# Grid to facilitate positioning of objects with \put in beamer

In presentations with the beamerpackage I use \put a lot to place graphic objects like this:

\newcommand{\putat}[3]{\begin{picture}(0,0)(0,0)\put(#1,#2){#3}\end{picture}} % just a shorthand
\putat{123}{45}{stuff}

Now I was thinking about writing a small macro to facilitate finding the x and y coordinate by just writing a grid of positions onto the slide from which I can read off which values to use as arguments to put:

\newcounter{xpos}
\newcounter{ypos}
\forLoop[20]{20}{200}{xpos}{%
\forLoop[10]{20}{100}{ypos}{%
\putat{\value{xpos}}{\value{ypos}}{(\arabic{xpos},\arabic{ypos})}
}
}

(This uses the forloop package.)

The problem is that I forgot that put uses relative positions (apparently). Can I somehow return to the same origin in every pass of the loop?

Or is there a simpler way to generate this grid?

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Related question: Absolute positioning in beamer and LaTeX –  Seamus Mar 4 '11 at 12:02
Does textpos work together well with beamer and graphics? –  fuenfundachtzig Mar 4 '11 at 13:53

Hi the most simple way seems to be using beamer itself:

\setbeamertemplate{background}[grid][step=10]

Of course you could use full power tikz:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{tikz}
\setbeamertemplate{background}{\tikz{
\foreach \x in {-5,...,5} \draw (\x ,-5) -- (\x ,5) node[anchor=north] {$\x$};
\foreach \y in {-5,...,5} \draw (-5,\y) -- (5,\y) node[anchor=east] {$\y$};}}
\begin{document}
\frame{hi world}

\end{document}

I´m aware that this solution is not a bare latex one. Nevertheless i believe this is the most comfortable way.

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Cannot use tikz. We only have a way outdated version here, because we are stuck with CentOS :( Your first suggestion seems to work though (if I replace 10 by 10pt). –  fuenfundachtzig Mar 4 '11 at 13:38
@fuenfundachtzig: You can use/update LaTeX package independent from the binaries. You don't need to use the version provided by our OS. Simply make your own texmf tree. –  Martin Scharrer Mar 4 '11 at 13:53
Well step normally expects a lenght however an up to date tikz/beamer obviously accepts a dimension free figure too. I guess, that it is replaced with an default dimension. –  bloodworks Mar 4 '11 at 13:57
Number without an unit will be taken as multiple to the specific unity vector, which can be something very simple like an unit or something more complex like a 3-D vector. But do not mix numbers with and without units in the same expression because then pt are assumed! –  Martin Scharrer Mar 4 '11 at 14:04