[OS X TeX] Displaying a LaTeX beamer presentation

[Jens Noeckel]

On Oct 25, 2006, at 4:03 PM, Ross Moore wrote:

> Hi Gerben,
>
> On 26/10/2006, at 8:35 AM, Gerben Wierda wrote:
>
>> GIven that Preview.app has its limitations, what do people use to  
>> display beamer-type presentations? Acrobat? I have heard that  
>> Acrobat installation is rather imperialistic, in that it installs  
>> and setups all kind of things to use Acrobat which is then hard to  
>> get rid of. But I do not recall the specifics.
>
> Typically it will need to be shown using Adobe Reader on a Windows  
> box,
> because that is what is available at the conference venue.
>
> My department just ran a largish conference, with 200+ talks.
> Many people used their own laptops, but it was also very common
> to just bring the PDF on a USB stick, and show it on the console
> computer. This was, unfortunately, a PC running Windows.
> Many presentations, especially by Mathematical Physicists,
> had been prepared using Beamer.
>
> Actually, you can browse here, to find some of them:
>   http://www.maths.mq.edu.au/~austms06/abstracts/
> and look at some photos. (There's even one of me.)
>
>
> I know that this isn't a direct answer to your question, but the
> reality is that, whatever you choose to use when you have your
> own laptop available, you may still find yourself in a position
> where Adobe Reader is the only option.
>
>
> Back to the Mac. ...
>
> ... I find that Keynote presentations generally look best.
> They tend to have a more professional look about them,
> and can have stunning transition effects.
>

Hi,
although I have Preview as my default PDF reader, I would use Adobe  
Reader for PDF presentations generated with beamer. For me, the main  
reason is that Adobe Reader is currently the only one that  displays  
embedded movies (according to Till Tantau's beamer manual, this is  
part of the PDF standard, not an Adobe specific specification, so  
that xpdf may in the future implement it as well; but it doesn't  
right now). Of course this depends on whether you consider animations  
an important part of your presentation, but it's certainly an  
important feature that beamer provides, which you'd throw out by  
using  Preview.

Greetings,
Jens

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