/ 
PerlPoint-Converters-0.007
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/ pp2latex

NAME

pp2latex - simple slide generator

VERSION

This manual describes version 1.06.

SYNOPSIS

pp2latex --help
pp2latex [@options_file] [options] slide_text

DESCRIPTION

pp2latex creates a set of HTML files for a foilset based on a simple textfile slide_text. A slide is normally made up by a header and an number of bullet items:

Example of a Slide

* Contains a head line ("Example of a Slide")

* Should have some bullet items

* May have footer and/or header section with company logo and navigation links

The intention of pp2latex is to simply write down your headers and bullet items just like above in an ASCII file and then automatically create a set of HTML files ready for presentation.

The main features of pp2latex are:

  • Optional templates for header and footer of the slides (e.g. for company logo, hyperlinks for navigation, copyright note etc.)

  • Creation of index page with links to all slides

  • Optional layout as HTML frameset (header frame, contents frame, footer frame and eventually index frame). The footer frame has always the same position on the screen.

The following documentation describes in detail the syntax of a pp2latex input file and all options of pp2latex.

SYNTAX of pp2latex Files

There are the following main components of an input file for pp2latex:

  • Comments

  • Headers

  • Bullet Items

  • Paragraphs

  • Blocks

  • Verbatim Blocks

Comments

Lines which start with a hash sign # are treated as comments. They are not included in the slides.

Headers

Headers are lines which start with a = sign. The number of = signs determines the level of the header:

=This is a level 1 header

==This is a  level 2 header

It is not necessary to put a blank line after the header but it increases readability.

Bullet Items

A bullet item is indicated by an asterisk * in the first column.

* Item one is very long
and continued on the next line

* Item 2

* Item Three

Note: It is important to put a blank line after each bullet item, otherwise the text on the following line belongs to the same bullet.

Pragraphs

Text which is not indented is treated as a normal paragraph. In HTML terminology this is a <P> ... </P> container.

Blocks

Text which is indented by one ore more blanks will be put in a colored box. The text will be treated as pre formatted. Special formatting tags (see below) are still applied.

The HTML representation is a <TABLE> with colored background and the text itself is put into a <PRE> ... </PRE> container.

Verbatim Blocks

Verbatim Blocks are copied as is into the HTML page. Special formatting tags (see below) are not applied. (Only HTML meta characters must be escaped, i.g. the "<" or ">" sign.) This means that Verbatim Block are suitable for code examples: Just cut and paste your piece of code into the pp2latex file and put the verbatim box markers around:

&<< END_OF_BOX
sub verbatim_text
{
  for example some piece of code;
}
END_OF_BOX

The block begins with `&<<<MARK' and ends with the text MARK on a separate line. This is like a here document in perl or in a C-shell.

Special Formatting Tags

Some rudimentary formatting is also supported by pp2latex. It is essentially the same syntax as in POD:

C<this is code>
B<bold face>
I<italic>
E<lt>  E<gt>
E<uml>

OPTIONS

FILES

ENVIRONMENT

NOTES

The PerlPoint format was initially designed by Tom Christiansen. Tom used a simple syntax which was inspired by POD and a simple script which created HTML files from an ASCII file.

SEE ALSO

AUTHOR

Jochen Stenzel (perl@jochen-stenzel.de), Lorenz Domke (lorenz.domke@gmx.de), 2000. All rights reserved.