I am using the animate package to include some animations into my beamer presentation. Currently I run Ubuntu 16.04 and tested Okular (0.24.2), Document Viewer (3.18.2) and Foxit Reader (2.4.4.0911) and none of them were able to display the animation, they would only show the first *.png file. Eventually I was able to display the animated slides using Adobe Reader DC via PlayOnLinux but I really would like to have a native Linux option. Is there any PDF reader for Linux which would be able to display the animations generated with the animate package?
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2Animate is implemented with javascript, which is why it is mostly Adobe reader only. I'm tagging along on this question because I'd like to know as well. – daleif Oct 18 '18 at 15:53
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related Q: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/235139/using-the-animate-package-without-adobe – samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Oct 18 '18 at 15:54
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1Try [pdfpc]https://pdfpc.github.io/. It is very goof for presentations. I don't know if animation is supported. I don't have an example with some aniamtions to try it. – Hafid Boukhoulda Oct 18 '18 at 17:44
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1@daleif Just to keep you updated: There are new possibilities (see below). – AlexG Dec 21 '18 at 13:30
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@HafidBoukhoulda, pdfpc doesn't support animations unfortunately... – matthieu Apr 10 '20 at 16:53
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As of version 2018/11/19, package animate's usability isn't any longer limited to platforms on which Acrobat Reader is available.animate was extended to also support the dvisvgm output driver/utility by M. Gieseking which is part of all major TeX distributions.
Now, it is possible to produce animated SVG output that can be viewed as standalone file or as embedded object in a Web page.
All popular Web browsers on all popular platforms including Linux and even on mobile platforns are able to display animated SVG. Note, however, that mileage may vary between browsers. Browsers that are based on the Blink rendering engine, such as Chrome, its open-source base Chromium and Opera show an extremely good performance here (much better than Acrobat Reader!). Firefox, on the other hand, is somewhat disappointing.
So, if you don't mind doing away with PDF and using SVG instead, at least for presentation documents, have a look at this related thread: Using the animate package without Adobe . There, a beamer class based presentation with embedded animations is presented. It may also serve as a benchmark for browser performance.
AlexG
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Okular now supports PDF animations, since: https://invent.kde.org/graphics/okular/-/merge_requests/10
(animateinline package, with ocg or widgets method and autoplay)
It also plays well media9 movies embedded in the PDF. (In presentation mode)
Check the "snap" instead of "apt" version if you are using Ubuntu.
Or even better, via flatpak:
sudo apt install flatpak
flatpak remote-add flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak install flathub org.kde.okular
flatpak run org.kde.okular
ferdymercury
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There are still a couple of bugs with some animations, see https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=452094 https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=434964 https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=452093 – ferdymercury Apr 14 '22 at 10:41
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Could you please add a minimal example that demonstrates bug 434964 in Okular? Btw, the default "icon" method works for me in Okular. – AlexG Apr 14 '22 at 11:11
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The PDF linked in https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=434964 was made in 2016 with
animateversion2016/03/15. In the meantime, the implementation of the "icon" method (which isanimate's default) has changed such that it is supported by Okular. I think this kde bug can be closed. – AlexG Apr 14 '22 at 12:56 -
The point is that some PDF files are from published files (earlier than 2016) that one can not just change, you don't even have the source code of these, just the PDF. They play well in Adobe Reader, so it would be still nice if Okular supported these older PDF files. – ferdymercury Apr 14 '22 at 21:14
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