xenial (1) impressive.1.gz

Provided by: impressive_0.11.1-1_all bug

NAME

       Impressive - presentation tool with eye candy

SYNOPSIS

       impressive [OPTIONS...] FILES...

DESCRIPTION

       Impressive  is a simple presentation program that displays slideshows of image files (JPEG, PNG, TIFF and
       BMP) or PDF documents. Rendering is done via OpenGL, which allows for some "eye candy" effects.

       A somewhat-modern GPU (graphics processing unit) supporting OpenGL 2.0 or OpenGL ES 2.0  and  appropriate
       drivers is required to run Impressive.

OPTIONS

       -a <seconds> or --auto <seconds>
              Automatically  advance  to  the  next page after the given number of seconds. Together with the -w
              option (described below), this can be used to create automatic slideshows.

       -A <X>:<Y> or --aspect <X>:<Y>
              Specifies the display aspect ratio. Normally, Impressive assumes that the pixel  aspect  ratio  is
              1:1  (square  pixels),  regardless of the display resolution that has been set up. If a resolution
              has been selected that doesn't match the display's aspect ratio, the screen will be distorted.  To
              overcome  this,  this  option  may  be used to manually specify the display aspect ratio, e.g. "-A
              16:9". Note that this option has no effect if the MuPDF backend is used for rendering.

       -b or --noback
              Disables background rendering. By default, Impressive will pre-render  all  pages  in  a  separate
              background thread while the presentation runs. If this option is specified, it will instead render
              all pages immediately on startup. This option has no effect if caching is disabled (--cache  none,
              see below).

       -B <ms> or --boxfade <ms>
              Sets  the  duration  (in  milliseconds)  of  the highlight box fade-in/fade-out animation. Default
              value: 100 ms.

       -c <mode> or --cache <mode>
              Specifies the page cache mode to use. Valid options are:
              none
                     Disables page caching altogether, only the current and the following page will be  kept  in
                     RAM.  Jumping  between  pages will be very slow, because Impressive will need to render the
                     requested pages on the fly. In addition, the overview page won't be  complete  until  every
                     page has been shown at least once.
              memory
                     Caches  all  page  images in memory. This is the fastest method, but it requires very large
                     amounts of memory (about 3 MiB per page at 1024x768 resolution).
              compressed or z
                     Caches all page images in memory as well, but in compressed form. This  will  be  a  little
                     slower than memory mode, but on pages with uniform backgrounds, this will easily reduce the
                     required amount of RAM by a factor of 20.
              disk
                     Like memory, but uses a temporary file rather than memory for storage. This is the default.
              persistent
                     Uses a permanent cache file for caching. This file will  not  be  deleted  when  Impressive
                     quits  and will be reused on subsequent invocations. The default name for the cache file is
                     derived like the names for Info Scripts (see below for an explanation), but with  a  .cache
                     file  name  extension  instead of .info. This method is a little bit slower than disk mode,
                     but the time span until  the  overview  page  is  fully  populated  will  be  significantly
                     decreased if Impressive is ran again with the same input files and options.
              The  mode  name  may  be  abbreviated at will, down to one character. Thus, --cache persistent, -c
              persist and even -cp are all synonyms.

       -C <filename>[:<X>,<Y>] or --cursor <filename>[:<X>,<Y>]
              This option can be used to specify an image that shall  be  used  as  a  (software)  mouse  cursor
              instead  of  the  normal  (hardware)  one.  It  can either be a name of an image file (typically a
              transparent .png) or one of the special values "-" (dash) or "default", both  of  which  select  a
              built-in  cursor  image.  On  platforms that do not support a hardware cursor, this default cursor
              will also be used as a default if this option is not used.
              If the name of an external file is specified, the position of the hotspot (the  pixel  inside  the
              cursor where the actual mouse position is located) can be specified as well, for example: --cursor
              mycursor.png:2,4.

       --clock
              If this option is enabled, the current time will be shown instead of  the  elapsed  time  if  time
              display is activated (with the T key in the default control configuration). Compatible with the -M
              option.

       --control-help
              This option will output a short help screen of how the control configuration (keyboard  and  mouse
              bindings)  work,  along with a list of all recognized events and actions and a dump of the current
              bindings (which is the default configuration  if  no  other  -e/--bind  or  -E/--controls  options
              precede this option). After that, Impressive will exit; no presentation will be started.

       -d <time> or --duration <time>
              Specifies  the expected run time of the presentation. The time parameter can be either a number of
              seconds or a human-readable time like 1:23 (1 minute and  23  seconds),  4:56h  (4  hours  and  56
              minutes),  3m45s  (3 minutes and 45 seconds), 5m (5 minutes) or 1:23:45 (1 hour, 23 minutes and 45
              seconds).
              If an expected duration is specified, Impressive will show a semi-transparent green  progress  bar
              at  the  lower edge of the screen, indicating how much time has already passed. If the time is up,
              the bar will occupy the whole edge and fade to yellow (at 125% of the expected time)  to  red  (at
              150% or more).

       -D <ms> or --mousedelay <ms>
              Sets  the  time (in milliseconds) the mouse cursor is shown in fullscreen mode if it is not moved.
              There are two special values: 0 (zero) shows the  mouse  cursor  permanently,  1  (one)  hides  it
              completely. The default value is 3000 ms.

       --darkness <percentage>
              Specifies  how  much  the screen shall become darker when using highlight boxes or spotlight mode.
              The value is specified in percent, with 25 being the default.  A  value  of  zero  would  mean  no
              darkening  at  all  (the  screen  would  just be blurred slightly, and desaturated if the graphics
              hardware supports it), and a value of 100 would make everything but the highlighted parts  of  the
              screen black.

       -e <bindings> or --bind <bindings>
              Configures  keyboard  or  mouse  bindings.  For  the  syntax of the argument, refer to the Control
              Configuration section of the manual.

       -E <filename> or --controls <filename>
              Loads a configuration file for keyboard and mouse bindings. For the syntax of these  files,  refer
              to the Control Configuration section of the manual.

       --evtest
              If  this  option  is specified, Impressive will not start a normal presentation, but instead enter
              the so-called "Event Test Mode" after the display has been initialized. In this  mode,  Impressive
              will  simply  capture  all keyboard and mouse events and display the name of the last event on the
              screen. In addition, events will be logged to standard output. This mode  helps  with  determining
              the  event  names  for  each  key  when  creating  a custom control configuration (see the Control
              Configuration section).

