how to make presentations with latex

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Share this post, published september 6, 2023 in general, how to use latex for presentations: a comprehensive guide, by scholarly, introduction.

In today's digital age, presentations have become an integral part of communication and knowledge sharing. While there are several tools available for creating presentations, LaTeX stands out as a powerful typesetting system that offers unmatched customization and professional-looking output. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore how to use LaTeX for presentations, covering everything from installation to advanced techniques.

LaTeX, created by Leslie Lamport in the 1980s, is a typesetting system widely used in academia and the scientific community. It was initially developed to simplify the process of creating complex documents, such as research papers and mathematical equations. Over the years, LaTeX has evolved to support presentations, offering a unique combination of elegance and flexibility.

In the past, creating presentations required using tools like Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote. While these tools offer user-friendly interfaces, they often lack the fine-grained control and typographical precision that LaTeX provides.

Current State

Today, LaTeX has gained popularity among academics, researchers, and professionals who value the ability to create visually appealing and consistent presentations. With the availability of modern LaTeX packages like Beamer, creating stunning slideshows has become easier than ever.

Future State

As technology continues to advance, we can expect LaTeX to further enhance its capabilities for presentations. With the integration of AI and machine learning, LaTeX may offer intelligent features like automatic slide layout suggestions, content generation, and real-time collaboration.

Professional Appearance : LaTeX presentations have a distinct and polished look, making them suitable for academic conferences, research seminars, and business meetings.

Customization : LaTeX allows users to customize every aspect of their presentations, from fonts and colors to layout and animations.

Mathematical Typesetting : LaTeX excels at typesetting mathematical equations, making it an ideal choice for scientific and technical presentations.

Version Control : LaTeX presentations can be easily managed using version control systems like Git, enabling collaborative work and easy tracking of changes.

Cross-Platform Compatibility : LaTeX presentations can be compiled into various formats, including PDF, making them accessible on different devices and operating systems.

Significance

The significance of using LaTeX for presentations lies in its ability to produce high-quality output and maintain consistency across different slides. Unlike traditional presentation tools, LaTeX ensures that the design elements, such as fonts, colors, and layout, remain consistent throughout the entire presentation.

Moreover, LaTeX's focus on typesetting mathematical equations makes it indispensable for fields like mathematics, physics, computer science, and engineering, where precise representation of formulas and symbols is crucial.

Best Practices

To make the most out of LaTeX for presentations, consider the following best practices:

Plan and Structure : Outline your presentation and organize your content into logical sections. This will help you maintain a clear flow of information.

Choose a Suitable Theme : Select a Beamer theme that aligns with the tone and purpose of your presentation. Beamer offers a wide range of pre-defined themes to choose from.

Use Consistent Fonts and Colors : Stick to a consistent set of fonts and colors throughout your presentation to maintain a professional and cohesive look.

Leverage LaTeX Packages : Explore various LaTeX packages that extend the functionality of Beamer, such as TikZ for creating diagrams and animations.

Practice and Rehearse : Familiarize yourself with the LaTeX commands and practice compiling your presentation. Rehearse your presentation to ensure a smooth delivery.

Pros and Cons

Professional and Polished Look : LaTeX presentations have a sophisticated appearance that sets them apart from other tools.

Mathematical Typesetting : LaTeX excels at typesetting mathematical equations, making it a preferred choice for technical presentations.

Customization and Flexibility : LaTeX offers extensive customization options, allowing users to create unique and visually appealing presentations.

Version Control and Collaboration : LaTeX presentations can be easily managed using version control systems, facilitating collaboration and version tracking.

Cross-Platform Compatibility : LaTeX presentations can be compiled into various formats, ensuring compatibility across different devices and operating systems.

Learning Curve : LaTeX has a steeper learning curve compared to traditional presentation tools. It requires familiarity with LaTeX syntax and commands.

Limited WYSIWYG Editing : Unlike WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors, LaTeX requires compiling the code to see the final output.

Time-Consuming : Creating complex presentations in LaTeX can be time-consuming, especially when dealing with intricate layouts and animations.

Less Interactive Features : LaTeX presentations lack some of the interactive features available in other tools, such as embedded videos or live web content.

Dependency on LaTeX Distribution : Using LaTeX for presentations requires installing a LaTeX distribution, which may require additional setup and maintenance.

When considering LaTeX for presentations, it's essential to compare it with other popular tools like Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote. While LaTeX offers unparalleled customization and typographical control, PowerPoint and Keynote excel in terms of user-friendliness and interactive features.

Method 1: Installation and Setup

• Install a LaTeX distribution like TeX Live or MiKTeX on your computer.
• Choose a LaTeX editor, such as TeXstudio or Overleaf, to write your presentation code.
• Start a new LaTeX document and include the necessary packages for creating presentations.
• Write your presentation content using LaTeX commands and syntax.
• Compile the LaTeX code to generate the presentation output in PDF format.

Method 2: Using Beamer

• Start a new LaTeX document and load the Beamer class.
• Define the document structure, including the title, author, and date.
• Create slides using the frame environment and add content using LaTeX commands.
• Customize the appearance of your slides using Beamer themes, colors, and fonts.
• Compile the LaTeX code to generate the Beamer presentation.

Method 3: Templates

• Explore the wide range of Beamer templates available online.
• Choose a template that suits your presentation style and content.
• Download the template and customize it with your own content.
• Compile the LaTeX code to generate the presentation output.

Method 4: LaTeX Presentation Editors

• Use online LaTeX editors like Overleaf or ShareLaTeX that provide a user-friendly interface for creating presentations.
• Start a new project and select the presentation template.
• Write your presentation content using the built-in LaTeX editor.
• Customize the appearance of your slides using the provided options.

AI Applications

AI can enhance the presentation creation process by providing intelligent suggestions for slide layouts, content organization, and visual design. It can analyze the presenter's speech patterns and provide real-time feedback for improvement.

AI Techniques

AI techniques like natural language processing (NLP) can be used to automatically generate slide content based on the presenter's input. Image recognition algorithms can assist in selecting relevant images and graphics for the presentation.

AI Benefits

• Time-Saving : AI-powered tools can automate repetitive tasks, such as slide layout design and content generation, saving valuable time for presenters.
• Enhanced Creativity : AI can suggest creative ideas for slide design and content arrangement, helping presenters think outside the box.
• Improved Engagement : AI can analyze audience feedback and adapt the presentation in real-time to maximize engagement and impact.

AI Challenges

• Data Privacy : AI tools may require access to personal or sensitive information, raising concerns about data privacy and security.
• Algorithm Bias : AI algorithms may exhibit bias in their suggestions or recommendations, potentially affecting the objectivity and fairness of the presentation.
• Complexity and Reliability : AI systems can be complex and may require continuous updates and maintenance to ensure reliable performance.

Potential Online Apps

• Overleaf : An online LaTeX editor with collaborative features, perfect for creating presentations.
• ShareLaTeX : Another online LaTeX editor that offers real-time collaboration and a user-friendly interface.
• Beamer Theme Gallery : A collection of Beamer themes that can be used to customize the appearance of your LaTeX presentations.
• LaTeX Beamer Templates : A repository of free LaTeX Beamer templates for various presentation styles.
• Slidebean : An AI-powered presentation tool that offers pre-designed templates and content suggestions.

Using LaTeX for presentations offers numerous advantages in terms of customization, professionalism, and typesetting capabilities. While it may have a steeper learning curve compared to traditional presentation tools, the benefits outweigh the challenges. By following best practices and exploring the vast resources available, you can create visually stunning and impactful presentations using LaTeX. Embrace the power of LaTeX and elevate your presentation game to new heights.

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• Behind the Scenes

How to Make a Presentation in LaTeX

December 7, 2016 Trudy Firestone 5 Comments

When I was tasked with creating a presentation to share with my co-workers at our weekly tech talk, I chose to use LaTeX. While I briefly considered other tools, like Google Slides or PowerPoint, using LaTeX allowed me to easily separate the styling from my content and create my own theme that I could reuse for all future presentations at Lucid.

What? LaTeX for Presentations?

LaTeX is a typesetting and document creation tool that is often used for creating academic articles due to its ability to display mathematical equations. Beyond that, it has many other capabilities due to a large amount of packages, such as Forest, which I used for laying out sentence trees in a college Linguistics class. One such package, Beamer , allows you to create presentations. While Beamer lacks the simple click and drag functionality of a GUI tool in creating presentations, it makes up for it by automating a large portion of the stylistic work—as long as you like the default styles or are willing to write your own—and offering all the mathematical equations, graphs, and other tools available in LaTeX.

A sample Beamer document:

The Beamer commands are straightforward, and the flow of the presentation is easier to follow than it is in a GUI tool. While you could split the styling from the market using html and css, I enjoy using the Beamer package due to its concise creation of slides. Looking at a LaTeX file for a Beamer presentation is almost like looking at an outline which makes it more closely connected to the content the presentation is trying to convey. Unfortunately, I don’t like the default theme…or any of the other themes .

After lots of searching, however, I was able to create my own theme, lucid. Then, just by uncommenting \usetheme{lucid} , I was able to create a presentation I was pleased with. Only a few weeks ago, I was able to reuse the theme and create a new presentation with all the custom styling that I wanted in much less time than a GUI tool would have required to replicate my original theme.

Building Your Own Beamer Theme

While it’s easy to find documentation on creating a presentation using Beamer , it’s more difficult to locate documentation on building a Beamer theme. Therefore, I’m going to walk through creating a simple Beamer theme with its own title page, header and footer, and styled lists.

The first step in creating a Beamer theme is creating the following four files where “lucid” is the name of our new theme:

• beamerinnerthemelucid.sty
• beamerouterthemelucid.sty
• beamercolorthemelucid.sty
• beamerthemelucid.sty

While it’s not necessary to separate these into four files, it follows the pattern of Beamer’s own themes which allow for mixing and matching different parts of the theme. For instance, if we wanted to use the albatross color theme with the default theme we could replace \usetheme{lucid} in the above sample file like this:

And the output pdf would consist of this:

The three parts of a theme are:

• Inner: Defines the appearance of any items that make up the slides central content, e.g., lists or the title on the title page
• Outer: Defines the appearance of the chrome of the slide, e.g., the title and footer of each slide
• Color: Defines the colors used in various parts of the theme, e.g.,the color for frame titles or the background color

The final file, beamerthemelucid.sty, simply exists to combine all the parts of the theme into the main theme so it can be used without specifying each part of the theme.

beamerthemelucid.sty:

The change to presentation mode at the beginning of the file is added so that the .sty file will match the mode of the presentation .tex file. Beamer automatically converts all files with its document class to presentation mode. The rest of the file simply sets all the portions of the theme to the new lucid theme and then returns the file to the normal mode. Each of the .sty files used to create the theme needs to be put in presentation mode in the same way.

Right now, the theme doesn’t actually change anything. Everything is still using the default theme because we haven’t defined any new styles. Let’s start with the title page. Because the title is part of the inner content of the title page, the definition for its style goes into beamerinnerthemelucid.sty.

I want a title page that’s centered vertically and horizontally like the one in the default theme, but with a bigger font, a different color, and no date. So, let’s add the following to beamerinnerthemelucid.sty between the mode changes:

The \defbeamertemplate command creates a new template where the first argument is the mode, * in this case, the second argument is what the template is for, and the third argument is the name of the new template. To access the template elsewhere, the given name is used, in this case “lucid.” The final part of \defbeamertemplate is where the actual template is defined using arbitrary LaTeX code. In this case, we use common commands for centering and accessed the title and subtitle via \inserttitle and \insertsubtitle . To get the correct colors, we use \usebeamercolor which fetches the correct colors from the color theme based on the element name given, i.e., the name of the color. Similarly, \usebeamerfont fetches the correct font from the font theme, so that you can specify the font separately.

However, the color and the font remain unchanged, so we need to edit the color theme file next. I want white text on a dark background, so we need to change the background color first.

After adding these commands in beamercolorthemelucid.sty, the title page looks just about the way I want it. The background is gray, and the title and subtitle are in a new size and color. However, Beamer’s default links are still in the bottom right hand corner. To remove them, we add the following line to beamerouterthemelucid.sty because the footer is part of the outer theme.

Like \defbeamertemplate , \setbeamertemplate can be used to define a new template. The element that uses the template is immediately set to use the new template rather than being set separately. In this case, the navigation symbols element is set to empty.

Now that the title page looks just the way I want it to, we can move on to the content slides. While they already have the correct background color and are correctly lacking the navigation symbols in the footer, the title and subtitle are the wrong color and lack style.

Because the frame title is part of the outer theme, we add the following to beamerouterthemelucid.sty:

In addition to the now familiar Beamer commands, we use an if statement to differentiate between the cases of when there is and isn’t a subtitle, and we make use of a new package, tikz, which allows the user to create drawings in LaTeX. By using it in the template for the frametitle, we’ve added a rectangle to each frame title in the presentation. We set the color of the rectangle with the Beamer color frametitle-left which the command \usebeamercolor[fg]{frametitle-left} adds to the environment.

The colors and fonts are correctly reading from beamercolorthemelucid.sty, but it hasn’t been updated, so that’s the next step.

The content of the slides is still in the default style, so we turn to beamerinnerthemelucid.sty to modify the template for lists.

Just as \setbeamertemplate can be used to define a new template that is immediately applied, it can also be used to set a template defined by \defbeamertemplate earlier. square is defined by default in the beamer package, and it makes the bullets in an unordered list square.

To change the colors of content and the list items, we update beamercolortheme.sty again.

The last thing missing from our theme is a new footer. We need to add a page number and logo to each page.

Adding the above to beamerouterthemelucid.sty splits the footer in half, putting the page number out of the total number of pages on one side and a logo on the other. lucidsoftware-logo.png has to be included in the same directory for it to compile correctly. The if statement removes the page number from the first page.

Finally, we add the color for the page number to beamercolorthemelucid.sty:

Creating your own LaTeX theme allows for complete customizability, something you have to work very hard to achieve in more conventional presentational tools. It also makes it trivial to reuse the theme, avoiding wasted effort.

Additional References:

• Another Theme Example

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Time-saving chrome devtools shortcuts, agile documentation: keeping your team in sync in an agile world, live editing html and css with chrome devtools.

Was doing just that in the ’80s with DCF and Generalised Markup Language.

Styles were called “profiles”. You could roll your own, tailor an existing style or buy one.

The same base document could be formatted for a book, presentation or display.

Likely still used in producing IBM manuals.

So, have you uploaded your theme on CTAN? That’s the TeX-way to share 🙂

Thanks a lot This article helped me a lot to prepare my communication for this week (Stil working on it) Much thanks <3

Thank you a million times, i had a very very incredible experience with your tutorial. I made my own theme and i love it 🙂 I’m going to make a video on YouTube for this beautiful simplistic tex presentation solution. I’ll definitely link to your great tutorial there.

I do agree with all the ideas you have introduced on your post.

They’re really convincing and wll definitely work. Nonetheless, the posts are too brief for starters. May you please lengthen them a bit from subsequent time? Thanks for the post.

Your email address will not be published.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• How to make a presentation with Latex - Introduction to Beamer
• exampleblock
• compilation
• beamergotobutton
• presentation

We shall see in this article how to make a presentation with LaTeX, using the powerful class Beamer. If you want to make an outstanding “stressfree” presentation and bring your ideas or your work under a whole new light, let’s get started!!!

Installing the Beamer class

You will first need to install the package Beamer . Under Debian or Ubuntu, you can type the following command:

Once the latex-class Beamer is installed, you are definitely ready to stat your first presentation!!!

Basic presentation with Beamer

A few explanations:

means that our document is a Beamer presentation

this package enables us to use special letters (with accents, cedillas, etc). You can discard this command when the presentation is in English.

This is our outer theme (color and background). As you can imagine, there are tons of themes. You can refer to Beamer documentation for more details.

this defines the title of the presentation. As you can see, there are two titles:

• the first one, between brackets. [Making a LaTeX presentation with Beamer] is a substitute title which appears at the bottom of the page. This is useful especially if the original title is long. Since this is anoption only, if it is not mentioned, then the original title is the one shown in the bottom of the page.
• the second one, between braces, is the principal title of the presentation. The command

defines Nadir Soualem and Astozzia (us!) as the authors of the presentation.

defines where the presentation was held. Finally, we use

as the date.

To define the document, we use the markers

To define a slide of the presentation, we use the markers

To define a page title (frame), we mention it as follows

Introduction will be the title of the page. To define the first page, which contains details such as the title, the author, the date, etc - we use a frame in which we include the \titlepage command

To define a frame containing the layout of the presentation, we proceed as follows:

The layout is therefore mentioned at every section and subsection. You should insert \section and \subsection throughout the presentation and out of the frames:

Animations – Overlays

A good presentation is one that is dynamic and attracts the audience’s interest. Generally, we resort to a dynamic type of presentations. Alternatively stated, when we speak, we simultaneously show significant points of the talk, or hide others, or keep just the important ones. We shall see in this section how animations function in Beamer.

Item-by-item list view: the \pause command

In order to view several items of a list on the same slide, we type the following commands inside a frame:

We will thus see the items of our list, one by one.

Item-by-item list view: the \item<n-> command

An alternative way to visualize the elements of a list item by item is to use the \item<n-> command, where n is a natural number referring to the slide, beginning from which the item appears.

List item interval and isolated items: the \item<n-> and \item<p> commands

An example is worth a long speech:

\item<n-> means that the list item will appear on slides numbered n to m, whereas \item<p> means that the item will appear on slide p.

Item-by-item long list view: the [<+->] command

Sometimes the lists you want to display are long and it is not practical to use the \item<n-> command. An alternative solution is the use of the [<+->] command

Up to now, we have dealt with lists. We shall now see how to use text and slides.

Displaying and hiding text in slides: the \uncover<n->, \uncover<n-> and \uncover<p> commands

\uncover<n-> will display the text from slide n on; \uncover<n-> means the text element will appear from slide n to m. Finally, \uncover<p> means that the text will appear on slide p. Here is a case in point of a frame containing the \uncover command.

Be careful not to forget the braces after the \uncover command. The syntax is as follows:

Displaying and hiding text in slides: the \only<n->, \only<n-> and \only<p> commands

\only works like \uncover with the exception that the \only command is not as “cumbersome” on slides. Here is an example:

Here is an other example to better grasp the difference between \only and \uncover

Hide text in slides: the \invisible<n> commands

\invisible<n> makes text invisible on slide n

Another alternative: the \alt<n>{…}{…} commands

As an alternative, one can use the \alt<n>{…}{…} command on a slide. The first argument is the value on slide n. The second is for values other than n. Here is an example:

Highlighting text in red: the \alert<n>{…} command

To highlight text in red on slide n, we use the \alert<n>{…} command.

Successively highlighting list items in red: the <+-| alert@+> command

Using colors in a text on a slide: the \color<n->{…}{…}, \color<n->{…}{…} and\color<p>{…}{…} commands.

The first argument is the red, green, yellow, blue, etc … The second is the text to be colored

Creating links: the \hyperlink{…}{\beamergotobutton{…}} commands

To define internal links, we should add the following package in the preamble

Then, we should define a label pointing on the frame:

you define MY_LABEL as you please ! Finally, on the frame where the link is to be created, we proceed as follows:

There we are! We can see a button Refer to this page pointing to the frame labeled MY_LABEL .

Thus, the first argument of \hyperlink{…}{\beamergotobutton{…}} is the name of the label to be pointed at and \beamergotobutton{…} has the name of the button as an argument.

Defining blocks inside frames

For important stuff, we define blocks as follows:

As clear as onion soup !!!

Dynamic display of tables: the \pause and \onslide<n-> commands

First off, we should add the package colortbl to the preamble

To display rows dynamically, we shall use the \pause command as follows:

To display columns dynamically, we shall use the \onslide<n-> command as follows:

Writing on several columns: the \begin{columns}...\end{columns} commands

For two columns, we proceed as follows:

l,r,c refers to the position: left, right, center. The syntax is as follows:

Inserting a figure in a Beamer presentation

To insert an image or a figure, we proceed as in LaTeX by using the \includegraphics command. Here is an example:

In Beamer, we should distinguish between two types of figures:

• PS type: .eps, .ps and pspicture type (LaTeX)
• General type: .pdf, .png, .jpg, .jpeg You will need to compile a Beamer-class file.

Compiling a Beamer presentation

I assume that the your file is called file.tex. . There are ways to compile, depending on the type of figure you inserted. For PS-type figures, we shall use the following commands

We shall obtain the file file.pdf.

For general-type figures, we shall use the command

We shall also obtain the file file.pdf.

It goes without saying that explaining all the possibilities that Beamer offers is way too long. Have look to the official documentation, which is more exhaustive.

Have fun !!!

