Linux command line presentation

There is no need to install tons of software in order to create a nice and informative presentation. tpp, which stands for Text Presentation Program is a simple to use command line presentation tool which allows you to create a fancy text based slide show presentation and share it with your colleagues or students as an ordinary ASCII text file. tpp utilizes ncurses, and it supports colors, slide-in, source code output, animated command line execution and a real time command executions all available from within your terminal.

In this tutorial, you will see how to install tpp on all major Linux distros. Then we will take you through some examples so you can see how to create and format the slides inside of your text presentation.

In this tutorial you will learn:

• How to install tpp on all major Linux distros
• How to create a command line slideshow with tpp
• tpp slideshow example
• How to open and close a tpp slideshow

Software Requirements and Linux Command Line Conventions

Category	Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used
System	Any Linux distro
Software	tpp
Other	Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command.
Conventions	# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command $ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user

How to install tpp on major Linux distros

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The tpp software we will be using to create a command line presentation is not installed by default on most Linux distros. You can use the appropriate command below to install tpp with your system’s package manager.

To install tpp on Ubuntu, Debian, and Linux Mint:

$ sudo apt install tpp

To install tpp on Fedora, CentOS, AlmaLinux, and Red Hat:

$ sudo dnf install tpp

To install tpp on Arch Linux and Manjaro we will use the Arch User Repository:

$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/tpp.git
$ cd tpp
$ makepkg -si

How to create a command line presentation with tpp

We will now create a simple presentation consisting of two slides. Feel free to copy and paste some of the following syntax, and then adapt it to the needs of your own presentation.

1. First, create a new text file with some arbitrary name like sample.tpp. Once ready, start with the presentation header:

   --author by LinuxConfig.org
   --title TPP Sample Perl Presentation
   --date today
   --heading Where is Perl used?
   

   The above will create presentation header including author, title, current date and heading, all centered in the middle of the page. To emulate a “break” tpp uses 3x hyphen syntax. Anytime you put --- into your tpp source code a SPACE press will be needed to continue with the presentation.

2. Next we create a list of item using different colors and slide-in from top and left. Make sure to reset foreground color to white at the end for the list:

   ---
   --color green
     * Web sites and Web services 
   ---
   --beginslideleft
   --color blue
     * Data analysis
   ---
   --endslideleft
   --beginslidetop
   --color red
     * System administration
   --color white
   --endslidetop
   

   ---

   ---

   
   The above will create nice slide-in animation for last to items and --- will ensure the correct manual timing by presenter. --center command can be used to display centered headings.

   ---
   --center Source Code
   

3. Next, we display a source code using the --beginoutput command. This will put a nice frame around the code. If you need to display source code lines one by one feel free to include --- between the lines.

   --beginoutput
   
   #!/usr/bin/perl
   
   print "Hello World!";
   
   --endoutput
   

4. What follows next is a animated command line execution. In this case tpp will animate command typing and display in output on the next line. This is one a real time execution as you will need to include your output to tpp’s source file:

   --center Shell Output
   ---
   --beginshelloutput
   $ perl -e 'print "Hello World!\n"'
   Hello World!
   --endshelloutput
   

5. So far all about examples were displayed on a single slide. tpp allows for multiple slides presentation and this can be achieved by --newpage command.

   ---
   --newpage
   --boldon
   --revon
   --center Please check Perl's Manual Page for more info
   

   For additional decorating purposes the above code uses --boldon command to make text bold and --revon to produce reverse black-on-white text style. For more information about ttp visit tpp’s manual page:

   $ man tpp
   

Here is what our tpp source code looks like now that we are all done creating the presentation:

--author by LinuxConfig.org
--title TPP Sample Presentation
--date today
--heading Where is Perl used?
---
--color green
  * Web sites and Web services 
---
--beginslideleft
--color blue
  * Data analysis
---
--endslideleft
--beginslidetop
--color red
  * System administration
--color white
--endslidetop
---
--center Source Code
--beginoutput

#!/usr/bin/perl

print "Hello World!";

--endoutput
--center Shell Output
---
--beginshelloutput
$ perl -e 'print "Hello World!\n"'
Hello World!
--endshelloutput
---
--newpage
--boldon
--revon
--center Please check Perl's Manual Page for more info

When you are ready to see your presentation, you can execute the tpp command on your slideshow.

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$ tpp sample.tpp

Here is how our tpp presents the sample program that we have created:

Remember you need to continue hitting SPACE to move to the next line and slide. When you are ready to exit from the slideshow, just press q on your keyboard to return to the command line prompt.

Closing Thoughts

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In this tutorial, you saw how to create a command line presentation slideshow using tpp on a Linux system. You also learned how to install tpp, Text Presentation Program, on all major Linux distros. You will need to read the program’s manual page to learn of all the different capabilities of this handy program, but our sample slideshow should be enough to give you hints and help you get started with creating your own presentation.