HMC Homepage      CS Home

Prosper

Prosper is a LaTeX class for creating visually-appealing presentations in LaTeX.  Files of the prosper class can be translated into Adobe© Postscript format for transparencies and Adobe© Portable Document Format (PDF) for display in Adobe© Acrobat Reader on a personal computer.

Getting Started

To make a LaTeX file with the prosper class, on the document class line type:

\documentclass[ options ]{prosper}

If you plan to translate your LaTeX file to pdf format, type pdf in the options.  If you plan to translate to postscript, type ps. If you type nothing LaTeX will automatically create a file to be translated to postscript.

Additional options:

  • slideColor: Slides use color. (Use with caution if slide is to be printed on a black & white device)
  • slideBW: Slides use a restricted set of colors.  This is the default option.
  • nocolorBG: The background of the slide is white whatever the style may be.
  • colorBG: The color of the background depends on the current style.  This is the default option.
Some important preamble macros for prosper are:

  • \title{ Title of Presentation } Defines the title of the presentation.  If the slideCaption macro is not used, this title will appear at the bottom of each slide.  This macro is necessary for your prosper class.
  • \author{ Names of the Authors } Defines the authors of the presentation. This macro is also necessary.
  • \slideCaption{ caption text } This caption will be displayed at the bottom of every slide.
  • \DefaultTransition{ Transition } Defines the default transition mode between slides.  (go here for a list of transitions) If you don't use this macro the default transition will be set to Replace.

Making Your Presentation

Once you have opened your LaTeX file and written the preamble and documentclass commands, you should use the \begin{document} command to begin your document just as you would in a normal LaTeX file.  Now, however, your document will consists of slides, so each slide must begin with the command:

    \begin{slide}[transition]{ slide title }

and end with the command:

    \end{slide}

Here, slide title is the title of the slide.  Transition is only used when slides are to be displayed in pdf format from a computer because it declares the animation you would like to use to bring the slide up.  If no transition is declared, the slide will use the default transition declared in the preamble.  Other available transitions are:

You can also create overlays using prosper.  Overlays can be used to animate pdf presentations and to display information incrementally on normal transparencies.  To create an overlay, imbed a slide into the \overlays macro like this:

\overlays{n}{
\begin{slide}{...}
...
\end{slide}}

Where the first argument {n} is the number of steps involved in the animation. Some macros that you can use to control the material presented in each slide of an overlay are:

  • \fromSlide{p}{mat}  Puts mat on every slide from p to n.
  • \untilSlide{p}{mat}  Puts mat on every slide from slide 1 to p.
  • \onlySlide{p}{mat}  Puts mat on slide p only.
  • \FromSlide{p}  Puts all the material after the macro on every slide after p.
  • \UntilSlide{p}  Puts all the material after the macro on every slide from 1 to p.
  • \OnlySlide{p}  Puts all the material after the macro only on slide p.

If you plan on using the macros \fromSlide, \untilSlide, or \onlySlide, to replace material between slides you must add an asterisk before the first argument and a percent sign after the last argument.  For example:

\onlySlide*{1}{\includegraphics{example-1.eps}}%
\onlySlide*{2}{\includegraphics{example-2.eps}}%
\onlySlide*{3}{\includegraphics{example-3.eps}}%

This code would put example-1.eps on the first slide, would then replace it with example-2.eps on the second slide, and then replace it again with example-3.eps on the third slide.  Note that the percent signs at the end of each line prevent LaTeX from inserting spaces - due to carriage returns - that would cause a slight displacement between the graphics of your slides

If you want the material that gets put on a slide to depend on the mode (pdf or ps) you can use these macros:

  • \PDForPS{ifPDF}{ifPS} Interprets material ifPDF if the chosen mode is pdf and ifPS if the mode is ps.
  • \onlyInPDF{mat} Interprets materials mat only if the chosen mode is pdf.
  • \onlyInPS{mat} Interprets materials mat only if the chosen mode is ps.

To summarize, one possible sample of code for an overlay could be:

\overlays{3}{%
\begin{slide}{Example}
\onlySlide*{1}{\includegraphics{example-1.eps}}%
\onlySlide*{2}{\includegraphics{example-2.eps}}%
\onlySlide*{3}{\includegraphics{example-3.eps}}%
\onlyInPS{\includegraphics{example.eps}}%
\end{slide}

In pdf format this slide will be displayed in three steps with three different figures.  In ps format there will be only one slide with the figure example.eps.

Translating Your File

Once you have created a prosper file if you want to translate it to pdf format, rather that typesetting it with latex, typeset your file using the command:

% prosper document.tex

If you want to use the file to print transparencies, use dvips in the same manner that you would for a normal LaTeX document.

For more information on the prosper class, see the prosper webpage at http://prosper.sourceforge.net


Copyright (c) HMC Computer Science Department. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled ``GNU Free Documentation License.''

HMC Computer Science Department
Contact Information
Last Modified Wednesday, 06-Mar-2002 19:11:09 PST