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• Fonction caractéristique en LaTeX
• Espaces $L^1$, $L^2$, $L^p$ et $L^\infty$ en Latex
• Écrire les ensembles classiques en Latex: \mathbb, amsfonts et \mathbf
• Dérivées partielles de fonctions à plusieurs variables en LaTeX
• Comment faire un tableau en Latex ? begin{tabular}...end{tabular}
• Comment encadrer des formules en Latex ? \boxed
• Comment écrire un angle en latex langle, rangle, wedge, angle, measuredangle, sphericalangle
• Comment écrire un algorithme en Latex ?\usepackage{algorithm},\usepackage{algorithmic}
• Comment écrire des vecteurs en Latex? \vec,\overrightarrow

because LaTeX matters

Create your slides / presentations with latex.

Obviously, LaTeX cannot only generate articles, reports and books, but also slides for presentations. This blog-entry is not an extensive introduction to slide-creation in LaTeX, but shows the basic concepts in a simple environment. There are other, more sophisticated commands than we introduce here, which are more powerful. But for simple slides with text and images this is sufficient. First we define the documentclass:

Obviously we want the slides to be landscape. Nevertheless, this is not sufficient, as it only turns the slide, but not the paper (see the previous post for details).

Now we can define our slides inside the document-environment:

Often one has different point on a slide, which are marked with bullets. This can be achieved with the command “itemize”:

The following is a small example that creates two slides.

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21. January 2008 at 20:06

For easy “quick’n’dirty” presentations this package is very usefull. Though I tend to use the Beamer package rather. If you want to keep it simple, it is possible, but going sophistocated is possible too.

But I guess it’s just preference.

24. January 2008 at 19:08

Thanks for your comment. Let me post something on the beamer package later. I have to read myself into it and try things out first. Nevertheless, I agree that beamer is a very powerful package, providing plenty of themes and functionalities.

12. March 2008 at 8:20

Hi! Another package is “powerdot”, which has some stunning themes. I urge you to give it a try, if you can. One of the fancy options I loved is the possibility to add a clock in the slide, useful to check your timing (even during the official presentation)! I said “loved” since this feature, which beautifully used to work ’till last year, now it’s broken due to an upgrade of the hyperref package. So, no clock for the time being!

31. March 2008 at 7:56

An intermediate package is prosper (prosper HA) : it’s quite sober than beamer, but much easier, and more beautiful than just

19. May 2008 at 22:50

Just thought I’d say that I recently converted many slides from {slides} to {beamer} and it was easy. I don’t know many beamer features either, but for basic slides the tasks are (1) replace \begin{slide} and \end{slide} with \begin{frame} and \end{frame} and (2) remove the slide title from the latex inside the slide and use the beamer title instead (3) maybe change graphic sizes to better fit the beamer slide. No need to start out using other beamer features.

The one gotcha that I ran into was that beamer has its own implementation of {itemize} and a few other environments, so if you have some other package that also wants to control one of these environments, there can be trouble.

31. July 2011 at 17:14

Thank You! very simple and useful.

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Information

How to use latex.

• What is \(\LaTeX\)?
• \(\LaTeX\) Resources
• \(\TeX\) Distributions and \(\LaTeX\) Editors
• Writing a \(\LaTeX\) Document
• Compiling a \(\LaTeX\) Document
• \(\LaTeX\) Packages
• Presentations and Posters
• Bibliographies with BibTeX/BibLaTeX
• Mathematics
• Natural Sciences
• Miscellaneous

There are several packages that are intended to be used for the creation of slides for presentations. These include prosper , beamer , and powerdot . There are also a few packages for creating posters, including tikzposter , beamerposter , and sciposter which are intended specifically for the creation of conference posters.

As is often the case with LaTeX, the choice of package will depend on the needs and preferences of the user.

• CTAN - beamer package
• CTAN - prosper package
• CTAN - powerdot package
• CTAN - beamerposter package
• CTAN - sciposter package
• CTAN - tikzposter package
• << Previous: \(\LaTeX\) Packages
• Next: Bibliographies with BibTeX/BibLaTeX >>

LaTeX Presentation Resources

• LaTeX Wikibook: Presentations The LaTeX Wikibook chapter on presentations, though at the moment only the beamer package is covered in detail. It includes a wealth of information on what the package can do and how to implement it using a LaTeX editor.
• Beamer User's Guide [PDF] A user's guide to the beamer package that is extremely comprehensive, covering everything from installing the package to importing presentations based on other packages.
• Dual Screen Presentations [PDF] This guide shows how the X Resize, Rotate, and Reflect extension of the X Window system can be used to display a LaTeX beamer presentation on one or two beamers while simultaneously displaying the output of both beamers on the lecturer's display. If only one beamer is used, the lecturer's display might show both the beamer output and hidden notes.

