Motivation

Ever thought about stepping up your presentation game? If you’re used to tools like LibreOffice Impress, it might be time to explore something new. LaTeX, a typesetting system, is not just for academic papers—it’s also fantastic for creating sleek, professional presentations. Here’s why:

  • Consistency: LaTeX ensures your slides are uniform in style and formatting, giving your presentation a polished look.
  • Customization: With LaTeX, you have the freedom to tweak every detail, from fonts to colors, making your slides truly your own.
  • Efficiency: Once you get the hang of it, creating presentations in LaTeX can be quicker and more efficient, especially for those who love keyboard shortcuts.

Setting Up Your Document

First things first, you need to set up your LaTeX document. Here’s a simple way to start:

% Beamer for presentations
\documentclass{beamer}

% Theme of presentation
\usetheme{Rochester}

The beamer class is specifically designed for presentations, and you can choose from various themes to suit your style.

Adding Page Numbers

Keeping track of your slides is crucial. Adding page numbers is a breeze:

% Remove navigation symbols
\setbeamertemplate{navigation symbols}{}

% Add page numbers
\setbeamertemplate{footline}[frame number]

This snippet removes the default navigation symbols and adds page numbers at the bottom of each slide, helping your audience follow along easily.

Sure, let’s transform this outline into a friendly and engaging blog post. Here’s how it might look:

Enable Note Functionality

First, you need to enable the note functionality in your LaTeX document. This can be done with a simple command:

\setbeameroption{show notes on second screen=right}

This command ensures that your notes are displayed on a second screen, making it easy for you to view them while your audience sees only the slides.

Adding Notes to Your Slides

Adding notes to individual slides is just as simple. Within any frame, you can add a note using the following command:

% Fill ... with your own notes
\note[item]{...}

This allows you to add specific notes to each slide, ensuring you have all the information you need right when you need it.

Presenting with Notes

Once you’ve added your notes, it’s time to present. After exporting your LaTeX presentation to a PDF, you can use a tool like pympress to deliver your presentation with notes.

Using Pympress

Pympress is a fantastic tool that displays your slides on one screen and your notes on another. To use it, simply execute the following command in your terminal:

pympress presentation.pdf

This command will open your presentation in Pympress, allowing you to seamlessly integrate your notes into your presentation delivery.

Presentation Document Template

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{Rochester} 

% Common and useful packages
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{url}
\usepackage{verbatim}
\usepackage{cite}
\usepackage{caption}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{listings}
\usepackage{dirtytalk}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{tikz-qtree}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes,arrows}

% Remove unnecessary navigation
\setbeamertemplate{navigation symbols}{}

% Set page number
\setbeamertemplate{footline}[frame number]

% Add notes
\setbeameroption{show notes on second screen=right}

% Common data
\title{TITLE}
\subtitle{SUBTITLE}
\author{NAME}
\date{\today}


\begin{document}
\frame{\titlepage}

\section{SECTION}
\subsection{SUBSECTION}

\begin{frame}[fragile]
\frametitle{TITLE}
\note[item]{NOTES}

\begin{itemize}
    \item CONTENT
\end{itemize}

\end{frame}

\end{document}