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Wolfram Mathematica Comparative Analyses

Presentation Software

Presentation Software
(PowerPoint, Impress, ...)
Traditional presentation software has well-developed capabilities for displaying slide shows with largely fixed content—of the type that Mathematica can, for example, readily generate and export. But with its unique integration of documents, graphics and computations, Mathematica offers a new form of truly interactive presentation.
The key is that Mathematica can not only display a presentation, but can also do the computations to modify or generate it in real time—so that a presenter can adjust parameters or controls on the fly and the audience can immediately see the result.
With its highly automated state-of-the-art dynamic 2D and 3D graphics, automatic table and network layout, full typesetting and broad computational capabilities, Mathematica makes it easy to generate compelling visual material from arbitrary data, to lay it out interactively, and to annotate it with fully styled text. You can easily create instant custom interfaces that provide real-time control of parameters and inputs to anything you show.
Instead of an essentially static sequence of slides, Mathematica allows any sequence of live interactive displays, as well as supporting true free-form input that combines the engagement of a whiteboard with the power to produce immediate dramatic output.
Presentation Software Features in Mathematica:
  • Full-screen slide show mode
  • Easy document-like editing of presentation components
  • Support for arbitrary text styles
  • Interactive layout of text, graphics and drawn elements
  • Choice of customizable stylesheets
  • Immediate copy-and-paste import of static and animated graphic formats
  • Export of presentations to HTML, PDF, Flash and other formats »
  • Support for navigation with onscreen controls, remote-control devices, etc.
  • Support for multiple monitors
  • Compatible support for Windows, Mac, Linux and other platforms
  • Free Mathematica Player for viewing presentations
Key Advantages of Mathematica for Presentations:
  • Interactive GUI elements embedded in any presentation
  • Ability to generate and modify content on the fly
  • Full support for live computation in any presentation
  • Full integration of preparation and presentation in a single system
  • Built-in live 2D and 3D visualization system
  • Rotatable 3D graphics directly embedded in any presentation
  • Integrated animation generation
  • Automated general table layout
  • Arbitrary mathematical typesetting, with instant semantic formatting
  • Integrated sound-generation support
  • Immediate support for arbitrary USB human interface devices
  • Immediate magnification control, with instant reformatting
  • Control of rescaling for pixel-perfect bitmap graphics
  • Programmatic generation of fully formatted presentations
  • Support for connection to real-time external data for up-to-the-second presentations
  • The Wolfram Demonstrations Project with 1000+ prebuilt interactive demonstrations »
  • Full scriptability for complex self-running presentations
Interoperability with Presentation Software:
  • Immediate export to PowerPoint, etc. formats
  • Import and export of all standard document, graphics, mutimedia, etc. formats
  • Support for connection to computer whiteboards, etc.
Interesting Tidbits:
  • Stephen Wolfram has pioneered "live computer experiment" presentations using Mathematica
  • Mathematica has been used for all presentations at Wolfram conferences for more than a decade
See Also Analyses On: