PowerLine: a free HTML/SVG Slideshow Creator
with LaTex support

PowerLine

PowerLine is a software for creating slide presentations — like Microsoft Powerpoint, LibreOffice, or Latex Beamer. Unlike these,

In addition, PowerLine has native support for LaTex, meaning that PowerLine presentations can contain basic Latex formulas — no plug-in and no Latex installation required. PowerLine can also export and convert its SVG files to TIKZ files and to LaTex files.

See exampleDownload

How it works

PowerLine running on a Macbook
PowerLine is a tool to create HTML/SVG slide presentations. This means that the native file format of PowerLine is an HTML file with embedded SVG images. PowerLine can also create SVG images or SVG posters. The graphical user interface of PowerLine looks similar to Microsoft Powerpoint. You just drag-and-drop text, images, and shapes into the slide. You can also add math formulas in Latex, which are then rendered in the original Latex math font. This requires neither a Latex installation nor a font installation. If you want, you can export individual slides to TEX, TIKZ, or SVG. The presentation is automatically saved when you quit PowerLine.

To view a PowerLine presentation, you do not need any particular software. The presentations can be viewed directly in a browser — in Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Opera. The presentations can either be viewed online over the Internet, or copied onto a computer and viewed off-line, without Internet connection.

Technical Details

An HTML slide presentation is a single HTML file. HTML is an open, established standard file format that can be viewed in any Web browser — even on a smart phone or a tablet. This HTML file contains all slides as SVG images. SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is the W3C standard for vector graphics. It scales losslessly and is very space efficient for text and geometrical forms. The SVG images (as well as any JPEG or PNG images that the presentation can contain) are embedded in the HTML file. Thus, a PowerLine presentation is just a single self-contained HTML file. A PowerLine presentation does not need any JavaScript to be displayed.

PowerLine is programmed in Java, so that it runs on Mac as well as on Windows PC computers. For technical reasons, you cannot rename a PowerLine presentation file (if you rename it, the presentation stops working). This is because the hyperreferences from one slide to the other have to contain the filename.

PowerLine can export individual slides to TIKZ files. The TIKZ files can then be included in Latex documents.

As an experimental feature, PowerLine can export the drawings to SVG fonts. For this purpose, every slide has to contain one character drawing. Thus, PowerLine can be used to design SVG fonts. To export a slide presentation as a font, hit the key “[”. To convert the font to truetype, use the SVG to TTF font converter.

PowerLine comes with its own font, Fabiana. If you create a slideshow in PowerLine, the Fabiana Font is embedded as a WOFF file in the presentation. If you create a single image in PowerLine, the Fabiana Font is embedded as path elements into the SVG file. You can also use other fonts, such as Arial, Times New Roman, or the more generic “serif” and “sans-serif”. For compatibility reasons, the latter two are to be preferred.

Terms and Conditions

PowerLine was programmed by Fabian M. Suchanek. It is available under a Creative Commons Attribution License. This means you can use the editor for free. The license does not restrict the use of the editor, but it does REJECT ALL WARRANTIES AND GUARANTEES WHATSOEVER FOR THIS PRODUCT. This is not a professional program, but a personal tool. It may be useful to you — or not. PowerLine does not use any external libraries.

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Try it out

  1. Download PowerLine to your computer
  2. Unzip the file you downloaded
  3. Install Java if you do not have it already
  4. Start powerline.jar by double clicking on that file
See example

 
 

Download