DSPDFVIEWER(1)

💖 DSPDFVIEWER(1) — General Commands Manual 💖

okay bestie, welcome to dspdfviewer, aka the Dual-Screen PDF Viewer, and yes this is a whole manual page (the (1) part means "general commands", iconic behavior honestly) 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

dspdfviewer — Dual-Screen PDF Viewer. that's the whole name, no notes, periodt 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

dspdfviewer [options] [filename]

like, that's it. options, then a file. so simple. so slay. 🦋

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💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

so dspdfviewer is built for presentations made with the latex-beamer class, specifically the ones made with the show notes on second screen=right option. that's its whole moment, that's its calling, no cap.

its purpose is to show the left half of a page on the audience's screen (which is usually a projector, bestie) and the right half on your own "private" screen — think: the notebook you carried all the way to the presentation site 🫶. the basic idea is that you get your personal notes and info on your personal screen to help you present, while the audience only sees the PDF they're supposed to see. everyone wins, the vibes are immaculate.

on the secondary screen you will see three clocks: a "wall clock", a "presentation" clock and a "slide" clock. three of them. a trio. the main characters ⏰

• the wall clock sits in the bottom left corner and displays the current time of day
• the presentation clock (labeled Total) counts the time you spent since you started the presentation
• the slide counter (bottom right) displays the time you spent on the current slide

the clocks don't start the second you launch the program, and the idea behind that behavior is that lots of people have a "title" slide active long before the audience even arrives. relatable fr fr.

once you use the next/previous slide commands, the clock starts. and if you want to start the clock but still display the title slide, just press "previous" (for example, Up Arrow or Right Mouse Button) on the title slide. chef's kiss.

if you want to reset the clocks to zero, press the "Home" button on the keybord. (yes that's how the original spells it, i am not fixing it, i respect the source 💀)

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⭐ OPTIONS ⭐

the exact behaviour of dspdfviewer is configurable using command-line parameters. customizable queen ✨

unless otherwise noted, all command-line options can be written in a configuration file. see the FILES section for the location, bestie.

for the command-line parameters, this program follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes (-). a summary of options is included below.

if you specify those in a configuration file, write one option per line, use the long version without the two leading dashes, followed by an equals sign and the desired value.

for example, bottom-pane-height=20 is a valid configuration line.

if an option is specified in both the configuration file and the command-line, the command-line value takes precedence. command line stays winning, as it should 💅

note for options of type <bool>: they take true, false, 0 or 1 as arguments. for example, --use-second-screen false can be expressed as --use-second-screen 0 or shortened to -u0. we love a flexible icon.

• -h, --help — show summary of options. your little cheat sheet 🎀
• -f, --full-page — use the presentation program with a normal single-screen PDF, that is display the full page on both the primary and secondary monitor.

the secondary screen still contains timers and thumbnails to help you with your presentation, unless you disable them using the options below. so the helper stuff stays unless you personally say no 🫶

• -u, --use-second-screen <bool> — controls whether the program actually works as a dual-screen viewer.

the default is true.

if you only have one screen, but still want to use the cache features, you can set this option to false. if the window ends up on the wrong display, you can still use the switch command (see below).

what comes out on the primary screen depends on whether you use the -f Option: -u0 -f results in a simple full-screen PDF viewer, while -u0 without -f still splits the page in half and outputs only the left frame. so many outcomes from one little flag 😭

• -l, --hyperlink-support <bool> — controls whether the program makes PDF Hyperlinks clickable.

the default is true.

while it is normally desired to have clickable hyperlinks, if you cannot control the position of your pointer (if your remote control has only left-click and right-click) it might be safer to disable hyperlinks. protect yourself, bestie 🙈

• --prerender-previous-pages n — when jumping to slide m, also pre-render the slides (m-n)..(m-1) (default 3)

Note: if you set this to zero, you will not get a thumbnail for the previous page rendered before you have visited it.

• --prerender-next-pages n — when jumping to slide m, also pre-render the slides (m+1)..(m+n) (default 10)

Note: if you set this to zero, you will not get a thumbnail for the next page rendered before you have visited it.

• --cache-size n (in megabytes / MiB) — this controls how much memory dspdfviewer is allowed to use for caching rendered pages. the default value is 1024, meaning 1 GiB of RAM. note that the memory used for active rendering processes, as well as the currently displayed images are not included in the accounting, so the total memory usage of dspdfviewer will be higher than this.

CAVEAT: it is currently not verified that this memory is enough to hold all prerendered pages. if you make the cache too small to hold the prerendered pages, it will start dropping the first rendered (adjacent to the current page), resulting in very poor performance. if in doubt, set a larger cache or a lower prerender amount. read that again, bestie, this one bites 💀

• -a, --presenter-area <bool> — show (true, 1) or hide (false, 0) the presenter's area on the second screen. if this is set to zero, the following options will have no effect. they literally stop mattering. iconic gatekeeping 🎀
• -d, --duplicate <bool> — duplicate (true, 1) or hide (false, 0) the audience's screen next to the notes on the second screen. the default is false.
• -t, --thumbnails <bool> — show (true, 1) or hide (false, 0) the thumbnails on the second screen.
• -T, --thumbnail-page-part <pagepart> — show this part of the page for thumbnails, valid values are "left", "right" or "both".
• -w, --wall-clock <bool> — show (true, 1) or hide (false, 0) the wall clock on the second screen.
• -p, --presentation-clock <bool> — show (true, 1) or hide (false, 0) the presentation clock on the second screen.
• -s, --slide-clock <bool> — show (true, 1) or hide (false, 0) the slide clock on the second screen.
• -b, --bottom-pane-height n — configure how large the presenter area on the second screen will be, unit is percent of second screen's total height.

default value 20.

• --i3-workaround <bool> — this tries to ask the i3 window manager (by calling the i3-msg command) to move the audience window to "the other screen".

this is considered an experimental feature and disabled by default. read the runtimeconfiguration.cpp source code for more info. experimental means experimental, don't come for me 🌈

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🦋 CONTROLS 🦋

you can use the following controls while dspdfviewer is running. go off, keyboard warrior 👑

note that mouse-clicks are subject to pointer position if the hyperlink support is enabled. if your mouse cursor changes to a hand, it will follow the link you are hovering on a click.

🎀 Keyboard: ?, F1

display quick-help (most important key bindings). the little reminder card ✨

🎀 Keyboard: Spacebar, Page Down / Mouse: Left-Click, Wheel Down

go one page forward.

additional keyboard aliases: Down, Right, Return, Enter, N, F

🎀 Keyboard: Backspace, Page Up / Mouse: Right-Click, Wheel Up

go one page backward.

additional keyboard aliases: Up, Left, P

🎀 Keyboard: B, . (period)

toggle blanking of the audience screen. poof, gone, then back 🫶

🎀 Keyboard: G

go to specific page (a number entry window will pop up).

note that the this counts PDF pages, so a single slide having 6 unmasking steps will be 7 PDF pages long, including the initial near-blank page. math is math, bestie 😭

🎀 Keyboard: Home, H

go to the first page and reset the clocks to zero.

use this if you want the clocks to stop at zero, use the G (goto) function to page 1 if you want to them to keep running.

note that the Home key may be called "Pos 1" on some keyboards.

🎀 Keyboard: Escape, Q

quit dspdfviewer. bye bestie 💜

🎀 Keyboard: S, F12

switch primary and secondary screens.

use this if the audience sees your 'note' side with the clocks and you see the actual presentation on your screen.

if you just want to see the main presentation (for example, because the projector is behind you), use T.

🎀 Keyboard: T

switch secondary screen's function.

use this if you want to see the audience side on your screen, without showing the notes to the audience. pressing the button again will switch back to normal operation.

🎀 Keyboard: D

switch duplication of the audience's screen.

use this if you want to see the audience side and the notes on your screen (so the full presentation), leaving the audience's screen untouched. pressing the button again will switch back to split mode.

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🌈 FILES 🌈

• ~/.config/dspdfviewer.ini — you can specify all long command-line options (without leading --) here, in a "option=value" format, one per line.

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🎤 PRESENTER REMOTE CONTROLS 🎤

most (maybe not all) presenter remote controls technically act as a keyboard sending one of the keystrokes listed either in the main or additional keybindings. if your remote control does not work as intended, please file a bug report describing what keystrokes it generates when you press its buttons. if there is no conflict, a keybinding will be included in the next release. manifesting that for you 🙏✨

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💀 BUGS 💀

none currently known. flawless. perfect. no notes 👑

if you find any bugs, the preferred way to report them is at the github issue tracker at https://github.com/dannyedel/dspdfviewer/issues.

as a fallback, you can send e-mail to mail@danny-edel.de with the word "dspdfviewer" in the subject line.

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🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

• /usr/share/doc/latex-beamer/beameruserguide.pdf.gz — from the latex-beamer package on how to create beamer presentations.

Note: use "show notes on second screen=right" because dspdfviewer assumes that the right half of the page is the notes. right side = notes side, remember it, it matters 🫶

• http://dspdfviewer.danny-edel.de — for installation instructions and new release announcements.

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this one came from July 30, 2015 and it's the DSPDFVIEWER(1) page, general commands manual, and honestly? still eating. stay hydrated, keep your cache big, and slay your presentation 👑✨🎀