traveler has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Greetings fellow monks, I need an application (initially on Linux) that can display PostScript or PDF file full screen a page at a time and let me scribble on it. If I could annotate (scribble on) xpdf, ghostview/gv or something like that, and save the annotations with each page, that'd be great. (In case you haven't guessed, I'll be displaying static PowerPoint or other presentation "slides" rendered to PS or PDF.)

I could not find the tool I wanted so I looked at what it might take to build it. I found ghostscript.pm , but the one example is a little light on comments:-) If I can use that I think I'd also need a drawing tool to generate drawings with transparent backgrounds that I can overlay onto the PDF/PS output. I can use perl-tk or gtk-perl to create a gui.

Oh, and I cannot change to another presentation tool unless it can import what I already have as there is a large body of existing presentations (mostly Powerpoint) that I need to support for this task.

I'd love to hear of any ready-built tools, code or modules that might help.

Thanks, --traveler

  • Comment on Scribble on PDF/PostScript: ghostscript.pm?

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Re: Scribble on PDF/PostScript: ghostpostscript.pm?
by kvale (Monsignor) on Oct 15, 2002 at 19:03 UTC
    Creating such an application in perl would be fun, but if you are tied to powerpoint, the simplest solution would be to annotate using...Powerpoint! The app has simple text and drawing tools.

    -Mark

[reply]
      Yes, there is a simple drawing tool in ppt. One problem is that it does not run too well on Linux without purchasing a tool such as crossover office. I could perhaps use OpenOffice and try to import the slides, but I'd like something with more features. I thought that if I had (or created) perl source I could make a more flexible and open-source app.

      --traveler

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