Presentation-mode PDF viewer for Chrome OS

Question

I use a Chromebook as a daily-carry laptop, and occasionally have to give presentations (which I create using LaTeX/beamer). I've so far been unable to find a presentation mode PDF viewer that runs under Chrome OS. Though there are a few PDF viewers listed in the chrome app store.

I'm able to run Android apps on there, but the absence of an accelerometer/orientation sensor means some PDF viewers (e.g. Adobe) run in a little portrait window. Chrome's own PDF display doesn't do a real presentation mode: even with a fullscreen window and "fit to page" display I get a scrollbar, a large grey border on 3 to 4 sides and (depending on the order I select the options) sometimes the top of the next slide. Pressing up or down arrow scrolls continuously too, and you can't use a mouse to advance slides.

My current solution is to run Debian using crouton (which is how I work on the machine). Then I can run Evince. But connecting an external monitor doesn't work once the X server for Debian is running. So I have to plug in the monitor, wait for it to be recognised, and then start XFCE.

Answer 1

I have a similar workflow and issue with presentation. I tried the pdfjs extension, as jstultz commented above. It solves the problem in providing a true fullscreen mode.

However, it sometimes had lags when rendering slides. This seemed to be on slides with certain images on them - not on slides where I had complicated pgftikz pictures. This is more noticeable when running through slides (to jump ahead or test) and rarely happened when progressing through slides at a normal pace.

The other positive aspect is that it advances slides on either the right or down arrow. I wasn't able to get my slide clicker to work on the chromebook, but I would imagine that if you can get your slide clicker to function then it will work with this extension. My current plan is to use a small mouse in my hand as a "clicker" to progress through slides, which seems to work well.

Answer 2

The Google Chrome.app can present PDFs natively. Open a PDF in a new window of your Chrome browser, then click on Open With ∇ and select Google Chrome.app. Within the Google Chrome.app -not the browser- click on the three dot menu ⫶ in the upper right and select Present. Slides can be advanced with the space bar or arrow keys, you can go back with arrow keys, too.