       -f
              Sets the window/fullscreen mode Impressive shall start up  with.  This  option  can  be  specified
              multiple times; each times it is found, the next of the three options is selected, in the follwing
              order: (1.)True fullscreen mode, including setting the video  mode.  This  is  the  default  mode.
              (2.)Windowed  mode,  where Impressive runs in a standard window. (3.)"Fake-fullscreen" mode, where
              fullscreen is emulated by uding a window without border that fills the whole screen.  Setting  the
              display  resolution  is  not  possible  in this mode. Each of these modes has a corresponding long
              option that enables it directly (--fullscreen, --windowed and --fake-fullscreen).

       --fullscreen
              Starts Impressive in fullscreen mode (the default). See  the  discussion  of  the  -f  option  for
              details.

       --fake-fullscreen
              Starts Impressive in "fake fullscreen" mode. See the discussion of the -f option for details.

       -F <file> or --font <file>
              Impressive  uses some kind of text OSD to overlay the current page number and title (if available)
              on the overview page. This option can be used to specify a TrueType font file (.ttf)  to  use  for
              the  OSD. If the path specified doesn't directly point to a useable font file, Impressive will try
              to search the system font directories.  It assumes that all fonts  are  stored  below  /usr/share/
              fonts,  /usr/local/share/fonts or /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF for this purpose (the latter one is
              useful for Mac OS X systems specifically). If this option is not specified, any of  DejaVuSans.ttf
              or Vera.ttf (the typical file name of Bitstream Vera Sans) will be used as a default.

       -g <width>x<height>[+<posX>+<posY>] or --geometry <width>x<height>[+<posX>+<posY>]
              Sets  the screen size or resolution Impressive shall use (in pixels).  If xrandr is installed, the
              default screen size for fullscreen mode is the current  screen  resolution;  on  other  platforms,
              Impressive  uses the highest resolution available to the graphics system. If a standard resolution
              cannot be determined, the default is 1024x768 pixels. This is also the default for windowed mode.
              Furthermore, if the additional parameters posX and posY are present, they specify the position  of
              the upper-left corner of the window (relative to the upper-left corner of the desktop), in pixels,
              for windowed and fake-fullscreen mode. The values are ignored in "true" fullscreen mode.

       -G <gamma>[:<blacklevel>] or --gamma <gamma>[:<blacklevel>]
              Sets up the startup gamma and (optional) black level  value.  The  black  level  is  the  original
              image's  intensity level (0...254) that is to be mapped to black in Impressive's output. Note that
              gamma and black level adjustments may be unavailable or constrained on some systems.

       -h or --help
              If this option is specified, Impressive writes a short command line help screen to standard output
              and does not start a presentation.

       -H or --half-screen
              This  option  makes  Impressive  show  the overview page and OSD elements on the right half of the
              screen only. The overview page will only show the left half of the slides  as  previews.  Using  a
              multi-monitor  setup  with a wide virtual screen and specially crafted slides (e.g. those that can
              be generated with LaTeX's beamer class), this makes it possible to have presenter's notes  on  the
              second screen.
              Note  that transitions and animations are still operating on the whole screen, making some of them
              (like PagePeel) look ugly. Impressive also disables the overview  zoom  animation  in  half-screen
              mode;  it  can  be  re-enabled by explicitly setting it to another value with a later command line
              option (--zoomtime).
              Another limitation is that the allocation of the screen halves (slides left,  overview  right)  is
              fixed.

       -i <page> or --initialpage <page>
              Specifies  the  page  number to start with. The default value is 1 (start with the first page). If
              another value is specified, the page shown by Impressive right after  initialization  is  not  the
              first  one  of  the PDF or image list. Additionally, pre-rendering (if enabled) will also start at
              the specified page.

       -I <filename> or --script <filename>
              Overrides automatic derivation of the info script filename and specifies a script file directly.

       --invert
              This option makes Impressive  invert  the  colors  of  each  page,  turning  black  to  white  and
              vice-versa.  Note  that  it  is  a full RGB inversion, so it will, for example, turn dark green to
              light purple (and vice-versa) too.

       -k or --auto-progress
              This option makes Impressive show a progress bar at the bottom  of  the  screen,  visualizing  the
              timeout  on  pages  that  have  one  (either  specified  as  a  page  property or using the --auto
              command-line option). Nothing is done on pages that don't have a timeout.
              The progress bar shown by this option takes precedence  over  the  --duration  or  --page-progress
              bars:  If  one  of  these  options is specified as well, the timeout progress bar will be shown on
              pages with a timeout, and the other progress bar will be shown on pages without one.

       -l or --listtrans
              If this option is specified, Impressive writes a list  of  all  available  transition  classes  to
              standard  output  and  does  not start a presentation. Transitions that are enabled by default are
              marked with a star (*) left of the class name.

       -L <spec> or --layout <spec>
              Specifies the OSD layout. Read below for an explanation of this option

       --min-box-size <pixels>
              This option sets the minimum size of a highlight box, in pixels. Boxes  that  are  not  this  many
              pixels  wide and high are rejected in order to prevent accidental creation of highlight boxes. The
              default value for this is 30 pixels.

       -M or --minutes
              If this option is set, Impressive will show the on-screen timer (activated with the [T] key)  only
              with 1 minute resolution. By default, it will show a timer with 1 second resolution.

       --noblur
              By  default,  Impressive uses a fragment shader to blur and desaturate the image when in highlight
              box or spotlight mode. This is usually the faster and nicer-looking method; however, some very old
              hardware  implementations  can't  deal with that shader and fall back to an unusably slow software
              implementation. Impressive tries to detect scenarios where this  would  happen  and  automatically
              falls back to a different implementation.
              There   might  be  situations  where  this  machanism  fails  and  Impressive  tries  to  use  the
              non-functional shader anyway. In these cases, the --noblur option  can  be  used  to  enforce  the
              fallback implementation.

       --noclicks
              If  this  option  is enabled, switching to the previous or next page with the left and right mouse
              buttons is deactivated. The keyboard shortcuts are unaffected from this.
              Note that this option only works as intended when the default controls are used. If the  -e/--bind
              or -E/--controls options have been used, --noclicks might not have the intended effect.

