One of the golden rules to remember while using MagicPoint is that every line begins with a "%? sign. Every line in the script line is of significance even the blank ones. The blank lines in the script file(*.mgp) are interpreted by MagicPoint as blank lines in the respective slide. So you know how to keep your distance.

The first line is a default line, which as in C/C++, is equivalent to a pre-processor directive and over here is made use of to include the basic template necessary to create your presentation. This default template will give your slide a lot of default values, but just as in C/C++ you can over ride a method, similarly even here you can over ride the default values by specifying your own values to the various parameters. We will be covering that shortly.

%page <--2

This marks the beginning of a new slide.

%nodefault <--3

In short this means that this slide isn't going to make use of the default parameters supplied by the default template( default.mgp). Therefore, you have some more scripting coming your way.

%fore yellow, size 5, font standard, back darkblue <-- 4

Let us take these lines apart and understand it. The first part %fore yellow suggests that the slide should use yellow to draw the words that come up next.

size 5 of course means use letters of height 5.

font standard tells MagicPoint to make use of the standard font as included by the default.mgp file.

back darkblue tells MagicPoint to draw the background as darkblue as the default is to draw the background as black. You could always change the colors to suit your own fancy. Just make sure you stick to the common range of colors and refrain from using any exotic names out here. The first line is used as a global default for the entire first slide.

Now let's jump to the rendering of the first line.

%center, fore red, font thick <--5

%rcutin <--6

WELCOME TO THE MAGIC POINT TUTORIAL <--7

%center, fore red, font thick <--5

%center of course is used to position the words in the center of the screen. Various combinations possible out here are as follows, center, right and left.

center