mkpdfsls
A user requested additional functionality to create a PDF presentation
(i.e. to show holiday photos) from a list of images in one simple step.
I do not like to program this in C in the bmeps source code, so I wrote
a Perl script instead.
There are three general ways to produce a slide show using mkpdfsls.pl:
- Convert each image file to PDF and use pdftk to bundle the images
in one PDF file.
The ``pdftk'' program is required.
- Convert each image to PDF, create a LaTeX source referencing these
images and run LaTeX. The resulting PDF file attempts to change to
full-screen mode and just shows the images.
A LaTeX distribution is required.
- Convert each image to PDF, create a LaTeX source referencing these
images and run LaTeX. The resulting PDF file attempts to change to
full-screen mode and shows the images in a presentation where
each slide shows the image, a description, a slide show name and the
authors name.
A LaTeX distribution and the ``beamer'' class for LaTeX are required.
To run the mkpdfsls.pl script you must have Perl installed.
The project file consists of an optional ``[options]'' section to set
options and a ``[files]'' section listing the images and optionally
short descriptions for the images.
The options section is optional and can be used for setup and can
contain the following entries:
- presentation maker = maker
chooses one of the ways to create the final PDF file.
Use either ``pdftk'', ``plain'' or ``beamer''.
- theme = theme
chooses a beamer theme, i.e. ``Madrid''. Only used if
``presentation maker = beamer''.
- background = color
chooses a background color. Specify one of the color names defined in
the xcolor package, i.e. ``black''. Only used if
``presentation maker = beamer''.
- input encoding = encoding
specifies an input encoding for use with LaTeX, i.e. ``latin1'' or ``utf8''.
By default the mkpdfsls.pl script inspects the LANG environment variable
and uses ``utf8'' if the variable ends on ``.UTF-8'',
``latin1'' otherwise.
Only used if ``presentation maker = beamer'' or ``plain''.
- babel options = options
chooses options for the babel package.
Only used if ``presentation maker = beamer''.
- author = author
specifies the slide show author.
Only used if ``presentation maker = beamer''.
- title = title
specifies a title for the slide show.
Only used if ``presentation maker = beamer''.
- make mode = flag
turns make mode on or off.
In make mode the script only converts images to PDF if necessary
(if the PDF file does not yet exist or is older than the source image).
The make mode is enabled by default.
- use exif = flag
enables/disables the use of ``Comment'' EXIF tags in JPEG files
as image descriptions.
Note: The Image::ExifTool and DKrause::LaTeXEncoder Perl
modules are needed.
The files section lists the source image files to use, one per line.
You can specify optional comments, separate file name and comment by ``=''.
[options]
presentation maker = beamer
theme = Madrid
background = black
author = John Doe
title = Holidays in Scotland
use exif = yes
# input encoding is not explicitly specified, inspect LANG variable
# No babel options -> No use of babel package
# make mode not specified, enabled by default
[files]
scot01.jpg
scot02.jpg
scot03.jpg
Create a project file, i.e. ``holiday.mks'' and run
mkpdfsls.pl holiday.mks