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Installing BeamerPresenter

There exist different flavors of BeamerPresenter: You can choose the PDF engine (Poppler, MuPDF, Qt PDF) and the major Qt version (5 or 6), see below. It is recommended to use Qt 6 (if available) because of noticable improvements when including videos in a presentation.

BeamerPresenter can be found in the official Nix repositories and in the AUR (also as a mainline version). The releases include packages for Arch/Manjaro/Endeavour, Ubuntu (24.04, 22.04 and 20.04), and flatpak. These packages can be installed as shown in the following example, which uses Poppler as PDF engine (after downloading the corresponding file):

# Ubuntu 24.04:
sudo apt install ./beamerpresenter-poppler-0.2.6-qt6-noble-x86_64.deb
# Ubuntu 22.04:
sudo apt install ./beamerpresenter-poppler-0.2.6-qt5-jammy-x86_64.deb
# Ubuntu 20.04:
sudo apt install ./beamerpresenter-poppler-0.2.6-qt5-focal-x86_64.deb
# Arch/Manjaro/Endeavour
sudo pacman -U beamerpresenter-poppler-qt6-0.2.6-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
# Flatpak
flatpak install org.kde.Platform/x86_64/6.5 # can be skipped if already installed
flatpak install BeamerPresenter-Qt6.flatpak

Verify the signature of the checksums in SHA256SUMS:

gpg --keyserver hkps://keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys D9087AEC43D57C18
gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.sig SHA256SUMS

Choosing the PDF engine

When installing BeamerPresenter you need to choose a PDF engine from MuPDF, Poppler, and Qt PDF.

  • My personal impression is that in most cases MuPDF produces better-looking slides than Poppler.
  • Some features are only supported by Poppler and not by MuPDF. For example, the command \sound{title}{filename} in LaTeX beamer's multimedia package will only work with Poppler (workaround for MuPDF: use \movie instead of \sound).
  • Enabling both Poppler and MuPDF at compile time is not recommended. For some documents this leads to a crash of BeamerPresenter.
  • Qt PDF provides very limited features. Only use it as a fallback if MuPDF and Poppler cannot be used. Qt PDF requires a recent version of Qt (≥5.14 or ≥6.3).
  • On some platforms, MuPDF produces a larger package size. For some Linux distributions, using MuPDF from official repositories leads to very large packages (>20MB). Building MuPDF manually can significantly reduce the package size (use options like XCFLAGS+=' -DTOFU -DTOFU_CJK -DTOFU_SIL -DFZ_ENABLE_JS=0').
  • It is possible to use an external program for rendering slides. However, you still need to provide a PDF engine.

Requirements

Building is currently tested in Arch Linux, Ubuntu 24.04, 22.04, 20.04 and 24.10, Fedora 41, and MinGW-w64 in MSYS2 (Windows).

In order to compile BeamerPresenter you need to have CMake, zlib and Qt 5/6 including the multimedia and SVG modules installed. For translations you also need the linguist tools. Additionally, you need either the Qt bindings of Poppler, or the MuPDF libraries (which may require other libraries), or Qt PDF. Qt versions since 5.12 (for Qt 5) or 6.2 (Qt 6) are supported.

Dependencies in Ubuntu

  • cmake (only for building)
    • cmake requires a compiler (e.g. g++) and a build system (e.g. make for Unix makefiles)
  • zlib1g-dev
  • qt6-multimedia-dev (Qt 6) or qtmultimedia5-dev (Qt 5)
  • libqt6svg6-dev (Qt 6) or qt6-svg-dev (Qt 6, Ubuntu 24.10) or libqt5svg5-dev (Qt 5)
  • for translations (only for building, you can disable translations with -DUSE_TRANSLATIONS=OFF in the CMake command)
    • Qt 6: qt6-tools-dev, qt6-tools-dev-tools, and qt6-l10n-tools
    • Qt 5: qttools5-dev
  • optional, only for Qt 5: gstreamer1.0-libav and libqt5multimedia5-plugins (for showing videos)

When compiling with Poppler:

  • Qt 5: libpoppler-qt5-dev, version 0.86.1 or later
  • Qt 6: libpoppler-qt6-dev

When compiling with MuPDF:

  • libmupdf-dev (only for building)
  • libfreetype-dev
  • libharfbuzz-dev
  • libjpeg-dev
  • libopenjp2-7-dev
  • libjbig2dec0-dev
  • only Ubuntu ≥21.10: libmujs-dev
  • only Ubuntu ≥22.04: libgumbo-dev

When compiling with Qt PDF:

  • qtpdf5-dev (Qt 5) or qtpdf6-dev (Qt 6) or qt6-pdf-dev (Qt 6, Ubuntu 24.10)

Dependencies in Arch Linux/Manjaro/Endeavour

Replace qt6 with qt5 in all package names if you want to use Qt 5.

  • cmake (only for building and only in the mainline version)
  • qt6-multimedia
    • since Qt ≥6.4 the backend qt6-multimedia-ffmpeg is recommended.
  • qt6-svg
  • qt6-tools (only for building and only when creating translations. You can disable translations with -DUSE_TRANSLATIONS=OFF in the CMake command)

When compiling with Poppler:

  • poppler-qt6

When compiling with MuPDF:

  • libmupdf (tested versions: 1.16.1 – 1.25.2)
  • jbig2dec
  • openjpeg2
  • gumbo-parser

Optional, for showing videos:

  • gst-libav
  • gst-plugins-good

Dependencies in Fedora

Fedora is the only RPM-based system tested so far. Please open an issue if these instructions seem wrong or outdated!

