Your Feature Presentation

Autotext

JessyInk can also create the page title with autotext. To do this, the program uses the name of the layer. For the example, name the new layer Inkscape. In the document, you now need a placeholder for the autotext in the form of a simple text object. Press F8 to select the text tool and click on the center of the drawing area. Afterwards enter some arbitrary text, JessyInk will replace it completely later.

JessyInk only fills the characters later on, the formatting of the text is preserved. So you can set the desired font immediately. This can be done via the toolbar or more conveniently via the text dialog (Ctrl+Shift+T); in the example, I use the Bebas Neue [5] font. For this example, set the text alignment to centered. For optimal contrast, select white as the fill color. Now all you have to do is align the text or placeholder. To do this, use the Align and Distribute tool Ctrl+Shift+A and center the placeholder horizontally and vertically relative to the document.

Now select the placeholder text again and call the Auto text… option from the Extensions | JessyInk menu. In the dialog, select Slide title. After clicking Apply, nothing happens in Inkscape itself. Don't be surprised, JessyInk only replaces the text when the presentation is opened in the browser; in Inkscape itself, everything stays the same. The page number can be inserted in the same way. You have now designed the first slide.

I will now create another layer on top of the current one and name it Multitalented. To keep the content of the previous slide from distracting you while you continue working, hide the Inkscape layer by clicking on the eye symbol. Again, add a placeholder for the headline, but now make it a little smaller and, instead of centering, place it in the top-left corner, near the document border.

For the slides with content, left justify the title text. I'm using Roboto [6] as the font for the slide text. For further slides, copy these placeholders to the next slide layer using Ctrl+C and Ctrl+Alt+V. Pressing the Alt key forces Inkscape to insert the object at the same coordinates. If you use Ctrl+V instead, Inkscape drops it at the current cursor position.

Contents

Next, import the pocket knife graphic (this is some of my work that you can use freely). You will find this graphic in the Openclipart library [7], a project once started by the Inkscape developers that collects and provides freely usable graphics. Scale the graphic so that it takes up about half of the document. Then open the text dialog and add the text from Figure 4.

Figure 4: Here are the results after inserting the text and importing the pocket knife graphic.

Scaling adapts the size of the text to the available space. However, Inkscape lacks the features of a word processor or a full-blown desktop publishing program. It processes text like a graphic element. For example, there is no way to insert bullets. However, you can easily compensate for this shortcoming by drawing your own bullets.

You could now adjust the text object with the usual text tools. However, if you want to display the text line by line later on, you will need each line to be a separate object. To do this, use Extensions | Text | Split text… and split the object line by line. Then select the first individual text object and call up the Extensions JessyInk Effects… option. The dialog offers three different effects: Appear, Fade in, and Pop. The number indicates the order in which the objects are displayed.

Now only the transitions between the individual slides are missing. Again JessyInk offers different possibilities. You can open the dialog in Extensions | JessyInk | Transitions…, and if you want to use one transition for all slides, simply apply the selection to the master slide. The program allows different transitions when fading in and out of a slide.

That's it! The page-based presentation is finished. After saving, open the SVG file in a browser like Firefox. Use the spacebar to progress through the slides step by step (in Inkscape these are the layers). Alternatively, use the arrow keys to scroll through the slides. Pressing I gives you an overview of all the presentation slides that you created.

Views

The only thing missing now is the previously-mentioned, view-based presentation. This is a single large graphic of which you then display selected details – views – in your talk. The size of the graphic itself is irrelevant, and that's what makes this option so interesting. For example, it can be a good option if you need to present a larger network plan or an extensive mind map from the last team meeting. With conventional presentation programs, you would have to use a graphics program and split the graphic into individual images. This requires a great deal of time, and you would also have to update the exported individual graphics whenever changes were made.

For this example, I will simply create a new layer and import the icon overview offered on Openclipart [7]. Use the Align tool to center the graphic on the slide (Figure 5). After ungrouping, select the black background and delete it with the Delete key.

Figure 5: The imported icons with the opaque background.

After importing, the icons are still very small and are therefore difficult to see on the slide. However, with the help of the View menu item, any individual icon can easily be enlarged during the presentation. To do this, simply take the Create Rectangles and Squares (F4) tool and draw a rectangle that is large enough to fit one of the icons. The square's fill and the contour are not important. To be able to see the background more clearly, it makes sense to reduce the object's visibility or only use an outline (Figure 6).

Figure 6: JessyInk uses the content in the rectangle as a view.

Once you have scaled the rectangle to the correct size on the page, you only need to duplicate it with Ctrl+D as often as you need to create individual views (details that you want to zoom in on). Then drag the copies onto the individual icons of the overview. Finally, call up Extensions | JessyInk | View… and number the view elements of the slide under Order. If you start at 1, the presentation first shows the complete slide and then goes to individual details. But if you start at 0, JessyInk will shift to the large format with the very first icon.

After saving, reload the presentation in the browser and watch the smooth transition as you switch from one view to the next. Interesting effects can be obtained by rotating the rectangle or changing its orientation (e.g., via Object | Flip Horizontal). JessyInk then adopts the alignment into the presentation. It is best to experiment a little with this function.

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