Changing standard output presentation page size into A4 size?

Question

I am working on some project and presentations in LaTeX using the beamer package. I am just a beginner in this so I really need your help. My problem is that the default presentation page size is small and I need to transform it into A4 paper size. Can anybody help me how to handle this problem?

Answer 1

Werner's example shows a problem with the beamer class, namely that the class doesn't redefine \frametitle in handout mode, which is really annoying. I always recommend you do something along the following lines. (Alternatively you may write \frametitle<handout>{...}, which is really cumbersome.)

\newif\ifmybeamer
%\mybeamertrue
\ifmybeamer
    \documentclass[Madrid]{beamer}
\else
    \documentclass{article}
    \usepackage{beamerarticle}

    \makeatletter
    \def\frametitle{%
        \@ifnextchar<%
            {\@frametitle@lt}%
            {\@frametitle@lt<>}%
    }
    \def\@frametitle@lt<#1>#2{}
    \makeatother
\fi

\author{Me}
\title{Beamer Tricks}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
   \maketitle
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}%
   \frametitle<notes>{Hi}
   Hello
\end{frame}
\end{document}

Redefining \framesubtitle is done in a similar way.

Answer 2

Here you can use the options of beamerposter to modify the page size to your needs. beamerposter supports A0, A1, A2, A3, A4, as well as some custom formats through its size package option:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage[size=a4]{beamerposter}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
  \frametitle{This is a frame}
  Here is some frame content.
\end{frame}
\end{document}

Alternatively, you could just add the A4 specifications from beamerposter in your beamer presentation preamble:

% Format presentation size to A4
\setlength{\paperwidth}{29.7cm}
\setlength{\paperheight}{21.0cm}
\setlength{\textwidth}{28.7cm}
\setlength{\textheight}{20.0cm}    

Note, however, that your presentation font size will be very small compared to that of the regular presentation display, as may be seen from this output of the above MWE (left is A4, right is default):