RE: tlug: MagicPoint and math

[David Dibben <dibben@example.com>]

On 27-May-98 Rex Walters wrote:
> My immediate impression is that I like the Magic Point paradigm better
> (a simple text file as input).  Also, as was just pointed out, the
> ability to include an arbitrary X client on a presentation page lets you
> do cool things like leverage TeX math display via Xdvi.

I just down loaded Magic point. My first impression is that I like it.
However, I normally use a fair amount of maths in my presentations so a
presentation tool needs to have good support for equations if it is going to be
useful for me. The idea of including an Xdvi window in the middle of the slide
seemed a bit cumbersome, and as already mentioned the background will be a
different colour.

As an alternative to using Xdvi to embed TeX into a presentation you can just
do what latex2html does and convert the latex equations into gif (or jpeg) files
and include those. This seems to work OK. 

I didn't manage to get the ps2gif script that comes with latex2html to
produce a gif file that magic point would work with (but I didn't try very
hard.) Doing it manually, tex -> dvi -> ps -> ppm -> gif worked fine. Using the
pnmcrop tool on the ppm file to leave only the equation. The equation can then
be included as a normal image into the magic point presentation. I am sure that
it will be relatively simple to write a script that can do all of this
automatically. 



David

---
Dr. David Dibben
National Food Research Institute
2-1-2 Kannondai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8642. Japan
Tel:  0298 38 8029           
Fax: 0298 38 8122
E-Mail: dibben@example.com
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