The ox-beamer-lecture backend provides an Emacs org mode export backend based on the ox-beamer backend to provide a convenient way to use beamer’s lecture capabilities.
Feature Overview
- Use of beamer’s
\lecturecommand to create a series of beamer slides- By default, each level 1 heading in an org file is considered a part of a lecture.
- Automatic folder creation and naming of folders and files
- Simultaneous export to beamer slides (with overlay) and handout slides (without overlays)
- Possible to use beamer’s article mode
- Create one document of all lecture content
Background
Org mode has a great capability to export to slides using the ox-beamer export backend. However, when creating a lecture (series of beamer slides) in org mode nuisances can appear. It is convenient to have all lectures in one org file, that is each level 1 heading constitutes a part of the lecture. In this case, a separate :EXPORT_FILE: property needs to be set for each part. When creating a handout file via beamer’s handout documentclass option, it needs to be set for each lecture part and the export needs to be rerun. Further, it is handy if the slides of each lecture part are exported into a separate folder so that the project folder won’t be cluttered. Lastly, in some occasions it is useful to create a combined document of all parts of the lecture. In principle, this could be achieved via the standard LaTeX export, but then the Beamer properties (e.g., :BEAMER_ENV: note) are not processed properly.
ox-beamer-lecture
The ox-beamer-lecture backend solves these problems. It makes use of beamer’s \lecture command to create a series of beamer slides. By default, each level 1 heading in an org file is considered a part of a lecture. For each part, ox-beamer-lecture creates a folder during export which is named according to the corresponding heading. Within each folder, beamer slides (with overlays) and handout slides (without overlays) are created. In this way, ox-beamer-lecture provides a more convenient usage of the standard beamer export for creating series of slides. By extending the beamer export backend, the usual options for the beamer backend work as well.
Additionally, ox-beamer-lecture implements the article mode feature of the beamer package. Via article mode it is possible to export the whole lecture as one document. This can be used to create a script for a course. While exporting to the article version, the different beamer properties are adequately processed. It is also possible to include extra content in the article version.
I hope you find this package useful. While creating lectures for a university course, I found this export functionality quite helpful.
I created a commented demo in this repository: demo-ox-beamer-lecture.org. You can download it to see and try out the different features of ox-beamer-lecture. To give an overview, it creates the folders and files listed below based on demo-ox-beamer-lecture.org. The names of the folders and files for the slides, lectureNN-*, are automatically named according to the level 1 headings in the org file. For each lecture part, a presentation file (-beamer.pdf) and a handout file is created. Lastly, the article version is placed in a separate folder.
.
├── article
│ ├── demo-ox-beamer-lecture-article.bbl
│ ├── demo-ox-beamer-lecture-article.pdf
│ └── demo-ox-beamer-lecture-article.tex
├── demo-ox-beamer-lecture.org
├── lecture01-welcome
│ ├── lecture01-welcome.bbl
│ ├── lecture01-welcome-beamer.bbl
│ ├── lecture01-welcome-beamer.pdf
│ ├── lecture01-welcome-beamer.tex
│ ├── lecture01-welcome.pdf
│ └── lecture01-welcome.tex
├── lecture02-content-1
│ ├── lecture02-content-1.bbl
│ ├── lecture02-content-1-beamer.bbl
│ ├── lecture02-content-1-beamer.pdf
│ ├── lecture02-content-1-beamer.tex
│ ├── lecture02-content-1.pdf
│ └── lecture02-content-1.tex
└── lecture03-content-2
├── lecture03-content-2.bbl
├── lecture03-content-2-beamer.bbl
├── lecture03-content-2-beamer.pdf
├── lecture03-content-2-beamer.tex
├── lecture03-content-2.pdf
└── lecture03-content-2.tex
4 directories, 22 files
ox-beamer-lecture is available on Melpa and Melpa Stable. After adding at least one of the repositories to the package-archives variable, it can be normally installed via M-x package-install ox-beamer-lecture.
Several export functions are available which can be called on the current buffer using the standard org-export-dispatch function (C-c C-e). The export prefix for the ox-beamer-lecture backend is L.
- Exporting functions that export to slides (except the one which exports solely to a buffer) prompt which part of the lecture should be exported. If the number 0 is given, all parts will be processed
L L- Export the body of the lecture to a buffer.
L l- Export the body of the lecture to a latex file, create a folder for the corresponding lecture, and export the beamer and handout slide tex files
L p- The same as
L lbut in addition it compiles the beamer and handout tex files to pdf files.
- The same as
L o- The same as
L pbut in addition it opens the beamer pdf file. - If all parts of the lectures are processed, it opens the beamer file of the last processed file.
- The same as
L f- This is a fast version of the export function.
- Compilation of the beamer files can take up time, so this function speeds up the process if the desire is to quickly see rough changes.
- It differs from the normal export version by (1) creating only the beamer and omitting the handout files, (2) disabling
#+INCLUDEkeywords, (3) disabling source code blocks, and (4) runningpdflatexas the compiler so the file is only compiled once.
L F- The same as
L fbut in addition it opens the beamer pdf file.
- The same as
- If the article mode export is written to the file, the path of the file depends on
org-beamer-lecture-article-dirand the file name depends onorg-beamer-lecture-article-suffix L A- Export the lecture in article mode to a buffer in order to create one LaTeX file of the whole lecture.
L a- The same as
L Abut write it to a LaTeX file.
- The same as
L P- Export the lecture in article mode to a pdf file in order to create one document of the whole lecture.
L O- The same as
L Pbut in addition it opens the pdf file.
- The same as
- Date for each lecture part
- It is possible to set different dates for different parts of the lecture.
- Set the
:EXPORT_DATE:property for the heading that constitutes the lecture part (by default level 1 heading). - If the value is a timestamp, it will be formatted according to
org-export-date-timestamp-format.
- Mode dependent content
- It is possible to include content only for specific modes.
- Use the
:noarticle:tag (org-beamer-lecture-article-exclude-tag) to exclude content from the article version that should still be exported to slides. For example, use this for an introductory lecture that should not be included in the article version. - Use the
:BEAMER_env: ignoreheadingproperty for a heading to include content that is not enclosed by a frame environment during export and thus only appears in the article version but not in the slides. For example, use this for additional information in the article version. - Use the
:BEAMER_ACT: beamerproperty for a heading to specify that this content should only appear in the beamer version but not in the handout or article version. Similarly, it is also possible to choosehandout,article, orpresentation(every mode except article mode). - See the
demo-ox-beamer-lecture.orgfile for examples.
- Naming of files and lectures
- The naming of the labels in files and lectures can be configured. See the configuration section below.
The following configuration variables are available. d: stands for the default value.
org-beamer-lecture-frame-level- The level at which headlines become frames.
- d: 3
- In-buffer setting:
#+OPTIONS: H:N, whereNis an integer.
org-beamer-lecture-beamer-suffix- File name suffix for beamer files.
- d: “-beamer”
org-beamer-lecture-handout-suffix- File name suffix for handout files.
- d: nil
org-beamer-lecture-label- Label for the
\lecture{TITLE}{LABEL}command which is used for folder and file name creation. - d: “lecture”
- In-buffer setting:
#+BEAMER_LECTURE_LABEL:
- Label for the
org-beamer-lecture-list-default-overlay- Default overlay specification for level 1 list environments. Set it to “+-” to enable piece wise uncovering for level 1 items.
- d: “”
org-beamer-lecture-require-lecture- Whether to prompt for a lecture number during export. If nil, process always all lecture files and do not prompt.
- d: t
org-beamer-lecture-title-as-subtitle- Whether to use
#+TITLEas subtitle in slides export. In the slides, the title is the L1 heading of the lecture part. - d: t
- Whether to use
org-beamer-lecture-article-dir- Folder in which the article mode version is saved.
- d: “article”
org-beamer-lecture-article-exclude-tag- Tag to exclude trees for article mode export.
- d: “noarticle”
org-beamer-lecture-article-label- Lecture label in article mode which will be used as chapter name.
- d: nil
- Capitalized value of
org-beamer-lecture-labelis used.
- Capitalized value of
- In-buffer setting:
#+BEAMER_LECTURE_ARTICLE_LABEL:
org-beamer-lecture-article-par-spacing- Paragraph spacing settings in article mode
- d: “\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}\setlength{\parskip}{2pt plus 1pt}”
org-beamer-lecture-article-rename-chapter- Whether to insert a
\renewcommand{\chaptername}{LABEL}line during article export. LABEL depends onorg-beamer-lecture-article-label. - In-buffer setting:
#+OPTIONS: rch: t - If nil, the variable
org-beamer-lecture-article-labelhas no effect.
- Whether to insert a
org-beamer-lecture-article-suffix- Suffix for the created article files.
- d: “-article”