layout
• layout_Weiss-fancy.lyx — fancy example using Weiss' layout

Using overlays

• overlay_ERT-Dekel.lyx
• overlay_ERT-Weiss.lyx
• overlay_ERT-manual-Dekel.lyx
• overlay_ERT-manual-Weiss.lyx

Using theorems

• theorem_prosper-by-Dekel.lyx
• theorem_prosper-by-Weiss.lyx
• theorem_prosper.lyx

Launching a movie

• embedMovie_using-latex.tex — using plain latex.
• embedMovie_sample.lyx — simple example using LyX.
• embedMovie_advanced.lyx — more advanced example
• run-script.lyx — ?
• test-script.sh — ?
• test_script.sh — ?
• The movies have not been uploaded due to lack of space

Building the examples

?

History

The prosper-by-Weiss.layout is actually based on the file slides.layout that was created by John Weiss. Someone (who?) converted it for Prosper?

-

Links

• Prosper home page at sourceforge.

Comments, Bugs

Note that Weiss's layout seems to work best at the moment.

Launching movies from Acroread v.s. Xpdf

I've managed to launch mpeg's from within PDF's. However, there is a funny difference between viewing the PDF-file with Acroread and Xpdf.

If I am going to view it With Acroread, I must embed the name of the movie, e.g. "aMovie.mpeg". Then Acroread invokes a viewer (mpegplay in my case) to show the movie when you click on it.

If I'm going to view it with Xpdf, I must embed the name of a script, e.g. "play-aMovie.sh" where "play-aMovie.sh" is a script that plays the movie.

In neither case have I been able to supply any arguments to the player (I didn't try that much though).

Using a portrait format for the output

This thread on the user's list discuss if it's possible to change the orientation from landscape to portrait.

Tips

If you give the document class option draft, the figures will not be shown and the compilation process is faster.

Alternatively, you can split your presentation into several documents and work with it as a multi-part document.

Raphael: When doing View->postscript with gv, you have to change to seascape to see the slide properly, not landscape. This behaviour is caused by an option -swap that is sent to gv by lyx. You can go to Edit->preferences->file formats->postscript and change gv -swap to simply gv.

Additional comments

• If you create a document that only contains a title you will get errors when you try to compile it. It needs for instance an author as well.
• Viewing the result using "View DVI" only shows the background, i.e. no text! The workaround I use is to export to PostScript and/or PDF.
  

Matej: I believe that's just how it works, IIRC prosper uses really wild PostScript stuff and it doesn't work well (at all) with dvi.

• About making the link PPRenglish.sty -> PPRdefault.sty
  

Dekel: The correct way to use the prosper class is to select it in the document dialog and then press the 'Use class defaults' button.".
Christian: This works for Dekel's layout since it will add the option 'contemporain', i.e. prosper will use PPRcontemporain.sty instead of trying to find PPRenglish.sty. The class defaults for the Weiss layout don't add an option for something like that, so there you manually have to write something like default or contemporain if you don't want to make the link.

Contributors

• Christian Ridderström

Copyright

Bah. Uncategorized