PDF is not just designed for printing. It is a format for displaying electronic documents, independently of hardware (printer, screen, e-reader, smartphone, projector etc.) and software (such as the operating system). This format is both good for printouts and presentation, so a good choice as output format.
Presentations with technical or scientific content are often based on documents, very often written in LaTeX also because of it's mathematical typesetting capabilities. It's very natural to use the same tool, LaTeX, for the presentation.
The benefits of LaTeX, such as separating the form/style and the content, portability in source, implementation and output, cross-referencing capabilities and typesetting quality, are great for presentations as well.
As I use LaTeX, I can work on the source using Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X, and I can give the presentation away as a PDF for reading or presenting on a conference, the reader or speaker can use Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, a tablet computer, a smartphone - or a printout.
If I would use PowerPoint - well, I would be pretty bound to Windows Version X with PowerPoint Version Y or a suited viewer, which is also a limit for the reader or presenter.
You have to put the images into a directory that is searched by LaTeX during the compilation. Usually, the easiest is to put it in the same directory as where the .tex
file is.
You can as well use the \graphicspath
command in your preamble to specify the directories searched for graphics. Remember to put each directory in a second pair of braces, like:
\graphicspath{{figures/}{/home/me/mygraphics}}
(This example is for linux, for Windows, you shall use the correct directory specification. Remember that this will make your document non-portable.)
Best Answer
1. Convert and split animated GIF into PNG sequence
or
convert
/magick convert
is a command line tool from the ImageMagick.org software package. The command name depends on the software version.This produces a set of numbered PNG files
something-0.png, ..., something-16.png
(Here, the original GIF http://i.stack.imgur.com/VHJmL.gif, renamed tosomething.gif
consists of 17 frames.) Option-coalesce
is necessary to undo a possible optimization of the original GIF file.2. Get original animation speed
Users of Windows may want to run
in the PowerShell.
This outputs lines (one for every frame) like:
The frame rate (frames per second), to be passed as an argument to the
\animategraphics
command below, is found by dividing the number afterx
by the number in front of it:frame rate = 100 (tics/s) / 10 (tics/frame) = 10 frames/s
3. Embed PNG sequence as an embedded looping animation in the final PDF
(This kind of animation requires a JavaScript-supporting PDF viewer, such as Acrobat Reader or KDE Okular.)
Argument
{10}
sets the desired frame rate (frames per second),{0}
and{16}
set the first and last file numbers of the PNG series to be included in the animation. Note that frame rates above 30 FPS, if at all achieved by the PDF viewer, do not make much sense. 30 FPS is a typical value in video encoding. Use command optionmeasure
and the + button to see which frame rates are possible. They may depend on the image size and of course on the hardware on which the PDF viewer is running.For a more GIF-like impression, option
autoplay
can be used instead of or in addition to optioncontrols
.