Export beamer slides to powerpoint/openoffice-impress/keynote editable format

Question

I usually prepare my talks using powerpoint/openoffice-impress/keynote, where I explaing programs, pseudocodes, etc. Recently I was thinking about creating text-only, code-only and pseudocode-only slides with beamer and then exporting them somehow to powerpoint where I modify them to add figures or some minor details for polishing the presentation, which are usually hard to do with beamer. I googled a bit around and found that beamer can export to PDF or PS but not to powerpoint. I wonder anyway if you know some possibility of conversion from beamer to on-screen editable powerpoint/openoffice-impress/keynote.

Answer 1

"beamer can export to PDF or PS", beamer doesn't export anything. It is a LaTeX class and LaTeX compiles the document to PDF (pdflatex) or DVI (latex) which then is mostly converted to PS. There is of course no powerpointlatex, so you will need to convert the PDF or PS somehow to a format PP can read, which would be RTF (Rich Text Format) or some Windows vector format like EMF or WMF. However, I would do it either with one or the other software. They do not mix well.

Answer 2

I have a partial solution for exporting beamer slides to PowerPoint

Purpose: If you want to create your background, header, and footer in (Xe)Latex, like this:

but you still would like to edit the content in PowerPoint (or whatever you have), you could use this solution.

For this you will need a Mac with OS X (Automator and AppleScript needed). I followed the following procedure:

1. Compile Beamer Slides to PDF
2. Use Automator to each page of PDF into separate PDF Files
3. Use AppleScript to add each separate PDF file into an individual slide (see below NOTE: original code from http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?pid=152809#p152809)

tell application "Finder" 
     set picFolder to every file in folder (choose folder)
     log (count picFolder)
     sort picFolder by name end
tell


tell application "Microsoft PowerPoint"
--activate
    make new slide at end of active presentation with properties {layout:slide layout blank}
    set numberofslides to (count of slides of active presentation) as integer     >         set theIncrementValue to 1 as integer
    repeat numberofslides times
         set picName to item theIncrementValue of picFolder as string         >              set properties of slide theIncrementValue of active presentation to {layout:slide layout text slide, follow master background:true}
     set myPic to make new picture at slide theIncrementValue of active presentation with properties {file name:(picName as text), top:0, left position:0, height:540, width:722,lock aspect ratio:true, save with document:true} --makes pictures full sized
         z order myPic z order position send shape to back--tip from Ben Waldie
         set theIncrementValue to theIncrementValue + 1
  end repeat
end tell

UPDATE 2: Ben Waldie helped me move the picture (beamer slides/individual pdf "images") to the back, such that the beamer slides do not cover an text boxes in Powerpoint.

Practical Usage: Create your presentation in Powerpoint, using text-only slides (titles in your tex code) or title-text slides (titles not included in tex code). You will have to coordinate the orientation of these text fields and your pdf slides, such that it is aesthetically pleasing. In your TeX editor, add the number of frames you have in powerpoint.

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My original post (which is most likely obsolete):

I have a possible solution for you:

PDF-to-Powerpoint

It is not free, $12.95 at the moment. This should do what you want. I will continue to seek an open-source alternative. I would really like to be able to have latex generated templates for my Keynote presentations. I especially want the ability to have something like the following picture, except I would want to use it as a template background for my slides in Keynote. All bullet points, pictures, and videos would be added from within Keynote. In essence, Xe(LateX) becomes just a template creator. Have a look, paying attention to what I call the "slide guide" in the header: