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I have a presentation as PDF file, but might want to do simple annotations during the talk and I want to have a presenter console. On the one hand there is Libre Office Impress that has all tools (pen and presenter console), but cannot import PDFs (as far as I could find out).

On the other hand there is the pdf-presenter-console, that is a very nice console (like the one from Impress) and can work with PDFs, but has no stylus/pen option. And there is Xournal, that has full annotation opportunities, but is not so suitable for a presentation.

My question is, do you either know how to import a PDF in Impress, or can you recommend another tool that fulfils my request?

guntbert
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benni
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3 Answers3

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How to annotate a PDF

sudo apt-get install okular

Open the PDF with Okular, press Review, then go to Settings → Full Screen Mode (or ctrl + shift + F). You can close full screen mode by pressing the combination again, but in case you can't remember it: Press alt to open the HUD, type "exit", and press enter.

You might want to define different free hand pencils in the settings. (I have no idea how well they work with a stylus since I don't have one, but there is still the other option using LibreOffice.)

How to import PDFs into LibreOffice Impress

Open any LibreOffice Module or the LibreOffice starter and choose File → Open. Select the PDF. LibreOffice Draw will open. Select any slide on the left and press ctrl + A to select all of them. Copy them, open up LibreOffice Impress, and paste them in the slide panel there. Start your presentation by choosing Slide Show → Start From First Slide or pressing F5.

UTF-8
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  • I tried your answers so far

    I think the PDF import in LibreOffice is not satisfying, as a lot of formations where not imported correctly. How ever it is good to know that one could copy the slides from Draw to Impress. That was new to me. Do you know a way to enhance import methods?

     – benni Oct 19 '15 at 15:23
  • No, sorry. Well, technically you could convert the PDF to images and then import those. However, this is a bad solution since the text isn't searchable anymore and you can't change anything easily. Have you tried the other approach or getting your presentations in a different format? – UTF-8 Oct 19 '15 at 20:39
  • Thank you! From my point of view this is an option! 1st one should not change the presentation in the last minute anyway, 2nd one has the possibility to include gifs and videos, but also to use the plain structure of latex, 3rd it fulfills my needs. A good approach for a fast work flow (on linux) maybe unsing convert of imagemagick: convert -density 400 praesentation2~.pdf -scale 2000x1000 praesentation.png. Than using the slideshow tool of Impress via Insert -> Picture -> PhotoAlbum. Note that PhotoAlbum is an extension that you might have to install. – benni Oct 20 '15 at 08:38
  • Okular is good. ALthough the stylus (using the one provided with the thinkpad L13 on Ubuntu 20) is not great. All the lines/annotations drawn using it, get distorted and thickened for no reason :/ – Pe Dro Aug 26 '20 at 11:11
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You could use xournal. (sudo apt-get install xournal) It can open a pdf as background and you can write, paint, mark and annotate.

Uwe Burger
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    Xournal now supports annotating PDFs directly. Check in the File menu. It seems that you need to "Export as PDF" after you're done annotating as the default save menu still saves in the Xournal format. – Hovis Jun 30 '17 at 18:29
  • old but gold? PDF Export was introduced 2006. Last update of xournal is from 2014 [ Source: http://xournal.sourceforge.net/manual.html#changelog ] – benni Jul 02 '17 at 09:16
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    yes, but it doesn't have any "presentation mode" splitting controls/presentation content over two separate screens. My main concern is that the actual slide content that is shown than is reduced to a smaller visible area, as an important fraction of the screen is devoted to show the controls. – Antonello Sep 26 '17 at 07:53
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Try PDF Studio. It is not free but it is safe and very easy to use. it also has a trial version that you can download to try it out.

tripleee
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Jason
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