       --nologo
              This  option  disables the Impressive logo and version number display. Instead, the loading screen
              will be just black or, if background rendering is disabled, only the progress bar will be visible.

       -o <directory> or --output <directory>
              Do not display the presentation, but render it into  a  series  of  PNG  image  files  inside  the
              specified directory. The images will be generated in the current resolution as specified by the -g
              option. This option is useful if the presentation is to be given on on a foreign PC with  an  old,
              broken  or  otherwise  problematic Xpdf installation: By generating images of the PDF pages, is is
              made sure that no rendering bugs will happen on the target system.

       -O <mode> or --autooverview <mode>
              Enables or disables automatic derivation of whether a page shall or shall  not  be  shown  on  the
              overview  page.  This  feature  is based on the fact that some LaTeX presentation packages tag all
              pages with a title (that can be read by Impressive with the help  of  pdftk),  except  those  that
              contain multiple reveal steps.
              The following modes are available:
              off
                     Disables  automatic overview mode. All pages will be shown on the overview page by default.
                     This is also the default setting.
              first
                     All pages with a PDF title will be shown on the overview page. The purpose is to  show  the
                     initial state of multi-step slides on the overview page.
              last
                     All pages before a page with a PDF title will be shown on the overview page. The purpose is
                     to show the final state of multi-step slides on the overview page.
              Again, the mode may be abbreviated arbitrarily, down to one  character,  just  like  with  the  -c
              option above..

       -p <start>-<end> or --pages <start>-<end>
              Using  this  option,  the  range of the page displayed can be narrowed down. The presentation will
              start at the first page in the range. All pages outside of the range will  not  be  shown  on  the
              overview  page  and will not be cached. However, they can be entered manually when cycling through
              the presentation. Due to the fact that these pages are uncached, preparation of the  display  will
              take considerably longer.

       -P <path> or --gspath <path>
              This  option  can  be used to override the Xpdf / GhostScript path autodetection. The full path to
              the executable of either GhostScript (gs or gs.exe) or Xpdf's pdftoppm utility must be specified.

       -q or --page-progress
              If this option is enabled, Impressive will show a light-blue semi-transparent progress bar at  the
              lower  edge  of  the  screen  that  shows  the position inside the presentation, i.e. the relation
              between the current page number and the total number of pages. Note that this  progress  bar  will
              not be shown if the duration progress bar (-d option) is also enabled.

       -Q or --autoquit
              If  this  option  is specified, Impressive quits automatically when trying to navigate to the page
              after the last page or the page before the first page.
              This option does not have any effect if --wrap is used.

       -r <n> or --rotate <n>
              Display all pages rotated by nx90 degrees clockwise. Try -r 1 or -r 3 if there are  problems  with
              PDFs generated by LaTeX on some Xpdf or GhostScript versions.

       -s or --scale (image input only)
              If  a  directory with image files is used as input, Impressive will scale down images that are too
              big for the screen. But by default, it will not scale up smaller images to fit the screen; it will
              leave  a black border instead. This option overrides this setting and enables upscaling of smaller
              images.

       -s or --supersample (PDF input only)
              This switch enables antialiasing by 4x supersampling instead of the  normal  multisampling  method
              used  by  Xpdf or GhostScript. While this usually degrades both visual quality and performance, it
              may be necessary for circumventing white strips or moire-like patterns in gradients.

       -S <pixels> or --fontsize <pixels>
              This option sets the size, in pixels, of the OSD font. The default value is 14.

       --spot-radius <pixels>
              This option sets the initial radius of the spotlight, in pixels. The default value is 64.

       -t <ms> or --transition <trans1[,trans2...]>
              Using this switch, the set of transitions Impressive will randomly draw at  page  changes  can  be
              specified.  If  only one transition class is specified, this class will be used for all pages that
              do not have another transition explicitly assigned in their page properties. Multiple  transitions
              have  to  be  separated by commas; they will be used in random order. The -l option can be used to
              get a list of available transitions.

       -T <ms> or --transtime <ms>
              Sets the duration (in milliseconds) of page transitions. 0 (zero) disables transitions altogether.
              Default value: 1000 ms.

       --tracking
              This  option  enables  time  tracking mode. In this mode, a report of all pages visited with their
              display duration, enter and leave times will be written to  standard  output.  This  can  be  very
              useful when preparing presentations.

       -u <seconds> or --poll <seconds>
              If  this  option is specified, the source file or directory will be checked for changes regularly.
              If a change in the input PDF file or any of the image  files  in  the  input  image  directory  is
              detected,  the  page cache will be flushed and the current page as well as the info script will be
              reloaded. The current page's transition will be shown between the old and the new version  of  the
              page.
              The  new  PDF  file must have at least as much pages as the old one; also, it should have the same
              aspect ratio. If the input is a directory, image files must not have disappeared.

       -v or --verbose
              This option makes Impressive more verbose, i.e. it will print slightly more informational messages
              than usual.

       -V <pixels> or --overscan <pixels>
              PDF  files  often  contain tiny amounts of white borders around the edges which look bad in screen
              presentations. To eliminate this problem, Impressive  uses  "overscan":  PDF  files  will  not  be
              rendered  to  fit  the  screen  size  exactly,  but they will be rendered a bit larger so that the
              (possibly broken) borders can be cropped off. The amount of overscan, in screen pixels, can be set
              with this option. The default value is 3 pixels, which should remove borders in most presentations
              at most common screen resolutions without cropping the pages too much.

       -w or --wrap
              If this option is set, Impressive will "wrap" over to the first page after the last page. In other
              words,  advancing  to  the  next  page  at  the  end  of  the  presentation will restart the whole
              presentation.

       -W or --nowheel
              By default, it is possible to change pages using  the  mouse  wheel.  This  option  disables  this
              behavior,  which can be useful to prevent spurious page changes if the mouse wheel is likely to be
              moved by accident.
              Note that this option only works as intended when the default controls are used. If the  -e/--bind
              or -E/--controls options have been used, --noclicks might not have the intended effect.

       --windowed
              Starts Impressive in windowed mode. See the discussion of the -f option for details.

       -x or --fade
              This option enables a smooth fade-in effect at the start of the presentation and a fade-out effect
              just before Impressive quits.

       -X or --shuffle
              If this option is enabled, the input files will be shuffled into random order before starting  the
              presentation.  The  individual pages of PDF input files will stay in their original order, though,
              so this option is mainly useful for image presentations.

       -y or --auto-auto
              This option can be used together with --duration to have Impressive compute  a  page  timeout  (as
              with  the  --auto  option)  automatically. This results in a presentation that runs automatically,
              displaying each slide for the same time, so that  the  desired  total  duration  will  be  reached
              (almost) exactly.

       -z <factor> or --zoom <factor>
              Sets  the  zoom  factor  that is used in zoom mode. It must be an integer value of at least 2. The
              default value is 2. Note that it might not be possible to get high-quality zooming for large  zoom
              factors   due  to  hardware  restrictions.  Also,  note  that  if  the  hardware  doesn't  support
              non-power-of-two textures or if the -e option is used, the number must be a power of two.

       -Z <ms> or --zoomtime <ms>
              Sets the duration (in milliseconds) of the overview page zoom-in/zoom-out effects. Default  value:
              250 ms.

       --cachefile <filename>
              Activates persistent cache mode and specifies the name of the cache file to use.

ARGUMENTS

       Following  the  options,  the  input file name(s) must be specified. Recognized file types are PDF, JPEG,
       PNG, TIFF, BMP and PGM/PPM. If the name of a directory is put on the command line, all  recognized  image
       files (no PDF files!) in this directory will be played in alphanumeric order (case-insensitive).

       In  addition, Impressive can use a text file containing a list of files or directories to show: This text
       file must contain at most one file name per line; every character after a hash sign (#) is treated  as  a
       comment  and will be ignored. If such a comment is put on the same line as an image file name, it will be
       used as the page's title. List file names must be prefixed with an at sign (@) on the command line,  e.g.
       impressive @my_list_file.

       Impressive  will  also expand wild-card characters (* and ?) if this isn't already done by the shell, but
       apart from that, it will not reorder the arguments. Thus,  it  will  show  the  documents  in  the  order
       specified at the command line.

    LAYOUT OPTIONS
       The  OSD layout option (-L/--layout) accepts a string with comma-separated key=value pairs. The following
       keywords are recognized:
       alpha
              The opacity of the OSD text, either as a floating-point value between 0  and  1  or  a  percentage
              between 2 and 100.
       margin
              The distance (in pixels) of the OSD text to the screen borders.
       time
              The position of the timer.
       title
              The position of the page title in overview mode.
       page
              The position of the page number in overview mode.
       status
              The position of the status line.
       The  position  specifications  are  composed  by  one  character that indicates whether the text shall be
       displayed at the top (T) or bottom (B) edge of the screen and one character  that  indicates  whether  it
       shall appear on the left (L), on the right (R) or centered (C).

       For example, the default OSD layout equals the following option string:
           -L margin=16,alpha=1,time=TR,title=BL,page=BR,status=TL

    EXAMPLES
       The  following  examples illustrate some typical command lines. They assume that Impressive can be run by
       simply typing "impressive" on the command line. Depending on how Impressive is installed, this has to  be
       substituted  with  the  actual  way to run Impressive (e.g. "python ~/impressive/impressive_dev.py" for a
       fresh SVN checkout). Furthermore, the file "demo.pdf" is used as the document  to  show  here;  obviously
       this has to be replaced by the path to the actual PDF file too.

       In  the  simplest  case,  Impressive  is  run  directly  with the name of the file to show and no further
       parameters. This will start a full-screen presentation with all settings at their defaults:
           impressive demo.pdf

       To just quickly check a slide deck, it might make sense to run Impressive  in  a  small  window  and  not
       full-screen. This can be done with something like
           impressive -f -g 800x600 demo.pdf

       Impressive  can also be used in digital signage scenarios, like displays in shop windows with a permanent
       slideshow. This can be achieved by having Impressive advance to  the  next  page  automatically  after  a
       specified time (e.g. 10 seconds) and re-start the presentation from the start after the last slide:
           impressive -a 10 -w demo.pdf

USAGE

       On  startup,  Impressive  will  display a black screen with the program logo at the center. If caching is
       enabled, but background rendering is disabled, all pages of the presentation will then be rendered  once.
       A  bar  in  the  lower half of the screen displays the progress of this operation. Any key or mouse click
       (except for those that quit Impressive, typically Q and Esc) skips this process,  with  the  effect  that
       Impressive  will  render  the  remaining  pages on demand. Please note that the overview page will not be
       complete until every page has been rendered at least once. In other words, if the precaching process  was
       skipped,  placeholders  will  be  displayed  for  all  pages that have not been rendered yet. By default,
       Impressive will build up the cache in the background while the presentation runs. Thus, the progress  bar
       will  not  appear  and the preparation will only take the amount of time required to render the first two
       pages of the presentation. After this initialization process, Impressive will switch to  the  first  page
       directly and without any transition.

DEFAULT CONTROLS

       The  keyboard  and  mouse  controls  used  by Impressive are configurable (with very few exceptions). The
       default controls are as follows:

       Esc key
              Return from the currently active special mode (zoom, overview, spotlight, highlight boxes); if  no
              such special mode is active, quit Impressive altogether.

       Q key or Alt+F4
              Quit Impressive immediately.

       LMB (left mouse button), mouse wheel down, Page Down key, Cursor Down key, Cursor Right key or Spacebar
              Go to the next page (using a transition).

       RMB (right mouse button), mouse wheel up, Page Up key, Cursor Up key, Cursor Left key or Backspace key
              Go to the previous page (using a transition).

       Home key / End key
              Go directly to the first or last page of the presentation.

       Ctrl key (modifier)
              If  one  of  the  page navigation keys (Page Up/Down, Cursor keys, Space, Backspace, Home, End) is
              pressed while the Ctrl key is held down, the destination page will be entered immediately, without
              a transition.

       L key
              Return  to  the  last  (most  recently  displayed) page. This can be used to toggle back and forth
              between two pages.

       F key
              Toggle fullscreen mode.

       Tab key
              Zoom back to the overview page. While in overview mode, a page can be selected with the mouse  and
              activated  with  the  left  mouse  button.  The  right or middle mouse button or the Tab key leave
              overview mode without changing the current page.

       MMB (middle mouse button)
              In normal display mode, this acts like the Tab key: it zooms back to the  overview  page.  If  the
              page is zoomed in, it will return to normal mode.

       LMB over a PDF hyperlink
              Jump  to  the  page referenced by the hyperlink. Two types of hyperlinks are supported: Links that
              point to some other page of the same document, and  URL  hyperlinks  like  Web  links  and  e-mail
              addresses.  This  feature  is only available if pdftk is installed. Furthermore, xdg-open from the
              freedesktop.org Portland project is required  for  URL  links  to  work.   Please  note  that  the
              hyperlink feature will not work properly when pages are rotated.

       click&drag with LMB (left mouse button)
              Create  a  new highlight box. While at least one highlight box is defined on the current page, the
              page itself will be shown in a  darker,  blurry  and  (if  supported  by  the  graphics  hardware)
              desaturated  rendition.  Only  the  highlight boxes will be displayed in their original lightness,
              sharpness and color saturation.
              If a page with highlight boxes is left, the boxes will be saved and restored the  next  time  this
              page is shown again.

       RMB (right mouse button) over a highlight box
              If the right mouse button is clicked while the mouse cursor is above a highlight box, the box will
              be removed. If the last box on a page is removed, the page will turn bright and sharp again.

       S key
              Save the info script associated with the current presentation. The main purpose  for  this  is  to
              permanently  save  highlight  boxes  or keyboard shortcuts, so they will be restored the next time
              this presentation is started.

       T key
              Activate or deactivate the time display at the upper-right corner of the screen. If the  timer  is
              activated while the very first page of the presentation is shown, it activates time tracking mode,
              just as if the command-line option --tracking had been specified.

       R key
              Reset the presentation timer.

       C key
              Removes ("clears") all highlight boxes from the current page.

       Return key or Enter key
              Toggle spotlight mode. In this mode, the page is darkened in the same way as  if  highlight  boxes
              are  present,  but  instead of (or in addition to) the boxes, a circular "spotlight" will be shown
              around the mouse cursor position, following every motion of the mouse cursor.

       + / - key, 9 / 0 key or mouse wheel in spotlight mode
              Adjust the spotlight radius.

       Ctrl+9 or Ctrl+0 keys
              Resets the spotlight radius to the default value, i.e. the value that  has  been  set  up  by  the
              radius page property, the --spot-radius command-line option or Impressive's built-in default.

       7 / 8 key
              Adjust the amount of darkening applied to the page in spotlight or highlight box mode.

       Ctrl+7 or Ctrl+8 keys
              Resets  the  amount of darkening in spotlight or highlight box mode to the default value, i.e. the
              value that has been set up by the darkness page property, the --darkness  command-line  option  or
              Impressive's built-in default.

       Z key
              Toggle  zoom mode. When this key is first pressed, the current page will zoom in. The page will be
              displayed at double size, but in its original resolution (i.e. it will be blurry). Impressive will
              re-render  the  page at the new resolution if the graphics hardware supports it. During this time,
              Impressive will not accept any input, so don't even think about clicking  the  mouse  or  pressing
              keys before the image gets crisp again.
              In zoom mode, all other functions will work as normal. Any operations that leave the current page,
              such as flipping the page or entering the overview screen, will leave zoom mode, too.

       [ / ] key
              Adjust the gamma value of the display (might not be supported on every hardware).

       { / } key
              Adjust the black level of the display (might not be supported on every hardware).

       \ key
              Revert gamma and black level back to normal.

       O key
              This will toggle the "visible on overview page" flag of the current page. The result will  not  be
              visible  immediately,  but  it  can  be  saved to the info script (using the S key) and will be in
              effect the next time the presentation is started.

       I key
              This will toggle the skip flag of the current page. A page marked as skipped will not be reachable
              with the normal forward/backward navigation keys.

       B / W key or . (dot) / , (comma) key
              Fade  to  black  or white, respectively. This feature can be used if a whiteboard or blackboard in
              front of the projection area is to be used during the presentation.  Using  these  two  keys,  the
              screen  will fade into a solid color. On any keypress or mouse click, it will fade back to normal.
              These keys are not available in overview mode.

       click&drag with RMB (right mouse button) in zoom mode
              Move the visible part of the page in zoom mode.

       Cursor keys in overview mode
              Navigate through pages.

       Alt+Tab keys
              If Impressive is in fullscreen mode, the window will be minimized so that other  applications  can
              be used.

       Any  alphanumeric  (A-z,  0-9)  or function key (F1-F12) that is not bound to a specific action mentioned
       above or configured by the user (see below) can be used to assign shortcuts to pages that  require  quick
       access.  If  one  of  the keys is pressed together with Shift, the currently displayed page is associated
       with this key. To recall the page later, it is sufficient to press the shortcut key again. Shortcuts  can
       be stored permanently with the S key.

CONTROL CONFIGURATION

       As already mentioned in the previous chapter, the keyboard and mouse bindings of Impressive can be widely
       configured. The only exceptions are the Alt+F4 and Alt+Tab key combinations  that  will  always  quit  or
       minimize  Impressive,  respectively.  For  everything  else, there is a versatile configuration system in
       place; the controls described in the previous section are merely the defaults.

       Impressive's control system works by associating events with actions. An event is a key on the  keyboard,
       a  mouse  button  or  a mouse wheel movement. An action is something that is performed by Impressive as a
       result of an event, like going to the next page, switching to overview mode or quitting the program.  The
       association  of  an  event  to an an action is called a binding. Multiple events can be bound to the same
       action (like the page down and space keys in the default setting, both of which go  to  the  next  page);
       furthermore,  multiple  actions can be bound to the same event. In fact, bindings do not associate events
       with single actions at all, but with chains of actions. Only the first action in the chain  that  matches
       (i.e.  makes sense in) the current context will be executed if the event fires; all other actions will be
       ignored. If no action matches, no action will be performed and the event will be ignored.

       One example of such an action chain is the default binding for the  left  mouse  button,  which  draws  a
       highlight  box  if  the mouse cursor moved, or visits a hyperlink if the mouse cursor hovers over one, or
       goes to the next page if none of the other conditions are met.

       Both events and actions have mnemonic names that are used in the command-line options  and  configuration
       files  used  for  setting up bindings. Event and actions names are generally case-insensitive, though the
       canonical notation is lowercase.
       If an event or action specified on the command line or in a  configuration  file  is  not  recognized  by
       Impressive,  an  error  message  will be written to the console and the offending event or action will be
       ignored. Errors in control configuration are thus always non-fatal.

