1PDFPC(1) General Commands Manual PDFPC(1)
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6 pdfpc - PDF presenter console with multi-monitor support
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10 pdfpc [options] PDF-file
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14 pdfpc is a GTK-based presentation viewer which uses Keynote-like multi-
15 monitor output to provide meta information to the speaker during the
16 presentation. It is able to show a normal presentation window on one
17 screen while showing a more sophisticated overview on the other one,
18 providing information like a picture of the next slide, as well as the
19 time left in the presentation. pdfpc processes PDF documents, which can
20 be created using nearly all modern presentation software.
21 By default the presenter view appears in the primary monitor and the
23 presentation view in the second monitor (provided you have two moni‐
24 tors).
25
28 -c, --disable-cache
29 Disable caching and pre-rendering of slides to save memory at
30 the cost of speed.
31 -C, --time-of-day
33 Display the time of the day
34 -d, --duration=N
36 Duration in minutes of the presentation used for timer display.
37 If not given or if a value of 0 is specified, the clock just
38 measures the time in the presentation.
39 -e, --end-time=T
41 End time of the presentation. (Format: HH:MM (24h))
42 -g, --disable-auto-grouping
44 Disable auto detection of overlay groups. (Default: enabled)
45 -h, --help
47 Show this help
48 -l, --last-minutes=N
50 Time in minutes, from which on the timer changes its color.
51 (Default: 5 minutes)
52 -L, --list-actions
54 List actions supported in the config file(s)
55 -M, --list-monitors
57 List monitors known to the operating system
58 -n, --notes=P
60 Position of notes on the PDF page. Position can be either left,
61 right, top or bottom. Disable slide auto-grouping (Default:
62 none)
63 -N, --no-install
65 Allow for testing pdfpc without proper installation. Icons, con‐
66 figuration files, etc. will be loaded from the source path loca‐
67 tions. Mostly intended for developers.
68 -p, --persist-cache
70 Persist the PNG cache on disk for faster startup.
71 -P, --page
73 Go to a specific page directly after startup. In case of over‐
74 lays, the first slide will be displayed.
75 -R, --pdfpc-location=LOCATION
77 Use custom pdfpc file.
78 -s, --switch-screens
80 Switch the presentation and the presenter screen.
81 -S, --single-screen
83 Force to use only one screen
84 -t, --start-time=T
86 Start time of the presentation to be used as a countdown. (For‐
87 mat: HH:MM (24h))
88 -T, --enable-auto-srt-load
90 Try loading video subtitle files automatically. For each video
91 media, pdfpc will append ".srt" to the media URI and attempt to
92 load a subtitle file (in the SRT format) from that location.
93 -W, --wayland-workaround
95 Enable Wayland-specific workaround. This might fix HiDPI scaling
96 problems.
97 -w, --windowed
99 Run in windowed mode
100 -z, --disable-compression
102 Disable the compression of slide images to trade memory consump‐
103 tion for speed. (Avg. factor 30)
104 -Z, --size
106 Size of the presentation window in width:height format (forces
107 windowed mode)
108 -1, --presenter-screen=MONITOR
110 Monitor to be used for the presenter screen (see the -M option).
111 -2, --presentation-screen=MONITOR
113 Monitor to be used for the presentation screen (see the -M
114 option).
115
118 These are the default keybindings for pdfpc:
119 Right cursor key / Down cursor key / Page down / Return / Space / 1st
121 mouse button / Mouse wheel down
122 Go forward one slide
123 Left cursor key / Up cursor key / Page up / Backspace / 3rd mouse but‐
125 ton / Mouse wheel up
126 Go back one slide
127 Shift + Page down
129 Go forward one user slide (see Overlays below)
130 Shift + Page up
132 Go back one user slide (see Overlays below)
133 Shift + Right cursor key / 1st mouse button / Mouse wheel down
135 Go forward 10 slides
136 Shift + Left cursor key / 3rd mouse button / Mouse wheel up
138 Go back 10 slides
139 Home Go to the first slide
141 End Go to the last slide
143 Shift + Backspace
145 Go back in history. Note that history is defined by "jump" com‐
146 mands, not by normal slide movement.