General build dependencies in Fedora 41:

  • cmake
  • git (only when building mainline version)
  • zlib-devel
  • qt6-qtmultimedia-devel (qt5-qtmultimedia-devel for Qt 5)
  • qt6-qtsvg-devel (qt5-qtsvg-devel for Qt 5)
  • qt6-qttools-devel (only for translations, qt5-qttools-devel for Qt 5)
  • fedora-packager

When using poppler:

  • poppler-qt6-devel (poppler-qt5-devel for Qt 5)

When using MuPDF:

  • mupdf-devel (use the option LINK_MUPDF_THIRD=OFF since Fedora 40)
  • freetype-devel
  • harfbuzz-devel
  • libjpeg-turbo-devel
  • openjpeg2-devel
  • jbig2dec-devel
  • gumbo-parser-devel
  • only Fedora <41: tesseract-devel (use the option LINK_TESSERACT=ON)

When using QtPDF:

  • qt6-qtpdf-devel

Manual installation

Download

Download the sources:

wget https://github.com/stiglers-eponym/BeamerPresenter/archive/v0.2.6.tar.gz
sha256sum -c - <<< "ed6b397ea4ec0afdf7a9bf8f3db272ae9999fab1d485a29b9f9b82615472b1fd v0.2.6.tar.gz"
tar -xf v0.2.6.tar.gz
cd BeamerPresenter-0.2.6

Alternatively, you can clone the git repository

git clone --depth 1 --single-branch https://github.com/stiglers-eponym/BeamerPresenter.git
cd BeamerPresenter

Configure

Now may you need to configure libraries and file paths in CMakeLists.txt. For Ubuntu and Arch the settings are tested, in other GNU+Linux systems you can try if it works, and other systems will probably require a manual configuration. Please open an issue if you have questions. Pull requests or issues with build instructions for other systems are welcome!

The command line for configuring the build process with some basic options looks like this:

cmake \
    -B "build-dir" \
    -S . \
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
    -DQT_VERSION_MAJOR=6 \
    -DUSE_POPPLER=ON \
    -DUSE_MUPDF=OFF \
    -DGIT_VERSION=ON

The options -B and -S set the build and source directory, respectively. Other options are added in the form -DOPTION=VALUE as listed below.

CMake options

Features and libraries

Option Value Explanation
QT_VERSION_MAJOR 6 Qt major version, must be set manually! Valid values are "5" and "6".
CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE Release set to "Debug" to include debugging information
USE_POPPLER ON include Poppler PDF engine (Poppler library and Qt 5/6 headers must be available)
USE_MUPDF OFF include MuPDF PDF engine (MuPDF static library and headers must be available)
USE_QTPDF OFF include Qt PDF engine, which offers limited features.
USE_EXTERNAL_RENDERER OFF include option to use an external program for rendering PDF pages to images.
USE_WEBCAMS ON allow using webcams as video source.
USE_TRANSLATIONS ON include translations
GIT_VERSION ON include git commit count in version string
SUPPRESS_MUPDF_WARNINGS OFF suppress warnings of MuPDF while loading a document (only Unix-like systems)

Linker options and technical details

Option Value Explanation
MUPDF_USE_SYSTEM_LIBS ON MuPDF uses system libraries (default in common Linux distributions)
LINK_MUJS OFF link to MuJS, set ON in Ubuntu ≥21.10
LINK_MUPDF_THIRD ON set OFF when libmupdf-third is not available (Ubuntu 21.10 and Arch Linux)
LINK_GUMBO ON set ON when using MuPDF >= 1.18 with shared system libraries
LINK_TESSERACT OFF set ON when using MuPDF in Fedora

Options only affecting the installation

Option Value Explanation
INSTALL_LICENSE ON copy the license to /usr/share/licenses/beamerpresenter/LICENSE
QT_VERSION_MINOR 7 only relevant for packaging (dependency version checking)
CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX /usr install prefix. If not specified, this will be /usr/local in Linux
CMAKE_INSTALL_SYSCONFDIR /etc system configuration directory
GENERATE_MANPAGES ON Generate man pages and include them in installation
UBUNTU_VERSION 24.04 Adjust package dependencies to given Ubuntu version when building debian package

Build and install

After configuring with CMake, you can build the project (add -j 4 for compiling with 4 CPU cores)

cmake --build build-dir

Then install the package.

cmake --install build-dir

Windows

In Windows, it is recommended to use MinGW-w64 in MSYS2. For more details and other options, see packaging/Windows.md.

MinGW-w64 can be obtained in different ways. I have only tested MSYS2 using the native C runtime in Windows, using the MSYS2 environments UCRT64 and CLANG64.

  1. Install MSYS2. After the installation, a terminal for the UCRT64 environment should launch. All commands mentioned in the following should be entered in this terminal. Run pacman -Syu directly after the installation.
  2. Download the recipe file packaging/PKGBUILD_MSYS2. Place this file in the build directory (e.g. an empty directory) and open this directory in the UXRT64 terminal (program "MSYS2 UCRT64" in Windows).
  3. Install the basic build tools: pacman -S base-devel mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-gcc
  4. Build and install BeamerPresenter using the command MINGW_ARCH=ucrt64 makepkg-mingw -sip PKGBUILD_MSYS2. By default, this uses MuPDF as PDF engine. You can use Poppler instead with the command MINGW_ARCH=ucrt64 _use_poppler=ON _use_mupdf=OFF makepkg-mingw -sip PKGBUILD_MSYS2. This should automatically install dependencies and eventually install the package.
  5. Test the installation: run beamerpresenter in the terminal.