# Beamer notes with color overlay

I am having trouble with the overlay system of beamer when using side notes. I have a slide with an overlay specification and I have some notes for each stage of this slide. For example, from the beamer docs:

\documentclass[compress,mathserif]{beamer}
\usepackage{pgfpages}
\usetheme{Frankfurt}
\setbeameroption{show notes}
\setbeameroption{show notes on second screen=right}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{There Is No Largest Prime Number}
\framesubtitle{The proof uses \textit{reductio ad absurdum}.}
\begin{theorem}
There is no largest prime number.
\end{theorem}
\begin{proof}
\begin{enumerate}
\item<1-| alert@1> Suppose $p$ were the largest prime number.
\item<2-> Let $q$ be the product of the first $p$ numbers.
\item<3-> Then $q+1$ is not divisible by any of them.
\item<1-> Thus $q+1$ is also prime and greater than $p$.\qedhere
\end{enumerate}
\end{proof}
\note<1->{ note one\\ }
\note<2->{ note 2\\ }
\note<3->{ note 3\\ }
\note<4->{ note 4\\ }
\end{frame}
\end{document}\endinput


With this example, notes appear as the overlay advances. What I would like is for the notes to be always visible, but somehow highlighted (e.g. in red) in its corresponding slide. I tried with \note<1-| alert@1>, but this didn't work so it seems that I am misunderstanding something about the overlays.

• I thought this can be achieved by defining a macro \notealert as: \newcommand<>\notealert[1]{\textcolor#2{red}{#1}}, and use \note[item]{\notealert<1>{note 1}}. But this gives a wrong output: the overlay effect has a one-slide lag. Apparently this has something to do with the pgfpages package. A related post: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/71206/… Dec 8, 2013 at 0:48

You can use \alt{}{} to color the notes:

\documentclass[compress,mathserif]{beamer}
\usepackage{pgfpages}
\usetheme{Frankfurt}
\setbeameroption{show notes}
\setbeameroption{show notes on second screen=right}

\newcommand<>{\mynote}[1]{%
\alt#2{%
\note{\textcolor{red}{#1}}
}
{%
\note{#1}
}
}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{There Is No Largest Prime Number}
\framesubtitle{The proof uses \textit{reductio ad absurdum}.}
\begin{theorem}
There is no largest prime number.
\end{theorem}
\begin{proof}
\begin{enumerate}
\item<1-| alert@1> Suppose $p$ were the largest prime number.
\item<2-> Let $q$ be the product of the first $p$ numbers.
\item<3-> Then $q+1$ is not divisible by any of them.
\item<1-> Thus $q+1$ is also prime and greater than $p$.\qedhere
\end{enumerate}
\end{proof}
\mynote<1>{note one\\}
\mynote<2>{ note 2\\ }
\mynote<3>{ note 3\\ }
\mynote<1>{ note 4\\ }
\end{frame}
\end{document}


• This fails for me if my note has a new paragraph (double new line) in it. How about {{\color{red}#1}
– CPBL
Oct 12, 2020 at 19:05