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Re: st: Video from multiple graph exports
On Dec 3, 2008, at 4:20 PM, Martin Weiss wrote:
"Export the Stata graphs as PDF format. (A feature only available
in the Mac version, I believe.)"
In Windows, -gr export- as .eps and use !epstopdf from your MikTeX
distribution. Not much more effort than on the MAC...
HTH
Martin
Martin:
Fair enough. My point was not to suggest that one OS was superior to
another, but simply to flag steps that may differ by OS. My note was
meant to be consistent with Nick Cox's recent suggestion of
distinguishing OS-crucial from OS-incidental details.
<http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2008-12/msg00069.html>
However, based on my experience with colleagues and students who use
Stata, as well as on many years of reading and participating on
Statalist, I would venture to suggest that installing any TeX
distribution, and using any command line utility, is a significant
hurdle for a large number of users, regardless of platform.
Installing Acrobat Pro likely would be easier for most people, albeit
(significantly) more expensive. Mac OS X has the ability to natively
create PDFs, and thus Stata on the Mac to natively export to PDF,
without extra software. Perhaps this is possible natively in some
versions of Vista?
That said, I also tend to produce EPS files, as Stata gives finer
control over exporting in that format than in PDF, and then convert
to PDF either with Preview (Mac OS X's image editor) or with a
command line tool such as epstopdf, installed as part of MacTeX.
<http://www.tug.org/mactex/>
Germane to the original question, I understand (again from
colleagues) that PowerPoint 2003 does not import PDFs directly, but
converts them to a bitmapped format, thus losing their vector-based
scalability and introducing "jaggies". Does PowerPoint 2007 still
have this limitation?
Hope this helps,
Mike
P.S. "MAC" is a TLA (three-letter acronym) for "media access
control" -- your PC has a MAC address, as does my Mac (abbreviation
for Macintosh).
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address>
_______________________
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Hanson" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 10:13 PM
Subject: Re: st: Video from multiple graph exports
Dan:
I have done something like this for several presentations --
although I typically prefer to use a remote to step through the
"movie frames" rather than automate the transitions. That way I
can stop and comment on certain slides (the audience sees it as
"freezing" the animation), or go back to a specific slide to
answer questions.
The caveat, given the details you have provided in your message:
my process requires a Macintosh. Specifically, it requires use
of Keynote, Apple's presentation software available only for Mac
OS X.
Briefly, in three steps (though I am happy to provide details if
requested):
1. Export the Stata graphs as PDF format. (A feature only
available in the Mac version, I believe.)
2. Place PDFs of graphs into individual slides in Keynote.
3. Add automatic timed transitions and effects as needed. You
can set transition times on a per-slide basis, as you inquired.
This whole process is very easy with Keynote, as it provides fine
controls for aligning the graphs and professional transitions
between slides. Plus, since everything is done with PDF, you
don't get those "jaggies" (i.e. pixelation) that often afflict
graphics in PowerPoint. Additionally, with Keynote you can export
your presentation to QuickTime (.mov) or Flash (.swf) formats as
a self- running, cross-platform file if desired.
I suspect one could use LaTeX-based presentation tools (beamer?
powerdot? prosper?) to accomplish the same thing, albeit with
(much) more effort.
Hope this helps,
Mike
On Dec 3, 2008, at 2:49 PM, Dan Weitzenfeld wrote:
Hi Folks,
I'm considering making a movie using multiple Stata graphs,
exported.
E.g., for t=0,1,...n, graphing the data at each t, and then using a
slide-show program to stack the graphs in time order, creating a
"movie" illustrating how the data changes over time.
My questions:
1. Has anyone does this before, and if so, do you have
recommendations for the most flexible slide-show program?
Specifically, I'm wondering if there is a program that will allow
for
variable intervals between slides (e.g., t=0, 1.5, 2, 2.2,....)
2. Is there a way to overlay a Stata graph on top of a .jpg file?
I've been doing this manually, using -spmap- to plot my
location-oriented data, exporting graphs as .emf/.wmf, ungrouping
the
result in PowerPoint and aligning the .jpg overlay.
3. Am I trying to use Stata to do something it's not suited for? I
know JMP can play movies from data, but I don't think the movies can
be exported, and, well, I'm partial to Stata.
Thanks in advance,
-Dan
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