LaTeX Poster Resources

• Writing Posters with beamerposter in LaTeX [PDF] This is a short guide to utilizing the beamerposter package for the creation of posters.
• Creating Posters with a0poster in LaTeX [PDF] This article provides is a basic guide to the use of the a0poster package, and includes a template poster.
• Creating Scientific Posters with beamerposter and tikzposter - Overleaf This blog post from Overleaf provides the basic setup for creating a scientific poster in both tikzposter and beamerposter

More Poster Resources

This guide covers the creation of research posters in a few different programs:

• Creating Research Posters
• Last Updated: Nov 23, 2021 12:57 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.wayne.edu/latex
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Producing Slides and Presentations with LaTeX

• Using basic slides and foils
• Beamer (and here is a beamer presentation about how to make a beamer presentation )

The files below are an example output (the pdf file) and then a latex template (using the beamer class) and associated image files to create a poster with departmental and university branding/styling. Note the images used by the template are png files so you will need to use pdflatex to compile your document (and use pdf/jpeg/png images for figures). Furthermore the template expects those images to be in a subdirectory called images.

How to make slides in LaTex

The beamer class.

The beamer class is a LaTeX class that allows you to create a beamer presentation. It can also be used to create slides. It behaves similarly to other packages like Prosper, but has the advantage that it works together directly with pdflatex, but also with dvips.

The Latex Beamer Class Homepage  provides with the steps to create a beamer presentation and some examples

Beamer Tutorial - MIT  (pdf)

LaTeX Beamer Templates

LaTeX Beamer Video

Powerdot is a presentation class for LaTeX that allows for the quick and easy development of professional presentations. It comes with many tools that enhance presentations and aid the presenter. Examples are automatic overlays, personal notes and a handout mode. To view a presentation, DVI, PS or PDF output can be used. A powerful template system is available to easily develop new styles.

CTAN  provides additional details on Powerdot.

Quick Tutorial on Powerdot for slide making

Note:  These softwares are not a part of the default installation for LaTeX. The software downloads can be obtained from the respective homepages. For further assistance with the installation on your machine please contact  computer support

How To Insert a LaTeX Equation in PowerPoint? [Full Guide!]

By: Author Shrot Katewa

To create an academic presentation, you can quickly write equations using symbol options but inserting a LaTeX equation is still a challenge as there are no direct options provided by PowerPoint. However, we have some quick tricks you can use for this purpose.

To insert a LaTeX equation in PowerPoint, select the equation in the LaTeX compilation and click “copy” from the “Right-Click” menu. Open the slide, “Right-click” on the text box you want to insert the equation and choose “Keep Source Formatting” from the “Paste” options to insert the equation as it is.

You can also insert the LaTeX equation as an image while taking a screenshot of the PDF version of the LaTeX file. Besides, the LaTeX equation can be generated in MS Word from where you can copy and then paste it into Powerpoint keeping the source formatting.

If you’re also among those who struggle to insert a LaTeX equation in PowerPoint, we’ve got you covered. Let’s get started with the complete guide below:

1. How to Insert an Equation in PowerPoint?

In Microsoft PowerPoint, you can insert an equation using the “Insert” menu. There are numerous features available to write an equation on a slide. To insert an equation in PowerPoint, follow the 4 easy steps.

Step-1: Click on the “Insert” tab

The first step is to open the “Insert” menu. To do so, click on the “Insert” tab in the menu ribbon located at the top of the screen.

Step-2: Click on the “Equation” icon

In the “Insert” menu, click on the down arrow under the “Symbols” option. Then click on the “Equation” icon in the dropdown list under the “Symbols” option. Do not click on the down arrow under the “Equation” icon.

Step-3: Click on the “Equation” tab

Now you have to click on the equation box in the slide to select it. Then click on the “Equation” tab in the menu ribbon located at the top of the screen. This will expand the “Equation” toolbar.

Step-4: Write the Equation

Finally, you can write the equation in the equation box inserted into the slide. You can use the features available in the “Equation” toolbar to write the equation.

