pdfcube(1)

📦 version 0.0.5, in debian bookworm, ubuntu jammy

🦋 hey bestie, welcome to pdfcube(1) 🦋

okay so real talk, this is the manual page for pdfcube, and it's literally the cutest way to make your slides spin. grab a snack, we're going through every single detail together, no cap. 💖

✨ NAME ✨

pdfcube — a PDF presentation viewer with 3D effects. periodt.

🌀 SYNOPSIS 🌀

pdfcube [FILE] [--help] [--bgcolor f:f:f] [--top-color f:f:f] [--no-fullscreen] [--demo] [--program n:x:n:x:...]

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

pdfcube(1) is a tiny viewer — we're talking about 30KiB — for Portable Document Format (PDF) files, and the way it serves is by adding a spinning cube transition effect to your PDF presentation files. it can ALSO zoom on 5 predefined areas with a smooth zooming effect, which is honestly iconic of it.

lowkey important though: this program is suited only for landscape PDF files, mostly presentations done with LaTeX (Beamer, Prosper, etc.) or OpenOffice.org Impress. portrait girlies, this one's not for you 🙈

if FILE is not given, a file-open dialog box</c> is shown to the user. cute, it asks first.

pdfcube(1) is an open source, low-effort, spare-time, money-less project. Your help is welcome! fr fr, bestie, if you can contribute, do it. 🫶

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

  • -h, --help — This help message. the classic "hi what do you do" button.
  • -v, --version — Version information. tells you which era of pdfcube you're living in.
  • -b, --bgcolor arg — Background color is 'r:g:b' with real values between 0.0 and 1.0, no spaces. do not put spaces in there, I'm begging.
  • -t, --top-color arg — Cube top color in 'r:g:b' format again with reals in [0,1]. your cube deserves a little hat. 👑
  • -n, --no-fullscreen — Don't activate full-screen mode by default. for the girlies who like their windowed era.
  • --demo — Automatically auto-advance presentation based on the frame duration PDF attribute (\transduration when using Latex Beamer) or the specified program (see the --program option). it just goes. by itself. main character energy. ✨
  • --program — A program in the form n:x:n:x:n:x... where n are durations in seconds and "x" can be either "c" for cube transition and "p" for plain transition. (e.g. --program 5:c:3:p). The last program is used for all remaining slides. it's giving choreography. 💃

📌 Notes 📌

The first (and only) non-option string is treated as the input file. so like, one file, one vibe, don't overthink it.

🕹️ INTERACTIVE CONTROL 🕹️

okay this is the fun part, here's every key:

  • c, a — Will display the next/previous page with a cube transition effect. spinny spinny.
  • SPACE, PG-DOWN — Will switch to the next page with the programmed effect. whatever you told it to do, it does.
  • h, j, k, l, z — Will zoom into the predefined areas. five keys, five areas, math is mathing. 🔍
  • g — Will undo any zoom. escape the zoom, bestie.
  • ESC, Ctrl-q — Will exit pdfcube immediately. no goodbye, just gone. 💀
  • PG-UP, Left-Arrow — Will quick-switch to the previous page. no transition, just speed.
  • Right-Arrow — Will quick-switch to the next page.
  • f — Will toggle full-screen mode.
  • t — Will toggle auto-advance (demo) mode.
  • Ctrl-l — Will redraw the screen. when it gets glitchy, give it a little refresh. 🎀
  • Ctrl-1, Ctrl-2, ..., Ctrl-9 — Will jump to the page corresponding to the n-th programmed transition (if any). "if any" is doing a lot of work there, ngl.
  • 1, 2, ..., 9 — Will jump to page 5*(n-1). yes really, that's the formula. math girlies stay winning. 🌸

📝 CONFIGURATION FILE 📝

If the ~/.pdfcuberc file exists, it is used as a configuration file. The configuration file uses the same options as the command line (using the boost program options syntax). e.g.

demo=true
bgcolor=0:0:0
program=5:p

so you can set your whole personality once and never type it again. 💅

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

  • pdfcube foo.pdf

Will display 'foo.pdf' in full-screen.

  • pdfcube --demo --program 5:c foo.pdf

Will display 'foo.pdf' in full-screen and will do a cube transition every 5 seconds.

  • pdfcube foo.pdf --bgcolor 0:0:0 --top-color 0.6:0.2:0.2

Will display 'foo.pdf' with custom background and cube color.

💀 BUGS 💀

On some systems color values are locale dependent (e.g. you may have to write 0,6 instead of 0.6). so if your colors are cursed, check your locale before you blame the cube. 😭

See http://code.100allora.it/pdfcube/report/ for the bugtracker of pdfcube(1) (you should obtain an account contacting the author first). Or please report any bug to the author. they wanna know, fr.

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Written by Mirko Maischberger <mailto:mirko.maischberger@gmail.com> and Karol Sokolowsky <sokoow@gmail.com>. legends, honestly. 🫶

🔗 RESOURCES 🔗

Main web site: http://code.100allora.it/pdfcube/ — go look, it's giving home base.

🫶 THANKS 🫶

I'd like to thank the LILiK laboratory in Florence, Italy for having teached me the value of open-source and open-culture. 🇮🇹✨

📜 COPYING 📜

This manpage is available under the same GPL v2 or later license as the main program, the original manpage was written by Alexander Wirt <mailto:formorer@debian.org> for the Debian distribution. The 0.0.5 version is Copyright (C) 2008-2012 Mirko Maischberger.

and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this was pdfcube version 0.0.5, dated 03/2012, and it's the pdfcube(1) manual page. go make some slides spin. slay. 🎀🌈⭐

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