Tool for Memorization List: Fold-out menu?

Question

I am constructing a memorization list for the terms in a paper I am reading. What I would like to do is create a PDF with a term to be defined, and have the definition "hidden" underneath the definition, so that after I have written the definition on paper, I could check the answer was correct simply by clicking (say) a triangle underneath the term to be defined. For example,

Definition: Character of a Group Representation

And the text to unfold beneath it (but not be visible before I've attempted to memorize it):

Let $\sigma\colon G\to \mathsf{GL}(\mathbb{C}^{n})$ be a representation of a group $G$. The character of $\sigma$ to be the function $\chi_{\sigma}\colon G\to \mathbb{C}$ by $\chi_{\sigma}(x):=\mathrm{Tr}\sigma(x)$.

Does anyone know how to do this? I thank you all for your time in advance.

Answer 1

One option would be to use the fancytooltips package. A little example follows:

First, you create the PDF file containing the tooltips (one per page). You can do this using latex; for your example, I used the following practice.tex document (mdframed was used to present the tooltips using a nice colored framed box with a shadow, but of course you can decorate the tooltips as you wish):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[rmargin=11cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{amsmath,amssymb,mathtools}
\usepackage[createtips]{fancytooltips}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage[framemethod=TikZ,shadow]{mdframed}
\usetikzlibrary{shadows}
\newmdenv[linecolor=olive,backgroundcolor=yellow!10,shadow=true]{infobox}

\begin{document}
\keytip{character}
\begin{infobox}
Let $\sigma\colon G\to \mathsf{GL}(\mathbb{C}^{n})$ be a representation of a group $G$. The character of $\sigma$ to be the function $\chi_{\sigma}\colon G\to \mathbb{C}$ by $\chi_{\sigma}(x):=\mathrm{Tr}\sigma(x)$.
\end{infobox}

\newpage

\end{document}

This document has to be processed to obtain practice.pdf. Now you create your main document (notice that the name used in filename= is precisely the name of the file practice.pdf containig the tooltips):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage[filename=practice]{fancytooltips}

\begin{document}

\tooltip*{Definition: Character of a Group Representation}{character}

\end{document}

In the main document, the tooltips will now be invisible until you click on the little blue ballon.

An image of the obtained document without uncovering the tooltip:

And now an image of the obtained document with the tooltip:

This approach doesn't work in all PDF viewers, since it requires cooperation with JavaScripts; you have to use Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat to see the tooltips.

Answer 2

Check out pdfcomment.sty, I guess it does exactly what you wish. In the following example however the $sigma$is not displayed in the PDF.

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{pdfcomment}
\begin{document}

Character of a Group Representation\pdfsquarecomment{Let $\sigma$ be a representation of a group $G$.}

\end{document}

Answer 3

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage{ocgtools}
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\def\answer#1{\ocgminitext[width=0.6\linewidth]{??}{#1}}
\begin{document}

Character of a Group Representation\answer{Let $\sigma\colon G\to      
\mathsf{GL}(\mathbb{C}^{n})$ be a representation of a group $G$. The 
character of $\sigma$ to be the function $\chi_{\sigma}\colon G\to 
\mathbb{C}$ by $\chi_{\sigma}(x):=\mathrm{Tr}\sigma(x)$.}

\end{document}

This is a modification of previous answers. The result looks as follows: link *Oops, I cannot post image as new user. Compile the file two or three times. You should get PDF with the text "Character of a Group Representation??" and if you click ?? in Adobe Reader (Javascripts are necessary), yellow rectangle with aditional text appears. You can close this yellow text by clicking ?? again, or clicking the red crossmark or simply press Enter (the button with red cross has keyboard focus). *

The advantage when comparing to the previous answers are that everything is in one file (in contrast to fancytooltips solution) and math is supported (in contrast to pdfcomment solution).

Hope this helps. This is my first post here, I was no able to find out how to continue the first answer (written by Uwe Ziegenhagen) and for this reason I post it here as third solution, even though it is in fact a modification of Uwe's answer.

EDIT: It has been reported in the discussion below that this solution does not work for some users. For now, I uploaded the TeX, PDF and png file with this example to http://user.mendelu.cz/marik/stack

If you need a solution which does not depend on Javascripts and works in all PDF browsers, you may have a look at Acrotex education bundle and the environments excersize and solution. Like this.

\documentclass{scrartcl}
\usepackage[pdftex]{exerquiz}
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\begin{document}

\begin{exercise}
  Character of a Group Representation
  \begin{solution} 
    Let $\sigma\colon G\to
    \mathsf{GL}(\mathbb{C}^{n})$ be a representation of a group
    $G$. The character of $\sigma$ to be the function
    $\chi_{\sigma}\colon G\to \mathbb{C}$ by
    $\chi_{\sigma}(x):=\mathrm{Tr}\sigma(x)$.
  \end{solution}
\end{exercise}
\end{document}