Impressive is a simple open source presentation program that displays slideshows of image files (JPEG, PNG, TIFF and BMP) or PDF documents. Rendering is done via OpenGL, which allows for some “eye candy” effects.
Smooth alpha-blended slide transitions are provided for the sake of eye candy, but in addition to this, Impressive offers some unique tools that are really useful for presentations.
Impressive is written in Python, a feature-rich interpreted scripting language.
Key Features
- Page transitions.
- Overview screen.
- Automatic view – a mode that hides PDF pages from Impressive’s overview page based on whether they have a title or not.
- Highlight boxes.
- Spotlight effect.
- Zooming.
- Powerful way to customize individual presentations using so-called info scripts. Info scripts are actually Python scripts with full access to Impressive’s global data structures and functions.
- Support for PDF and URL hyperlinks like web links and e-mail addresses.
- PageProps.
- Keyboard shortcuts.
- Uses Xpdf’s pdftoppm as the default PDF rendering backend.
- Background rendering.
- Transitions can now be turned off completely, either globally or on a per-page basis.
- Persistent cache which is useful for large and frequently used presentations.
Website: impressive.sourceforge.net
Support: Documentation
Developer: Martin J. Fiedler
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
Impressive is written in Python. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Presentation Software | |
|---|---|
| reveal.js | Framework for easily creating beautiful presentations using HTML |
| ONLYOFFICE | Cloud online office suite |
| LibreOffice Impress | Tool for creating effective multimedia presentations |
| Calligra Stage | Presentation program for the Calligra Suite |
| Slides | Terminal based software for writing Markdown to create presentations |
| Impressive | PDF presentation tool with eye candy |
| Beamer | LaTeX class for creating presentations |
| FreeShow | Display lyrics, scriptures, announcements, and multimedia content |
| Imagination | Lightweight and easy to use slide show maker |
| Hovercraft | Make impress.js presentations from reStructuredText |
| BeamerPresenter | PDF viewer for presentations |
| sozi | Zooming presentation editor and player |
| Kyma | Terminal-based presentation tool |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Discovered a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |