Sent is another in the series of incredibly lean suckless.org applications. Compared to the previously mentioned pandoc approach to presentation making, which compiles a markdown formatted document to a pdf, sent directly renders a presentation from a plain text file or standard input.
Sent doesn’t bother with specially formatted constructs, titles, layout, automatic numbering, or anything fancy of the sort. On the contrary, it automatically renders the font size in accordance with the amount of vertical and horizontal text on a slide, inversely related.
A single word on a slide would occupy most of the area in very large font. A few long bullets would significantly shrink in font size.
Usage
- Most text is rendered verbatim, size appropriately scaled. Supports any unicode character/emoticon.
- A blank line initiates a new slide.
- An
@image.jpgconstruct automatically renders a separate slide for the image inimage.jpg. - The ‘#’ character designates a comment, not rendered.
The following would literally generate an effective full-screen three-slide presentation, with black text on a white background (reconfigurable in config.h, per the suckless tradition).
Place the following in presentation.txt:
Slide 1
• bullet 1
• bullet 2
• bullet 3
# Comment, not displayed
@image.png
This text not displayed, since an image occupies an individual slide.
# The '\' escape character in the next slide avoids
# the blank line starting a new slide.
Any Questions?
\
Contact me
Invoke the presentation as such:
$ sent presentation.txt
See a more comprehensive example in the repository, including emoticon usage.
You could compose a simple, no thrills, last-minute presentation in the literal sense, with ease and in a matter of seconds.
Questions, comments? Connect.