    SUPPORTED EVENTS
       Keyboard events are generally named after the keys they refer to. Consequently, the events a to z  and  0
       to 9 mean the respective letter and number keys on the main keyboard, f1 to f12 are the function keys and
       kp0 to kp9 are the number keys on the numerical keypad. All of these are raw  scancodes,  which  has  two
       implications:  First,  the  key names are not internationalized and refer to the US keyboard layout (e.g.
       the Z key on a German or French keyboard will actually react to the event name y or w); second, modifiers
       will  be  ignored  as well (e.g. the numerical keypad will always generate the kpX scancodes, even if Num
       Lock is off).

       The mnemonic names for the other keyboard  events  are  as  follows  (in  alphabetic  order):  ampersand,
       asterisk,  at,  backquote, backslash, backspace, break, capslock, caret, clear, comma, down, end, escape,
       euro,  exclaim,  greater,  hash,  help,  home,  insert,  kp_divide,  kp_enter,   kp_equals,     kp_minus,
       kp_multiply, kp_plus, lalt, last, lctrl, left, leftbracket, leftparen, less, lmeta, lshift, lsuper, menu,
       minus, mode, numlock, pagedown, pageup, pause, period, plus, power,  print,  question,  quote,  quotedbl,
       ralt, rctrl, return, right, rightbracket, rightparen, rmeta, rshift, rsuper, scrollock, semicolon, slash,
       space, sysreq, tab, underscore, up. The events prefixed with kp_ refer to keys on the  numerical  keypad.
       Other than that, the names should be reasonably descriptive, so they will not be described futher at this
       point. Also note that not all keyboards and platforms support the full range  of  keys  defined  in  this
       list.

       Mouse event names are mapped as follows:

       lmb
              the left mouse button

       mmb
              the middle mouse button

       rmb
              the right mouse button

       wheelup
              scrolling the mouse wheel upwards

       wheeldown
              scrolling the mouse wheel downwards

       The  event  names can be prefixed with the three modifiers ctrl+, alt+ and shift+ to make the event valid
       only if the specified set of modifiers is pressed as well. This works for both keyboard and mouse events.
       Multiple  modifiers  can  be  combined, but the order must match the one mentioned in this paragraph. For
       example, ctrl+shift+x is a valid event name, while shift+ctrl+x is not.

       A simple way to determine the name associated with an event is using Impressive's "Event  Test  Mode"  by
       invoking  impressive  --evtest.  In  this  mode, the name of each incoming event will be displayed on the
       screen  (and  logged  to  standard  output),  which  makes  it  possible  to  determine  event  names  by
       experimentation.

    SUPPORTED ACTIONS
       The  following  list  describes  all  actions supported by Impressive, together with the conditions under
       which they will match. Note that most actions will not match in overview mode and during video  playback,
       unless mentioned otherwise in the description.

       box-add
              Draw  a  highlight  box  if  the mouse has been moved since the button has been pressed down. This
              action must only be bound to a mouse  button  event  without  modifiers,  otherwise  it  will  not
              function properly.

       box-clear
              Removes all boxes from the current page.

       box-remove
              Removes the highlight box under the mouse cursor, if there is any.

       fade-less, fade-more
              Decrease  or  increase the amount of darkening applied to the background in spotlight or highlight
              box mode.

       fade-reset
              Resets the background darkness in spotlight or highlight box mode to its default value.

       fade-to-black, fade-to-white
              Fades to a black or white screen. Once the screen is faded out, any event except  those  bound  to
              the quit action will just leave fade mode and not perform its assigned action.

       fullscreen
              Toggle fullscreen mode on platforms that support it.

       gamma-decrease, gamma-increase
              Decrease  or  increase  the  gamma level (i.e. roughly the brightness) of the display on platforms
              that support it.

       gamma-bl-decrease, gamma-bl-increase
              Decrease or increase the black level of the display on platforms that support it.

       gamma-reset
              Reset the gamma and black level settings to their defaults.

       goto-end, goto-end-notrans
              Go to the last page of the presentation, with or without a transition.

       goto-last, goto-last-notrans
              Go to the last (i.e. most recently) visited page, with or without a transition.

       goto-next, goto-next-notrans
              Go to the following page of the presentation, with or without a transition.

       goto-prev, goto-prev-notrans
              Go to the previous page of the presentation, with or without a transition.

       goto-start, goto-start-notrans
              Go to the first page of the presentation, with or without a transition.

       hyperlink, hyperlink-notrans
              Navigate to the hyperlink under the mouse cursor, if there is one. If the hyperlink is a reference
              to  another page of the presentation, this page will be activated with or without a transition. If
              the hyperlink refers to an external object (e.g.  an  URL),  it  will  be  opened  externally,  if
              supported by the system.

       overview-confirm
              When  in  overview mode, confirm the selection and leave overview mode, navigating to the selected
              page.

       overview-down, overview-up
              When in overview mode, select the page above or below the currently selected one in the grid.

       overview-enter
              When not in overview mode, zoom out of the current page, entering overview mode.

       overview-exit
              When in overview mode, leave overview mode, zooming back to  the  page  that  has  been  displayed
              before entering overview mode.

       overview-next, overview-prev
              When in overview mode, select the following or previous page.

       quit
              Quits Impressive immediately. This action is available in all modes.

       save
              Save or update the Info Script for the current presentation.

       spotlight-enter
              If spotlight mode is not active, enable spotlight mode.

       spotlight-exit
              If spotlight mode is active, deactivate spotlight mode.

       spotlight-grow, spotlight-shrink
              When in spotlight mode, increase or decrease the radius of the spotlight.

       spotlight-reset
              When in spotlight mode, reset the spotlight radius to the default value.

       time-reset
              Reset the presentation timer.

       time-toggle
              Toggle  on-screen  display  of  the  current  presentation time, or wall-clock time if the --clock
              option is used. If this is done at the start of the presentation, before the first page  has  been
              left, time tracking mode will be enabled, like the --tracking option would have done.

       toggle-overview
              This  toggles  the  "page  is visible on overview screen" flag for the current page. This will not
              have an immediate effect, but it can be saved to an Info Script.

       toggle-skip
              This toggles the "skip page when navigating with goto-prev and goto-next"  flag  for  the  current
              page.

       video-pause
              In video playback mode, this pauses or unpauses playback.

       video-seek-backward-10, video-seek-backward-1, video-seek-forward-1, video-seek-forward-10
              In video playback mode, seek forward or backward by 1 or 10 seconds.

       video-step
              In video playback mode, if playback is paused, advance one frame in the video.

       video-stop
              In video playback mode, stop playback and return to normal page display mode.

       zoom-enter
              If not in zoom mode, enter zoom mode.

       zoom-exit
              If in zoom mode, leave zoom mode.

       zoom-pan
              When  in  zoom mode, the visible area of the page can be moved around with the mouse while the key
              or mouse button of the associated event is held down.

    BINDING SYNTAX
       The arguments of the -e/--bind command-line option have the following basic syntax:
           <event> [,<event2>...] <operator> <action> [,<action2>...]
       In other words, it is a sequence of event names joined with commas, followed by an operator  (see  below)
       and  a sequence of action names joined with commas. Multiple such binding statements can be combined into
       one argument by joining them with a semicolon (;).

       The used operator defines in which way the action list  shall  modify  the  bindings  of  the  referenced
       events:

       = (equals sign), += (plus sign and equals sign)
              The  specified  actions  will  be  added  to the bindings of the specified events. In other words,
              event=action1,action2 does exactly the same as event=action1; event=action2.

       := (colon and equals sign)
              The specified actions will replace the bindings of the specified events.

       -= (minus sign and equals sign)
              The specified actions will be removed from the bindings of the specified events. For  example,  to
              make  the  Esc  key  in the default bindings not clear highlight boxes, but otherwise preserve its
              original functionality, escape -= box-clear can be used.

       Other than bindings, a statement can also contain one of the following special commands:

       clearall
              Clears all current bindings.

       defaults
              Discards all current bindings and (re-)establishes the default bindings.

       include <filename>
              Loads and executes a control configuration file with a specified name.

       The syntax for the configuration files used with the -E/--controls option or include statement is exactly
       the  same  as  for  the  ad-hoc  configuration  option, except that individual bindings can be written on
       individual lines instead of joining them together to a single long line  with  semicolons.  In  addition,
       everything following a hash sign (#) on a line will be ignored as a comment.

       One practical example for such a configuration file can be the following: The author of this program uses
       a cheap presentation remote control device that has four cursor keys, one "enter" key and a  slider  that
       switches between keyboard and mouse mode. Mouse mode works as expected, but what it does in keyboard mode
       is quite peculiar: the up and down keys act like Page-Up and Page-Down keys  on  a  keyboard,  the  right
       arrow  key sends the letter B to the computer, and the left key toggles between Esc and F5 each time it's
       pressed. The following configuration file allows basic navigation and access to overview mode  with  this
       device:

             clearall  # don't use the default bindings
             lmb = quit  # quit Impressive by clicking in mouse mode
             # everything else uses keyboard mode:
             return = overview-enter, overview-confirm  # toggle overview mode
             escape, f5 = overview-prev, goto-prev
             b = overview-next, goto-next
             pageup = overview-up, goto-prev
             pagedown = overview-down, goto-next

       To get a better idea of how the control configuration system works in practice, it's recommended to study
       the output of impressive --control-help - this not only gives  a  concise  overview  of  all  events  and
       actions,  but  also a full dump of Impressive's default bindings that can be used as a starting point for
       own customizations.

INFO SCRIPTS

       Impressive offers a powerful way to customize individual presentations using so-called info  scripts.  An
       info  script  is  a  text file having the same name and located in the same directory as the presentation
       file itself, except for the additional suffix .info. Thus, a presentation file called BrandNewProduct.pdf
       would  have a info script with the name BrandNewProduct.pdf.info. If multiple arguments were specified on
       the command line, the info script will be called just .info (a dot file, so to  speak).  If  a  directory
       name  was  specified as the only argument, either a file called DirectoryName.info or a file called .info
       inside the directory will be used, depending on whether a path separator was specified at the end of  the
       directory name or not - Impressive simply appends .info to whatever the input path name was.
       In any case, the default file name can be overridden by the -I command line option.

       Info  scripts  are  actually  Python  scripts with full access to Impressive's global data structures and
       functions. (It is possible to write real interactive applications using info  scripts.)  Thus,  they  can
       modify a broad range of settings concerning Impressive. This manual will only cover the most basic ones.

    PAGE PROPERTIES
       The  main  part  of  an  info  script  defines  the properties of each page. At the moment, the following
       properties are defined:

       title
              Each page can have a title that is displayed in the Impressive window's title bar. If there is  no
              title  explicitly  specified  in the info script, the title of the page will be extracted from PDF
              metadata if pdftk is installed, or the image file name will be used  if  the  presentation  is  an
              image slideshow.

       transition
              With  this  property,  the  transition  class to be used for rendering the transition to this page
              (i.e. between the previous page and this page) can be specified. For pages lacking this  property,
              random  transitions  will  be  chosen. A list of available transition classes can be obtained with
              impressive -l.

       transtime
              This property overrides the global transition time parameter (-T at the command line). It contains
              the integer time (in milliseconds) the transition to this page shall take.

       overview
              This  property  holds a boolean value (0/False or 1/True) that specifies whether the page shall be
              included in the overview page. If this property isn't specified, it is assumed to be True.

       skip
              This boolean property can be set to 1/True if the page shall be skipped during the presentation.
              Pages with overview:True, skip:False will be accessible both by  cycling  through  the  pages  and
              using the overview page,
              pages  with overview:True, skip:True will be silently skipped in the normal page cycle, but remain
              accessible from the overview page,
              pages with overview:False, skip:False will appear in the normal cycle, but  not  on  the  overview
              page
              and pages with overview:False, skip:True will not be accessible at all.

       boxes
              This  property stores a list of highlight box coordinates. Normally, there is no need to edit this
              by hand, as Impressive handles this automatically if the S key is pressed.

       timeout
              If a timeout property is present and the page is shown, Impressive will  automatically  switch  to
              the  next  page  after  the  specified  number of milliseconds. Normally, the timeout will only be
              effective the first time the page is shown unless wrap mode is used  (command-line  option  -w  or
              --wrap).  This  restriction makes it possible to create self-running presentations with individual
              per-page timeouts.

       radius
              This property takes an integer value that, if defined, will be used to set a new spotlight  radius
              every time the page is entered. This overrides the current setting as defined by the --spot-radius
              command line option or run-time adjustments. Note that the value is not reset to the default value
              after the page has been left again.

       darkness
              This  property  takes an integer or floating-point percentage value that, if defined, will be used
              to set the background darkness in spotlight or highlight box mode each time the page  is  entered.
              This  overrides  the  current setting as defined by the --darkness command line option or run-time
              adjustments. Note that the value is not reset to the default value after the page  has  been  left
              again.

       comment
              This  property can hold a string with a single line of text that will be displayed on screen while
              the page is shown. Display of this text can not be disabled.

       sound
              Specifies the file name of a sound file to be played (via MPlayer) when the page is first entered.
              Once started, the sound will be played until its end is reached, another sound or video is played,
              or Impressive is exited.

       video
              Specifies the file name of a video file to be played when the page is  first  entered.  The  video
              will  be  displayed  full-screen.  Any  key or mouse click stops playback, except the cursor keys,
              which are used to seek in the video file, and space, which can be used  to  pause  playback.  Note
              that this function is highly experimental and might not work reliably on every system!

       always
              If  this  property is present and set to 1 or True, the media file specified in the sound or video
              properties will be played every time the page is entered, not just the first time.

       progress
              If this property is set to zero, the presentation progress bar (which is usually set up  with  the
              -d/--duration command line switch) will not be shown on this page. In practice, it might be useful
              to hide the bar from the first page so that it is not visible during the introduction.

       reset
              If this property is set to 1 or True, the timer will be reset each time this page is left, just as
              if  the  R  has been pressed. If the special value 2 or FirstTimeOnly is used, the reset will only
              take place if the page was shown for the first time. Again, this is  particularly  useful  on  the
              first  page:  A combination of progress:False, reset:FirstTimeOnly makes it possible to set up the
              presentation long before it actually begins - the first page can be showed  as  long  as  desired,
              actual timing starts at the second page.

       rotate
              This  property  is  a per-page override of the global -r command line option: It specifies how the
              page shall be rotated, in 90-degree steps clockwise.

       OnEnter, OnLeave, OnEnterOnce, OnLeaveOnce
              These properties can contain a Python callable (i.e. a function reference  or  lambda  expression)
              that  is  executed when the page is entered or left. The ~Once variants will only be executed when
              the page is entered or left for the first time. The callable must not  take  any  arguments.  This
              feature can be used to associate arbitrary Python code with specific pages, for example to execute
              external programs.
              Warning: Lambda expressions cannot be properly processed by the Info Script save function (S key).
              If Impressive encounters lambda expressions when saving, it will remove them. In addition, it will
              not overwrite the original info script, but generate an extra file that needs to be  merged  withe
              the original script by hand.

       keys
              This  property can be assigned a dictionary that maps alphanumerical keys to Python functions. For
              example, 'keys': { 'x': SomeFunction } will invoke SomeFunction() if the lowercase  character  'x'
              is  typed  while  the page is displayed. Regarding the functions, the same restrictions as for the
              OnEnter/OnLeave family apply: the function must not take any parameters and lambda  functions  can
              not be saved. Also note that it is not possible to overwrite Impressive's pre-defined key bindings
              with this method.

       invert
              This property specifies whether the colors of that page shall be inverted  in  the  same  way  the
              --invert  command-line  switch does. It overrides the --invert setting on a per-page basis: If set
              to True, the page will always be inverted; if set to False, the page will never be  inverted  even
              if --invert has been specified on the command line.

       Note  that  in  Impressive  versions prior to 0.11.0, the transition and transtime properties defined the
       transition from the current page to the next, not from the previous page to the current one.

       The properties are stored together in a Python dictionary called PageProps. The syntax looks like in this
       example:

         PageProps = {
           1: {
                'title': "Title Page",
                'transition': PagePeel,
                'sound': "background_music.mp3"
              },
           2: {
                'title': "Another Page",
                'timeout': 5000
              }
         }

       The PageProps definition (and only the PageProps definition) will be rewritten by Impressive if the S key
       is pressed. User-defined PageProps entries will also be left untouched, except for some pretty-printing.

    GLOBAL PRESENTATION PROPERTIES
       The name of the presentation is shown in the title bar of the Impressive window  (if  not  in  fullscreen
       mode).  By default, the file name or (if available) PDF metadata title will be used for this purpose, but
       the presentation title can also be explicitly set by overwriting the DocumentTitle variable:
           DocumentTitle = "My Presentation"

       Another useful variable, AvailableTransitions, contains a list of all transition classes that may be used
       for  randomly  assigning  transitions  to  pages  lacking  the  transition  property.  Thus, if a certain
       transition is undesired (either because of personal dislike or because it shall be  used  exclusively  on
       pages where it is manually assigned using PageProps), something like the following can be written:
           AvailableTransitions.remove(WipeBlobs)
       On the other side, it's possible to activate transitions that are not enabled by default:
           AvailableTransitions += [SlideUp, SlideDown]
       Alternatively,  AvailableTransitions can be completely overwritten to have the same transition (or set of
       transitions) assigned to all pages:
           AvailableTransitions = [Crossfade]

    OPTION OVERRIDES
       Another use of info scripts is overriding the default or command-line settings on a per-file basis.  This
       can  be  done  by  simply  overwriting  one  of  the  variables  that  are  defined  at  the beginning of
       impressive.py. Each of these variables corresponds either to a command-line setting, or to some  constant
       related  to  visual  appearance  or  performance.  So,  for  example,  to  force  fullscreen  mode  for a
       presentation, write
           Fullscreen = True

    WORKING DIRECTORIES
       The working directory while executing the info scripts themselves is always the directory  in  which  the
       info script is stored in.

       The  base  directory for external actions that originate from Page Properties or PDF hyperlinks is always
       the directory of the PDF or image file this page belongs to. In other words, if e.g. 'sound': "music.mp3"
       is  written  in  the  info  script for one page of presentation.pdf, the file music.mp3 is expected to be
       located in the same directory as presentation.pdf.

AUTHOR

       Impressive and its documentation has been written mainly by Martin J.  Fiedler  <martin.fiedler@gmx.net>,
       with small portions of the code written by external contributors. See the source code file for details.

REPORTING BUGS

       Report bugs to to <martin.fiedler@gmx.net>.