The media4svg LaTeX Package

Version 0.13, 2022/10/12

© 2020–today, Alexander Grahn

https://gitlab.com/agrahn/media4svg

Introduction

This package implements an interface for embedding video and audio files and the YouTube player in SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) output.

SVG with embedded media is very portable, as it is supported by all modern Web browsers across a variety of operating systems and platforms, including portable devices.

The most portable media formats are as follows:

Video

File extension	Codecs	MIME-type
mp4	v: h264, a: AAC	video/mp4
webm	v: VP8, a: Vorbis	video/webm
ogg	v: Theora, a: Vorbis	video/ogg

Audio

File extension	MIME-type
mp3	audio/mpeg
ogg	audio/ogg
wav	audio/wav

In the world of TeX and LaTeX, SVG is produced by means of the dvisvgm backend by M. Gieseking, which is included in TeXLive and MiKTeX.

Supported workflows are:

• dvilualatex ⇒ dvisvgm
• [p|up]latex ⇒ dvisvgm
• xelatex --no-pdf ⇒ dvisvgm

All TeX engines that produce DVI/XDV output can be used, but dvilualatex is to be preferred. By default, media data are physically embedded into the SVG output. For this, they need to be Base64 encoded, which is done by the built-in Lua interpreter of LuaTeX. The other, non-LuaTeX-based engines call the Lua script for Base64-encoding as an external program via shell-escape, which is much slower.

Recommended dvisvgm commandline options

There are a number of dvisvgm commandline options that should be used in general:

dvisvgm --zoom=-1 --exact --page=1,- --font-format=woff2  <DVI/XDV file>

For exporting beamer-class documents to SVG, option --box=papersize should also be added. Refer to the manual page, man dvisvgm, for additional information.

Usage

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Usage example

Here is an example presentation (source code) with an embedded local video file as well as with video streamed from a URL and a YouTube player. It also explains how to use the mouse and the keyboard for playback control.

---

Option dvisvgm must be set globally by passing it to the document class.

\documentclass[dvisvgm]{...}

The package itself is loaded with

\usepackage[<options>]{media4svg}

Package options are: draft, final, autoplay, loop, controls, mimetype, width, height, totalheight, keepaspectratio, scale, url, youtube, vimeo, embed. They have the same meaning as the command options explained below, but are applied globally.

Note that media4svg is incompatible with package media9.

The command for media inclusion is

\includemedia[<options>[, url]]{<poster text>}{<media file or URL>}

or

\includemedia[<options>, youtube]{<poster text>}{<YT video ID>[,<YT video ID 2>[, ...]]}
\includemedia[<options>, vimeo]{<poster text>}{<Vime video ID>}

Command options:

id=<label>

The media is given an ID by which it can be referenced in JavaScript code, as in $("myVid").play();, for example.

draft
final

These have the usual meaning. If draft is set, a box is inserted into the document instead of the media display.

autoplay

Media playback is started after the page has been loaded in the web browser. Depending on their settings, browsers may refuse to autoplay multimedia with unmuted audio. Option muted may need to be set as well to allow playback to be started automatically.

loop

Media is played in a loop.

muted

The audio will be initially silenced.

time=<time offset>

Playback starts with an offset, specified in seconds.

controls

Player-specific controls are shown as an overlay in the media display.

mimetype=<mime type>

Although optional, it may be a good idea to give a hint to the web browser about the kind of media to be played, such as audio/mpeg or video/mp4.

url

The last argument of \includemedia is taken as a URL and media data will not be embedded in the SVG file.

youtube

Embeds a YouTube player. The last argument of \includemedia is a single or a comma-separated list of YouTube video IDs.

vimeo

Embeds a Vimeo player. The last argument of \includemedia is a Vimeo video ID. Only a single ID is allowed.

embed=false

By default, a local media file, given as the last argument of \includemedia, is encoded and embedded as a data blob into the SVG output. Option embed=false suppresses embedding and the media file remains separate.

width=<h-size>
height=<v-size> | totalheight=<v-size>
keepaspectratio

Resize the media display or set its size if <poster text> is left empty. If provided, <poster text> is squeezed or stretched according to the given options. If only one of width or [total]height is given, the other dimension is scaled to maintain the aspect ratio of <poster text>. If both width and [total]height are given together with keepaspectratio, <poster text> is resized to fit within <h-size> and <v-size> while maintaining its original aspect ratio. Any valid TeX dimension is acceptable for <h-size> and <v-size>. In addition, the length commands \width, \height, \depth and \totalheight can be used to refer to the original dimensions of <poster text>.

scale=<factor>

Scales the media display by <factor>.

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License

This material is subject to the LaTeX Project Public License.