beamerarticle not defining \inserttitle and co

Question

I'm trying to make some notes for my beamer slides, using the article class and beamerarticle. However, some of the commands I use in my slides --- specifically, the ones that insert previously set values (\inserttitle, \insertauthor, \secname) seem to be missing when using beamerarticle.

I've looked briefly at the beamerbasearticle.sty and beamerbasetitle.sty files (which are being included properly as far as I can tell), but my tex-fu is not strong enough to glean much useful information, except in so far as it appears that the commands I want should be working fine...

Are there some commands I can use to help track this down? (e.g., to confirm that \inserttitle is not defined)

Using pdfTeX 3.1415926-1.40.10-2.2 (TeX Live 2009/Debian)

slide-notes.tex:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}
\usepackage{beamerarticle}
\usepackage{fullpage}

\usepackage{graphicx}
\DeclareGraphicsExtensions{.pdf,.png,.jpg}
\graphicspath{{../media-inc/}}

\include{tex/util}
\input{tex/presentation}

Start of tex/presentation.tex:

\newcommand{\pubdate}{January 2011}
\newcommand{\reviewtitle}{Monocular Visual SLAM on a Micro Air Vehicle}
\newcommand{\authorname}{John Bartholomew}

\title{\reviewtitle}
\titlegraphic{\includegraphics[height=20mm]{MAV-side}}
\author[\authorname]{\authorname}
\institute[UoB]{University of Bristol}
\date{\pubdate}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}[plain]
\begin{center}
\inserttitlegraphic\\[6mm]
\inserttitle\\[8mm]
\insertauthor
\end{center}
\end{frame}

pdflatex output is:

pdflatex -file-line-error-style -halt-on-error slide-notes
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-1.40.10 (TeX Live 2009/Debian)
 restricted \write18 enabled.
entering extended mode
(./slide-notes.tex
LaTeX2e <2009/09/24>
Babel <v3.8l> and hyphenation patterns for english, usenglishmax, dumylang, noh
yphenation, loaded.
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/base/article.cls
Document Class: article 2007/10/19 v1.4h Standard LaTeX document class
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/base/size10.clo))
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerarticle.sty
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasercs.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasemodes.sty
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasedecode.sty))
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasearticle.sty
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/graphics/keyval.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbaseoptions.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/xcolor/xcolor.sty
(/etc/texmf/tex/latex/config/color.cfg)
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/pdftex-def/pdftex.def))
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasecompatibility.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasefont.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasemisc.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasetwoscreens.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbaseoverlay.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasetitle.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasesection.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbaseframe.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbaseverbatim.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbaseframesize.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbaseframecomponents.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasecolor.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasenotes.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasetoc.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasetemplates.sty
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbaseauxtemplates.sty))
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbaselocalstructure.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasenavigation.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasetheorems.sty
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/translator/translator.sty
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/translator/translator-language-mappings.tex
)) (/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/amsmath/amsmath.sty
For additional information on amsmath, use the `?' option.
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/amsmath/amstext.sty
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/amsmath/amsgen.sty))
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/amsmath/amsbsy.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/amsmath/amsopn.sty))
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/amscls/amsthm.sty))
(/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/base/beamerbasethemes.sty)))
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/preprint/fullpage.sty)
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/graphics/graphicx.sty
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/graphics/graphics.sty
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/graphics/trig.sty)
(/etc/texmf/tex/latex/config/graphics.cfg)))
\@input{tex/util.aux}
(./tex/util.tex) (./tex/presentation.tex (./slide-notes.aux)
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/context/base/supp-pdf.mkii
[Loading MPS to PDF converter (version 2006.09.02).]
)
(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/translator/translator-theorem-dictionary-En
glish.dict) <../media-inc/MAV-side.pdf, id=1, 455.10695pt x 257.53128pt>
<use ../media-inc/MAV-side.pdf>
./tex/presentation.tex:17: Undefined control sequence.
l.17 \inserttitle
                 \\[8mm]
./tex/presentation.tex:17:  ==> Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produc
ed!
Transcript written on slide-notes.log.
make: *** [slides] Error 1

Answer 1

What I normally do when writing is to do the following:

\def\myauthor{Albert Author}
\def\mytitle{The Title}
\author{\myauthor}
\title{\mytitle}

This way if I need to change the title or author, I can do it universally. This has the advantage of working in beamerarticle, but also in any other class.

Alternatively, the titling package defines \thetitle and \theauthor commands that do what you want. And nameref allows reference to the title of a section.