How to Continue Enumerate Across Columns in Beamer

Question

I am trying to create two columns of a single enumerated list on a single frame in beamer. How do I go about getting the enumeration to continue from one column to the next?

Answer 1

The usual way to resume lists is to use the enumitem package, but this doesn't work very well with beamer. So in this case, the easiest way to do this is to define a counter to store the enumeration number in the one column and restore it at the beginning of the enumeration in the next column:

\documentclass{beamer}
\newcounter{savedenum}
\newcommand*{\saveenum}{\setcounter{savedenum}{\theenumi}}
\newcommand*{\resume}{\setcounter{enumi}{\thesavedenum}}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
\begin{columns}[T]
  \begin{column}{.5\linewidth}
  \begin{enumerate}
    \item First item
    \item Second item
    \saveenum
  \end{enumerate}
  \end{column}
  \begin{column}{.5\linewidth}
  \begin{enumerate}
    \resume
    \item Third item
    \item Fourth item
  \end{enumerate}
  \end{column}
\end{columns}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

Answer 2

Environments like enumerate will have to be split across other environments - column in this case since \begin{<env>} and \end{<env>} have to remain grouped. However, you can also specify the enumerate number manually in the usual way you would for lists:

...
\begin{column}{.5\linewidth}
  \begin{enumerate}
    \item<1->[1.] First item
    \item<2->[2.] Second item
    ...
    \item<5->[5.] Fifth item
  \end{enumerate}
\end{column}
\begin{column{.5\linewidth}
  \begin{enumerate}
    \item<6->[6.] Sixth item
    \item<7->[7.] Seventh item
    ...
    \item<10->[10.] Tenth item
  \end{enumerate}
\end{column}
...

Definitely not as elegant as Alan's answer, but works in a pinch.