printing beamer slides

Question

I want to print handouts of a beamer presentation. I am using psnup to a create a copy with multiple slides per pages. I notice that there is a lot of empty space on the top of each slide and the actual printed material takes a small proportion of the space alloted to each slide. Is there a way I can fix this?

Answer 1

I use the following preamble, making use of the package handoutWithNotes:

% \documentclass{beamer}
% \usepackage{beamerthemeclassic}
% \documentclass[handout]{beamer}
% \mode<presentation>
% {
%    \usetheme{classic}
% }
%  Leaving the lines above commented and uncommenting the following
%  produces slides four to a page, with or without space for notes;
%  the selection is made with the command
%
%      \pgfpagesuselayout{...}
%
%  a few lines below.
\documentclass[handout]{beamer}
\usepackage{handoutWithNotes}
%
%  Load other packages you may need here
% 
% \pgfpagesuselayout{4 on 1}[a4paper,landscape,border shrink=5mm
\pgfpagesuselayout{4 on 1 with notes}[a4paper,border shrink=5mm]
%
% .....

It produces rather nicely formatted output four slides to a page, either in landscape format or in portrait format, with space for notes --something my students like.

Look to the blog of Guido Diepen for more info and an example.

Answer 2

I second the use of pgfpages instead of psnup. To make the slides more clearly delimited, I use a variation of the 4 on 1 style that puts a border around each frame.

Here's a minimal working example:

\documentclass[handout]{beamer}

\mode<handout>
{
  \usepackage{pgf}
  \usepackage{pgfpages}

\pgfpagesdeclarelayout{4 on 1 boxed}
{
  \edef\pgfpageoptionheight{\the\paperheight} 
  \edef\pgfpageoptionwidth{\the\paperwidth}
  \edef\pgfpageoptionborder{0pt}
}
{
  \pgfpagesphysicalpageoptions
  {%
    logical pages=4,%
    physical height=\pgfpageoptionheight,%
    physical width=\pgfpageoptionwidth%
  }
  \pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{1}
  {%
    border code=\pgfsetlinewidth{2pt}\pgfstroke,%
    border shrink=\pgfpageoptionborder,%
    resized width=.5\pgfphysicalwidth,%
    resized height=.5\pgfphysicalheight,%
    center=\pgfpoint{.25\pgfphysicalwidth}{.75\pgfphysicalheight}%
  }%
  \pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{2}
  {%
    border code=\pgfsetlinewidth{2pt}\pgfstroke,%
    border shrink=\pgfpageoptionborder,%
    resized width=.5\pgfphysicalwidth,%
    resized height=.5\pgfphysicalheight,%
    center=\pgfpoint{.75\pgfphysicalwidth}{.75\pgfphysicalheight}%
  }%
  \pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{3}
  {%
    border code=\pgfsetlinewidth{2pt}\pgfstroke,%
    border shrink=\pgfpageoptionborder,%
    resized width=.5\pgfphysicalwidth,%
    resized height=.5\pgfphysicalheight,%
    center=\pgfpoint{.25\pgfphysicalwidth}{.25\pgfphysicalheight}%
  }%
  \pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{4}
  {%
    border code=\pgfsetlinewidth{2pt}\pgfstroke,%
    border shrink=\pgfpageoptionborder,%
    resized width=.5\pgfphysicalwidth,%
    resized height=.5\pgfphysicalheight,%
    center=\pgfpoint{.75\pgfphysicalwidth}{.25\pgfphysicalheight}%
  }%
}


  \pgfpagesuselayout{4 on 1 boxed}[a4paper, border shrink=5mm, landscape]
  \nofiles
}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
Frame One
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
Frame Two
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
Frame Three
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}
Frame Four
\end{frame}
\end{document}

which produces:

(In my actual documents, I have that page layout saved in a style file which gets loaded between loading pgfpages and the \pgfpagesuselayout command.)

Answer 3

I found the solution in the user guide, section 4.6.2. One has to use the pgfpages package.