Creating Presentations with Latex

 Creating Presentations with LaTeX Beamer

Introduction

LaTeX is widely used in computer science for writing research papers, technical reports, and theses. While most students are familiar with presentation tools like PowerPoint or Google Slides, LaTeX also provides a powerful and professional way to create presentations through the Beamer class.

Beamer allows you to build slide decks using plain text and markup, making presentations:

• Consistent and well-structured

• Easy to version-control using Git

• Ideal for mathematical notation, algorithms, and code snippets

In this lab exercise, you will learn the basics of creating a presentation using LaTeX Beamer. You will explore the structure of a Beamer document, understand how slides (called frames) are created, and customize titles, bullet points, and themes.

By the end of this lab, you should be able to:

• Create a basic Beamer presentation

• Add titles, sections, and frames

• Compile a .tex file into a PDF slide deck

This exercise is designed to give you hands-on experience with Beamer and help you appreciate text-based presentation workflows commonly used in academia and industry.

Sample Latex Code

\documentclass{beamer}

% Title, author, and date information

\title{Introduction to Beamer}

\author{Dr Binu V P}

\date{\today}

\usetheme{Warsaw}

\begin{document}

% Title slide

\begin{frame}

    \titlepage

\end{frame}

% Table of contents

\begin{frame}{Outline}

    \tableofcontents

\end{frame}

% Section 1

\section{Introduction}

\begin{frame}{What is Beamer?}

    \begin{itemize}

        \item A LaTeX class for creating presentations.

        \item Highly customizable and flexible.

        \item Free and open-source.

    \end{itemize}

\end{frame}

% Section 2

\section{Features}

\begin{frame}{Key Features of Beamer}

    \begin{enumerate}

        \item Supports structured slides with sections and subsections.

        \item Easy integration of images and tables.

        \item Beautiful themes and color options.

    \end{enumerate}

\end{frame}

% Section 3

\section{Conclusion}

\begin{frame}{Conclusion}

    \begin{block}{Summary}

        Beamer is a powerful tool for creating professional presentations.

    \end{block}

    \begin{alertblock}{Reminder}

        Practice makes perfect! Try creating your own presentation.

    \end{alertblock}

\end{frame}

% Thank you slide

\begin{frame}{Thank You!}

    Questions?

\end{frame}

\end{document}

Output Presentation Generated

Explanation

1. Document Class:

   \documentclass{beamer}
   

   Specifies that you’re using Beamer for presentations.

2. Title, Author, Date: These are declared using:

   \title{Title of the Presentation}
   \author{Your Name}
   \date{\today}
   

3. Frame Environment: Each slide is defined within the frame environment:

   \begin{frame}{Slide Title}
       Content of the slide.
   \end{frame}
   

4. Sections: Use \section{} to group slides into sections, which appear in the outline.

5. Itemize and Enumerate:

   • \begin{itemize} for bullet points.
   • \begin{enumerate} for numbered lists.

6. Blocks:

   • \begin{block}{Title}: Regular block.
   • \begin{alertblock}{Title}: Highlighted block.

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How to Compile

1. Save the file with a .tex extension (e.g., presentation.tex).
2. Compile using a tool like pdflatex or an editor like Overleaf, TeXworks, or VSCode with LaTeX plugins.

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Customizing Appearance

Beamer allows customization with themes. Add a theme at the start, such as:

\usetheme{Madrid}

Other popular themes include Berlin, Darmstadt, Warsaw, etc. Try them to find your preferred style!