[Tex/LaTex] animate package on Linux – which PDF reader

animatebeamerviewers

I am using the animate package to include some animations into my beamer presentation. Currently I run Ubuntu 16.04 and tested Okular (0.24.2), Document Viewer (3.18.2) and Foxit Reader (2.4.4.0911) and none of them were able to display the animation, they would only show the first *.png file.
Eventually I was able to display the animated slides using Adobe Reader DC via PlayOnLinux but I really would like to have a native Linux option.
Is there any PDF reader for Linux which would be able to display the animations generated with the animate package?

Best Answer

As of version 2018/11/19, package animate's usability isn't any longer limited to platforms on which Acrobat Reader is available.animate was extended to also support the dvisvgm output driver/utility by M. Gieseking which is part of all major TeX distributions.

Now, it is possible to produce animated SVG output that can be viewed as standalone file or as embedded object in a Web page.

All popular Web browsers on all popular platforms including Linux and even on mobile platforns are able to display animated SVG. Note, however, that mileage may vary between browsers. Browsers that are based on the Blink rendering engine, such as Chrome, its open-source base Chromium and Opera show an extremely good performance here (much better than Acrobat Reader!). Firefox, on the other hand, is somewhat disappointing.

So, if you don't mind doing away with PDF and using SVG instead, at least for presentation documents, have a look at this related thread: Using the animate package without Adobe . There, a beamer class based presentation with embedded animations is presented. It may also serve as a benchmark for browser performance.

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