Handouts dont print properly

Question

I have been unable to print handouts --- multiple slides per page with border around each. And it just does not work. I tried compiling with xelatex and latex (both almost default installs on Ubuntu 10.12).

How do I set it right? Below is the MWE.

\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames,english,professionalfonts,smaller,handout]{beamer}

\usetheme{Madrid}
\usecolortheme[named=Black]{structure}

\usepackage{arev}
\usepackage{wasysym}
\usepackage{keystroke}
\usepackage{parskip}
\usepackage{booktabs}
\usepackage{tabu}
\usepackage{pifont}
\usepackage{tikz}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\graphicspath{{.}{./images/}}

\setbeamertemplate{navigation symbols}{}

\date{}

\defbeamertemplate*{footline}{my infolines theme}
{
\leavevmode%
\hbox{%
\begin{beamercolorbox}[wd=.1\paperwidth,ht=2.25ex,dp=1ex,center]{author in head/foot}%
\usebeamerfont{author in head/foot}{\underline{\textbf{Author} }}
\end{beamercolorbox}%
\begin{beamercolorbox}[wd=.8\paperwidth,ht=2.25ex,dp=1ex,center]{title in head/foot}%
\usebeamerfont{title in head/foot}Title~---~\insertshorttitle
\end{beamercolorbox}%
\begin{beamercolorbox}[wd=.1\paperwidth,ht=2.25ex,dp=1ex,right]{date in head/foot}%
\usebeamerfont{date in head/foot}\insertshortdate{}\hspace*{2em}
\insertframenumber{} / \inserttotalframenumber\hspace*{2ex}
\end{beamercolorbox}}%
\vskip0pt%
}

\newcommand{\footlineextra}[1]{
    \begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture,overlay]
            \node[yshift=2ex,anchor=south east] at (current page.south east) {\usebeamerfont{author in head/foot}\hspace{2ex}#1};
            \end{tikzpicture}
        }

\newcommand{\footlineleft}[1]{
    \begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture,overlay]
            \node[yshift=2ex,anchor=south west] at (current page.south west) {\usebeamerfont{author in head/foot}\hspace{2ex}#1};
            \end{tikzpicture}
        }

%}}}

\title{\newline Title \newline}
\institute[Institute]{\Large{Institute}\newline \newline \normalsize{\textbf{Some text} normal text\newline \textbf{Some text} normal text\newline \textbf{Some text}}}

\mode<handout>{
  \usepackage{pgfpages}
  \usetheme{default}
  \setbeamercolor{background canvas}{bg=black!5}
  \pgfpagesuselayout{2 on 1}[a4paper,landscape,border shrink=5mm]
\pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{1}{border code=\pgfusepath{stroke}}
\pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{2}{border code=\pgfusepath{stroke}}
\pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{3}{border code=\pgfusepath{stroke}}
\pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{4}{border code=\pgfusepath{stroke}}
}


\begin{document}

\setlength{\parskip}{\bigskipamount}

\begin{frame}[<+->]{Slide 1}

\pause

ONE

\end{frame}

\begin{frame}[<+->]{Slide 2}

\pause

TWO

\end{frame}

\begin{frame}[<+->]{Slide 3}

\pause

THREE

\end{frame}

\begin{frame}[<+->]{Slide 4}

\pause

FOUR

\end{frame}

\end{document}

Answer 1

pgfpages seems to be running into issues with Beamer, at least according to

https://bitbucket.org/rivanvx/beamer/issue/183/problem-with-beamer-and-pgfpages-using

(I'm having the same problem). What I do now is ps2dpf the latex/dvips output (without pgfpages) - which will scale up to the right presentation size - and then run a small pdflatex job on it, calling pdfpages

\includepdf[nup=1x2,pages=1-last,delta=1.5 1.5,frame=true]{0.pdf}

(or change nup as desired). Hope that helps.

Answer 2

I'd look at pdfjam, particularly at pdfnup. Its argument list can be intimidating, but it is extremely flexible. AFAIU, internally it uses LaTeX to do the dirty job of placing multiple pages on one sheet.

Answer 3

OK. After a lot of looking around, I could pinpoint the problem. When you compile the code with xelatex, the handout is not proper. You need to compile it with pdflatex to get the handouts properly.