147 Shift + Home / Shift + End
149 Go to the previous / next slide, skipping over overlays that
150 have already been viewed, but at most one user slide.
151 Tab / 2nd mouse button
153 Overview mode
154 g Input a slide number to jump to
156 m Bookmark the current slide and store it in the .pdfpc file for
158 later usage
159 Shift + m
161 Load the bookmarked slide which was saved with m before
162 t Toggle the toolbox
164 1 / KP_1
166 Switch to the normal mode (pen/eraser and pointer are off)
167 2 / KP_2
169 Switch the pointer mode on
170 3 / KP_3
172 Switch the pen drawing mode on
173 4 / KP_4
175 Switch the eraser drawing mode on
176 Plus / KP_Add / Equal
178 Depending on the current mode, increase font size of notes or
179 pointer size or the size of pen or eraser
180 Minus / KP_Subtract
182 Depending on the current mode, decrease font size of notes or
183 pointer size or the size of pen or eraser
184 c Clear the drawing on the current page
186 d Toggle visibility the drawings; if in the drawing mode
188 (pen/eraser), exit it
189 Shift + 1 / KP_1 ... Shift + 8 / KP_8
191 Switch the drawing color to red/orange/yellow/green/blue/vio‐
192 let/black/white, respectively.
193 f Freeze the current presentation display (the presenter display
195 is still fully active)
196 b Turn off the presentation view (i.e. fill it with a black
198 color)
199 h Hide the presentation window (i.e. make other windows on the
201 other screen visible)
202 Escape Exit any "special" state (pause, freeze, blank)
204 Ctrl + n
206 Edit notes for the current slide (press Escape to exit this
207 mode)
208 s Start timer
210 p Pause timer
212 Ctrl + t
214 Reset timer
215 Ctrl + o
217 Toggle the overlay flag for one particular slide (see Overlays
218 below)
219 Ctrl + e
221 Define end slide
222 Ctrl + q
224 Exit pdfpc
225 Within the overview mode, the following key bindings are used:
227 Return / 1st mouse button
229 Go to currently selected page (last page of overlay)
230 Shift + Return / Shift + 1st mouse button
232 Go to currently selected page (first page of overlay)
233 Cursor left / Page up
235 Select previous slide
236 Cursor right / Page down
238 Select next slide
239 See pdfpcrc(5) if you want to customize the keybindings.
242
245 Caching / Pre-rendering
246 To allow fast changes between the different slides of the presentation
247 the PDF pages are pre-rendered to memory. The progress bar on the bot‐
248 tom of the presenter screen indicates how many percent of the slides
249 have been pre-rendered already. During the initial rendering phase
250 this will slow down slide changes, as most CPU power is used for the
251 rendering process in the background. After the cache is fully primed,
252 however, the changing of slides should be much faster, as with normal
253 PDF viewers.
254 As the pre-rendering takes a lot of memory it can be disabled using the
257 --disable-cache switch at the cost of speed.
258 It it also possible to store the pre-rendered slides on the disk (see
261 --persist-cache). This speeds up the start of the program if the slide
262 set is used next time unchanged.
263 Cache compression
266 The pre-rendered and cached slides can be compressed in memory to save
267 up some memory. Without compression a set of about 100 PDF pages can
268 easily grow up to about 1.5 GB size. Netbooks with only 1 GB of memory
269 would swap heavily if pre-rendering is enabled in such a situation.
270 The compression is enabled by default as it does not harm rendering
271 speed in a noticeable way on most systems. It does, however, slow down
272 pre-rendering by about a factor of two. If you have got enough memory
273 and want to ensure the fastest possible pre-rendering you can disable
274 slide compression by using the -z switch. But be warned that using the
275 uncompressed pre-rendering storage will use about 30 times the memory
276 the new compressed storage utilizes (e.g. 50 MB will become about 1.5
277 GB).
278 Timer
281 If a duration is given (-d option), the timer will show a countdown
282 with the given parameters. If no duration is specified (or if a value
283 of 0 is given to the -d option), the timer will show how much time has
284 been spent. The duration is stored automatically, so you do not need
285 to repeat it for every invocation.
286 The timer is started if you are navigating away from the first page for
288 the first time. This feature is quite useful as you may want to show
289 the title page of your presentation while people are still entering the
290 room and the presentation has not really begun yet. If you want to
291 start over you can use the 'r' key which will make the presenter reset
292 the timer.
293 If a duration is given, the timer also provides hints aiding the pre‐
295 senter to judge whether the talk would end on time. There are two
296 modes in which pdfpc can operate. In the old (and the only one avail‐
297 able up to, and including pdfpc-4.0.8) mode, at the moment the timer
298 reaches the defined last-minutes value it will change color to indicate
299 your talk is nearing its end, thus mimicking a chairman frantically
300 pantomiming in front of you with five (four, three, ...) fingers up. A
301 drawback of this approach is it is often too late at that moment to
302 alter the presentation pace without ruining to some extent the rest of
303 the talk. On the other hand, the warning indication provides an unnec‐
304 essary distraction if you have been perfectly conveying the talk and
305 the remaining time is adequate.
306 Contrary to that, in the new (default) mode, pdfpc tracks your progress
308 continuously, calculating the expected time as (talk_duration)*(cur‐
309 rent_user_slide_number - 0.5)/(total_number_of_user_slides) and compar‐
310 ing it to the actual wall time since beginning of the talk. If these
311 two numbers differ by more than 60 seconds, the timer changes its color
312 to either orange (indicating you need to speed up) or a blueish one
313 (need to slow down). Once the optimal progress is recovered, the timer
314 becomes white again. In this mode, the last-minutes option (-l) has no
315 effect. The previous behavior can be restored by setting the 'timer-
316 pace-color' option to 'false' in the configuration file, see pdf‐
317 pcrc(5).
318 In any case as soon as the timer reaches the zero mark (00:00:00), it
320 will turn red and count further down showing a negative time, to pro‐
321 vide information on how many minutes you are overtime.
322 Notes
325 Textual notes can be displayed for each slide. A few types of PDF
326 annotations are understood by pdfpc and will be automatically imported
327 and displayed (only their textual content, no formatting attributes are
328 preserved). The PDF annotations can be made using many PDF editors and
329 even viewers. These "native" PDF notes cannot be edited in pdfpc.
330 In addition, while in the presentation mode, pressing 'n' will allow
332 you to take notes for the current user slide. To exit the note editing
333 mode, press the Escape key. Note that while editing a note, the key‐
334 bindings stop working, i.e. you are not able to change slides. These
335 notes are stored in the .pdfpc file in a plain text format, easy to
336 edit also from outside the program; see the section about the pdfpc
337 format below. These notes take precedence over the native PDF annota‐
338 tions, i.e., if a user-proveded note exists for a given slide, any PDF
339 annotations on that page will be silently ignored.
340 Although mixing the two types of notes is possible, for a given presen‐
342 tation one will likely want to have either only the "native" notes
343 (produced by the same PDF authoring software used for making the
344 slides), or only the "pdfpc" ones.
345 Overview mode
348 Pressing the Tab key enters the overview mode, where thumbnails of the
349 slides are shown in a grid. You can select a slide to jump to with the
350 mouse or with the arrow keys. You can also define overlays and the end
351 slide (see next sections) in this mode.
352 Overlays
355 Many slide preparation systems allow for overlays, i.e. sets of slides
356 that are logically grouped together as a single, changing slide. Exam‐
357 ples include enumerations where bullet items are displayed one after
358 another, or rough "animations", where parts of a picture change from
359 slide to slide. Pdfpc includes facilities for dealing with such over‐
360 lays.
361 In this description, we will differentiate between slides (i.e. pages
364 in the PDF document) and "user slides", that are the logical slides.
365 The standard forward movement command (page down, enter, etc.) moves
366 through one slide at a time, as expected. This means that every step
367 in the overlay is traversed. The backward movement command works dif‐
368 ferently depending on whether the current and previous slides are part
369 of an overlay:
370 · If the current slide is part of an overlay we just jump to the previ‐
373 ous slide. That means that we are in the middle of an overlay and
374 can jump forward and backward through the single steps of it
375 · If the current slide is not part of an overlay (or if it is the first
377 one), but the previous slides are, we jump to the previous user
378 slide. This means that when going back in the presentation you do
379 not have to go through every step of the overlay, pdfpc just shows
380 the first slide of each overlay. As one typically goes back in a
381 presentation only when looking for a concrete slide, this is more
382 convenient.
383 The up and down cursor keys work on the "user slide" basis. You can
386 use them to skip the rest of an overlay or to jump to the previous user
387 slide, ignoring the state of the current slide.
388 When going through an overlay, two additional previews may be activated
391 in the presenter view, just below the main view, showing the next and
392 the previous slide in an overlay.
393 Pdfpc tries to find these overlays automatically by looking into the
396 page labels in the PDF file. For LaTeX this works correctly at least
397 with the beamer class and also modifying the page numbers manually
398 (compiling with pdflatex). If your preferred slide-producing method
399 does not work correctly with this detection, you can supply this infor‐
400 mation using the 'o' key for each slide that is part of an overlay
401 (except the first one!). The page numbering is also adapted. This
402 information is automatically stored.
403 End slide
406 Some people like to have some additional, backup slides after the last
407 slide in the actual presentation. Things like bibliographic references
408 or slides referring to specialized questions are typical examples.
409 Pdfpc lets you define which is the last slide in the actual presenta‐
410 tion via the 'e' key. This just changes the progress display in the
411 presenter screen, as to have a better overview of how many slides are
412 left.
413 Movies
416 Pdfpc can play back movies included in the PDF file. Movies may be
417 started and stopped by clicking within their area. For the presenter,
418 a progress bar is drawn along the bottom of the movie. This expands
419 when the mouse hovers over it, allowing one to seek by clicking or
420 dragging within the progress bar. Switching slides automatically stops
421 playback, and movies will be reset after leaving and returning to a
422 slide.
423 Movies may be included in PDF files as "screen annotations". pdfpc
426 does not yet support options that modify the playback of these movies.
427 In LaTeX, such movies may be added to a presentation with the "movie15"
428 or "multimedia" package. Note that the poster, autoplay, and repeat
429 options are not yet supported. (Also, run ps2pdf with the -dNOSAFER
430 flag.)
431 As a perhaps simpler option, pdfpc will play back movies linked from a
434 hyperlink of type "launch". A query string may be added to the URL of
435 the movie to enable the "autostart", "loop" and "noprogress" proper‐
436 ties, if necessary. (E.g., a link to
437 "movie.avi?autostart&loop&noprogress" will add a video that starts
438 playing automatically, loops when it reaches the end, and does not show
439 the progress bar.)
440 In LaTeX, such links are created with
442 \usepackage{hyperref}
444 \href{run:<movie file>}{<placeholder content>}
445 The movie will playback in the area taken by the placeholder content.
448 Using a frame of the movie will ensure the correct aspect ratio.
449 See our website ⟨http://pdfpc.github.io/demo/pdfpc-video-example.zip⟩
452 for a full example.
453 See the bugs section for further information.
456 Pointer mode
459 If needed, it is possible to turn on a pointer which draws a red dot in
460 the place pointed by mouse cursor on both - presenter and presentation
461 screens. It is also possible to increase and decrease the pointer
462 size. Additionally, when the pointer is enabled, it is possible to
463 highlight some area of the current slide using the drag mouse motion.
464 The area outside the selected region will be dimmed.
465 Drawing mode
468 It is possible to turn on a mode which allows drawing over slides with
469 the mouse cursor or a connected tablet. When drawing mode is enabled,
470 drawings can be made on the presenter screen. A separate drawing will
471 be kept in memory for each slide (based on user slide numbers, so con‐
472 solidating overlay slides). Drawings are presently not saved between
473 sessions.
474 In the drawing mode, there are two drawing tools, a pen and an eraser.
476 An indicator in the bottom-left corner of the presenter screen will
477 indicate which is active. When in the pen mode, the color and size of
478 the pen will be indicated by the cursor. The pen size can be increased
479 or decreased using hot keys specified in the key bindings. When the
480 eraser tool is active, the size of the cursor indicates the amount to
481 erase.
482 The color of the pen can be changed through key or mouse bindings.
484 If you are using a tablet, the pen or eraser tool will be selected
486 based on whether the tablet reports a pen or eraser input device is
487 being used, overriding the normal selection of the drawing tool.
488 pdfpc files
491 Some additional information is stored in a file with the extension
492 "pdfpc". When pdfpc is invoked with a PDF file, it automatically
493 checks for and loads the associated .pdfpc file, if it exists. This
494 means that you normally do not have to deal with this kind of files
495 explicitly.
496 Beside internal configuration, the following command-line options are
498 stored within the pdfpc file for later usage:
499 · duration
502 · end_time
504 · last_minutes
506 · notes (position)
508 · start_time
510 There are, however, cases where you may want to edit this file manu‐
513 ally. The most typical case is if you add or remove some slides after
514 you have edited notes or defined overlays. It may be quicker to edit
515 the pdfpc file than to re-enter the whole information.
516 There is also the possibility of including notes from a different file.
519 If pdfpc encounters a [notes_include] section with the .pdfpc file it
520 reads the notes only from the included file. Changing notes within
521 pdfpc is then forbidden.
522 The files are plain-text files that should be fairly self-explanatory.
525 A couple of things to note:
526 · The slide numbers of the notes refer to user slides
528 · Slide indexes start at 1
530 Appearance
533 With GTK3 it is possible to modify the appearance of pdfpc. There are
534 two locations where pdfpc is looking for files. The default location is
535 /usr/share/pixmaps/pdfpc/pdfpc.css. It can be copied to $XDG_CON‐
536 FIG_HOME/pdfpc/pdfpc.css and modified to the user's liking.
537 Desktop integration
540 Pdfpc provides a DBus interface that appears on the session bus as
541 io.github.pdfpc. Other applications can, in particular, execute any
542 action listed by --list-actions. It is also possible to control pdfpc
543 from the command line (and write shell scripts) using the dbus-send(1)
544 utility. For example, to advance to the next slide, run
545 dbus-send --type=method_call --session --dest=io.github.pdfpc
547 /io/github/pdfpc io.github.pdfpc.TriggerAction string:next
548 In addition to the TriggerAction method, the pdfpc DBus interface
550 exposes the GetNotes method, three properties (NumberOfOverlays, Num‐
551 berOfSlides, Url) and two signals (OverlayChange and SlideChange).
552
555 Bugs can be reported at our issue tracker ⟨https://github.com/pdfpc/
556 pdfpc/issues⟩.
557 The LaTeX package "hyperref" produces buggy results when using with
560 beamer notes. It is recommended to use the "multimedia" package
561 instead.
562
565 pdfpc was previously developed by davvil ⟨https://github.com/davvil/
566 pdfpc⟩.
567 pdfpc is a fork of Pdf Presenter Console, available online ⟨https://
569 github.com/jakobwesthoff/Pdf-Presenter-Console⟩.
570
573 pdfpcrc(5)
574 There are several other programs with similar functionality.
576 impressive(1) has nice transition effects.
578 hpdfp(1) is the Haskell PDF Presenter ⟨http://michaeldadams.org/
580 projects/haskell-pdf-presenter/⟩ program, which packs an amazing level
581 of functionality into not many lines of Haskell.
582 pympress(1) is a little PDF reader written in Python ⟨https://
584 github.com/Cimbali/pympress⟩ which handles dual screens and beamer
585 notes.
586 dspdfviewer(1) is also specialized for beamer-produced wide PDF with
588 notes.
589 Many PDF viewers have full-screen presentation modes, but without dual-
591 monitor preview or notes or a timer. These include zathura(1),
592 evince(1), and okular(1).
593 PDFPC(1)