Software for creating beamer presentations?

Question

Recently I started a teaching job, and I've been using the Beamer package in LaTeX (through ShareLaTeX) to create colourful and illustrated presentations for use in my lessons. This is an example of one I made.

Whilst I would love to be able to do this for every lesson I teach, I find it does take a very long time to make, considering how I need to be careful when using the "only" and "uncover" commands, which I've used to uncover specific steps of mathematical working. I'm really happy with the results, but I've only been able to put presentations like this together for one-off lessons, rather than a regular habit (as I will be having to do 10 lessons a week as of tomorrow at my college!) I really don't want to use PowerPoint as editing equations in that can be very fiddly.

Does anyone know of a software package similar to LyX (which I normally use for creating LaTeX documents), that allows Beamer presentations to be created in this way?

Answer 1

Does anyone know of a software package similar to LyX ... ?

Yes, LyX :)

Although I prefer plain LaTeX for Beamer presentations, LyX have a layout ready for Beamer presentations. Thus main Beamer features (frame environments, etc.) are available with mouse clicks or LyX shortcuts in a more (friendly?) WYSYWYM interface. Example:

#LyX 2.0 created this file. For more info see http://www.lyx.org/
\lyxformat 413
\begin_document
\begin_header
\textclass beamer
\begin_preamble
\usetheme{Warsaw}
\end_preamble
\options handout
\use_default_options true
\maintain_unincluded_children false
\language english
\language_package default
\inputencoding auto
\fontencoding global
\font_roman default
\font_sans default
\font_typewriter default
\font_default_family default
\use_non_tex_fonts false
\font_sc false
\font_osf false
\font_sf_scale 100
\font_tt_scale 100

\graphics default
\default_output_format default
\output_sync 0
\bibtex_command default
\index_command default
\paperfontsize default
\spacing single
\use_hyperref false
\papersize default
\use_geometry true
\use_amsmath 1
\use_esint 1
\use_mhchem 1
\use_mathdots 1
\cite_engine basic
\use_bibtopic false
\use_indices false
\paperorientation portrait
\suppress_date false
\use_refstyle 1
\index Index
\shortcut idx
\color #008000
\end_index
\secnumdepth 3
\tocdepth 3
\paragraph_separation indent
\paragraph_indentation default
\quotes_language english
\papercolumns 1
\papersides 1
\paperpagestyle default
\tracking_changes false
\output_changes false
\html_math_output 0
\html_css_as_file 0
\html_be_strict false
\end_header

\begin_body

\begin_layout Title (Plain Frame)
Beamer in LyX
\end_layout

\begin_layout Subtitle
A Minimal Working Example
\end_layout

\begin_layout Author
by Fran
\end_layout

\begin_layout Section
One Section
\end_layout

\begin_layout BeginFrame
My First frame
\end_layout

\begin_layout Standard
Some 
\begin_inset Flex Alert
status collapsed

\begin_layout Plain Layout
text
\end_layout

\end_inset

 visible 
\begin_inset Flex Structure
status collapsed

\begin_layout Plain Layout
now
\end_layout

\end_inset

 and

\lang english

\begin_inset ERT
status open

\begin_layout Plain Layout


\backslash
only<2>{now}
\end_layout

\end_inset


\end_layout

\begin_layout EndFrame

\end_layout

\begin_layout Section
Another section
\end_layout

\begin_layout BeginFrame
Another frame
\end_layout

\begin_layout Standard
This is another frame
\end_layout

\begin_layout EndFrame

\end_layout

\end_body
\end_document

Another interesting option for you could be BaKoMa because is a true WYSYWYG program. Note that this is not free software but a shareware (try & buy) alternative.