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What is LaTeX beamer class?
The Beamer class is used to make presentation in LaTeX. This gives you the power of regular LaTeX with great math rendering and a easy support of vector graphics into your presentation. Beamer class presentations appear very structured when compared to the common PowerPoint presentation in my view.

This small article does not aim to learn anybody how to use beamer but merely to present to examples which can be hacked. Underneath each of pictures the code and the PDF is presented.

Two recent presentations made with Beamer
In this fall I made two presentation using Beamer. One for physics students about to pick the subject for the bachelor project and one to present a topic of choice for everyone interested.

Download presentation: roterende-vand.pdf 16.9 mb (24 pages)
See texcode: roterende-vand.tex.html

Download presentation: attenuation.pdf 2.8 mb (30 pages)
See texcode: attenuationweb.tex.html

Getting started
The installation should be fairly easy – at least it is on Linux:

root@bohr:~# aptitude install latex-beamer

This will install the documentation called beameruserguide.pdf as well in the path:

root@bohr:~# locate beameruserguide.pdf
/usr/share/doc/latex-beamer/beameruserguide.pdf.gz

The documentation can however also be downloaded on the internet: beameruserguide.pdf

I study at the university of Copenhagen and would like to use the logo of the faculty in my slides. A good friend of mine, Nanna B Karlsson, gave me the colors and the logo for a style which look very nice and natural KU. The logo can be downloaded in several formats from the page:

http://www.ku.dk/kommunikation/designmanual/download.html

The primary part of using beamer is to load the class and themes in the preamble of the LaTeX document:

\documentclass{beamer}[10]
\usepackage{pgf}
\usepackage{beamerthemesplit}
 
\definecolor{kugreen}{RGB}{50,93,61}
\definecolor{kugreenlys}{RGB}{132,158,139}
\definecolor{kugreenlyslys}{RGB}{173,190,177}
\definecolor{kugreenlyslyslys}{RGB}{214,223,216}
\setbeamercovered{transparent}
\mode<presentation>
\usetheme[numbers,totalnumber,compress,sidebarshades]{PaloAlto}
\setbeamertemplate{footline}[frame number]
 
  \usecolortheme[named=kugreen]{structure}
  \useinnertheme{circles}
  \usefonttheme[onlymath]{serif}
  \setbeamercovered{transparent}
  \setbeamertemplate{blocks}[rounded][shadow=true]
 
\logo{\includegraphics[width=1.5cm]{billeder/logo}}
\title{Dæmpning af seismiske bølger}
\author{Thomas R. N. Jansson}
\institute{Niels Bohr Institute \\ University of Copenhagen}
\date{21 December 2007}

The second important part is to create the slides using frame.

\frame { \frametitle{Enormt ``Ocean'' under Asien?}
\begin{block}{Artiklen}
Lawrence, J. F., and M. E. Wysession, 
\textbf{Seismic evidence for subduction-transported water in the lower mantle}, 
Earth's Deep-Water Cycle, AGU Monograph, \textbf{2006}, 251-261.
\end{block}
Jeg har valgt denne artikel som eksempel, da den viser spændende lidt kontroversiel del af dæmpnings tomografi.
}

I hope this very short introduction creates some interest for beamer – the learning curve might be a little steeper but in the long run using beamer pays off. Further reading should be: beameruserguide.pdf

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2008 at 14:11 and is filed under Articles, Computer, Physics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.