2. How to Insert a LaTex Equation in PowerPoint?

Microsoft PowerPoint does not support LaTex codes, unlike Microsoft Word. So you cannot insert a LaTex equation directly into a PowerPoint presentation. However, you can use some workarounds to insert the LaTex equation into a slide.

2.1 Method 1: Using Copy and Paste

The simplest way to insert a LaTex equation in a PowerPoint presentation slide is to paste it into the slide.

However, this only works for linear equations. Any equation with exponents cannot be pasted using this method. For such equations, you can either rewrite them following the steps detailed in section 1 or insert them using other methods described in the article.

To insert an equation using the copy and paste method, follow the 2 easy steps.

Step-1: Click on the “Copy” option

In the LaTex compilation, select the linear equation that you want to insert into the PowerPoint presentation. Then “Right Click” on the equation and click on the “Copy” option from the right-click menu.

You can alternatively press the “Ctrl+C” keys on your keyboard to copy the equation.

Step-2: Click on the “Keep Source Formatting” option

Now you can open the PowerPoint presentation. “Right Click” on a text box in the slide where you want to insert the LaTex equation. Then click on the “Keep Source Formatting” option in the “Paste Options” section of the right-click menu.

Alternatively, you can press the “Ctrl+V” keys on your keyboard to paste the equation into the text box.

2.2 Method 2: Inserting as Image

To insert a LaTex equation in Microsoft PowerPoint, you can simply add it as an image. All you have to do is follow the 4 quick steps.

Step-1: Click on the “Download PDF” option

The first step is to download the LaTex output as a PDF file. To do so, click on the “Download PDF” option in your LaTex file.

Step-2: Press the “Win+Shift+S” keys on your keyboard

The next step is to open the PDF file. Then press the “Win+Shift+S” keys on your keyboard to take a screenshot of the LaTex equation.

Step-3: Open the PowerPoint slide

Now you have to open the PowerPoint presentation. In the presentation, click on the slide where you want to insert the LaTex equation as an image.

Step-4: Click on the “Paste” option

Finally, all you have to do is “Right Click” on the slide. In the “Paste Options” section of the right-click menu, click on either the “Paste” option or the “Picture” option.

You can alternatively press the “Ctrl+V” keys on your keyboard to paste the LaTex equation as an image.

2.3 Method 3: Using Microsoft Word

The equation toolbar in Microsoft Word supports LaTex equations. You can insert a LaTex equation in Word and paste it into a text box in Microsoft PowerPoint. All you have to do is follow the 9 simple steps.

The first step is to open a Microsoft Word document. In the menu ribbon located at the top of the screen, click on the “Insert” tab to open the “Insert” menu.

Step-2: Click on the “Equation” button

In the “Symbols” group of the “Insert” menu, click on the “Equation” button. It will open an equation box in the document.

The next step is to click on the equation box in the document to select it. Then click on the “Equation” tab in the menu ribbon to open the “Equation” toolbar.

Step-4: Click on the “LaTex” option

In the “Conversions” group of the “Equation” toolbar, click on the “LaTex” option. Now you can enter LaTex codes in the equation box.

Step-5: Type in the LaTex equation

In the equation box, you can now type in the LaTex equation. Then all you have to do is press the “Enter” key on your keyboard to convert the LaTex code to the equation.

Step-6: Click on the “Copy” option

The next step is to “Double Click” on the equation box to select the LaTex equation. Then “Right Click” on the equation and select the “Copy” option from the right-click menu.

Alternatively, you can press the “Ctrl+C” keys on your keyboard to copy the equation.

Step-7: Click on the “Insert” menu

Now you can insert the LaTex equation into a PowerPoint slide. In the PowerPoint presentation, click on the “Insert” menu from the menu ribbon located at the top of the screen.

Step-8: Click on the “Text Box” option

In the “Text” group of the “Insert” menu, click on the “Text Box” option. Now you can draw the text box in the presentation slide where you want to add the equation.

Step-9: Click on the “Keep Source Formatting” option

Finally, you can paste the LaTex equation into the PowerPoint slide. To do so, “Right Click” on the text box. Then click on the “Keep Source Formatting” option under the “Paste Options” section in the right-click menu.

You can alternatively press the “Ctrl+V” keys on your keyboard to paste the LaTex equation.