I am trying to transition from powerpoint to beamer for the slides for my class. Powerpoint puts a thumbnail of the slide on the left and any notes associated with the slide on the right of the page. It puts up to 3 slides on the page, stacked. I would like to duplicate this format using beamer.
(the original question had example code, images, etc)
With the help of the comments below, I've been able to achieve what I wanted so I thought I would delete the old/busted version and post the new version that I am happy with. (note that if you are just interested in the note pages, you should focus on the "extractnotes.tex" and "notes.tex". The other files are used to make slides and handouts for my students. I've included them for completeness)
File structure:
- lesson.tex (the slides that I will use in my presentation).
- slides.tex (a wrapper around lesson.tex to generate slides).
- slides.inc (common code that I use in multiple lesson plans).
- handouts.tex (a wrapper around lesson.tex to make handouts).
- extractnotes.tex (a wrapper around lesson.tex to write notes to a file).
- notes.tex (takes the slides.pdf and the information from extractnotes to make my notes pages).
My note pages contain lesson plan information along with the slide notes. I print it on letter paper and use it during the lesson. Shown below are three examples from my notes pages (as this was the issue for this question).
First: A page where the notes are so extensive that only 1 slide fits on the page (note that my code does not deal gracefully when the notes for a slide are longer than a page).
Second: A page where the notes for two slides were enough to take up a page.
Third: A page where the notes are short enough for 3 slides to fit on a page.
Here is (most of) the source code that was used to generate this.
lesson.tex: I'm not including this as it is just a long file of beamer code. This file has just the stuff that goes from \begin{frame} .. to .. \end{frame}
slides.tex:
\documentclass{beamer}
\input{../slides.inc}
\input{lesson.tex}
handouts.tex:
\documentclass[11pt, handout]{beamer}
\input{../slides.inc}
\usepackage{../handoutWithNotes}
\pgfpagesuselayout{3 on 1 with notes}[letterpaper, border shrink=5mm]
\pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{1}{border code=\pgfusepath{stroke}}
\pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{2}{border code=\pgfusepath{stroke}}
\pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{3}{border code=\pgfusepath{stroke}}
\input{lesson.tex}
extractnotes.tex:
% The purpose of this file is to extract the notes associated with the
% slides into a separate file. The pdf file made by this tex file is unused.
\documentclass[11pt, notes=only]{beamer}
\input{../slides.inc}
\setbeameroption{show notes}
\setbeamertemplate{note page}[plain] % Beamer manual, section 19.1
% Taken from extract-all-note-tags-from-beamer-as-a-simple-text-file
\newwrite\pdfpcnotesfile
\AtBeginDocument{%
\immediate\openout\pdfpcnotesfile=beamer.notes
}
\begingroup
\catcode`\#=12
\gdef\hashchar{#}%
\endgroup
% define command \pnote{} that works exactly like \note but
% additionally writes notes to file in pdfpc readable format
\newcommand{\pnote}[1]{%
\begingroup
\let\#\hashchar
\immediate\write\pdfpcnotesfile{\unexpanded{\begin{mypage}} {\insertframenumber}}
\immediate\write\pdfpcnotesfile{\unexpanded{#1}}%
\immediate\write\pdfpcnotesfile{\unexpanded{\end{mypage}}}
\endgroup
}
\AtEndDocument{%
\immediate\closeout\pdfpcnotesfile
}
\renewcommand{\note}{\pnote}
\input{lesson.tex}
notes.tex:
\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{adjustbox}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\setlength{\topmargin}{0.0in}
\setlength{\textheight}{10.0in}
\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{0in}
\setlength{\textwidth}{6.5in}
\setlength{\headheight}{15pt}
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}
\setlength{\parskip}{10pt}
\setlength{\headsep}{10pt}
\setlength{\marginparsep}{0.1in}
\setlength{\marginparwidth}{0.5in}
\renewcommand{\rmdefault}{phv}
\newenvironment{mypage}[2][slides.pdf]{%
\noindent Slide #2
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.2in}\rule{0pt}{0pt}\end{minipage}
\adjustbox{valign=t}{\fbox{\includegraphics[page=#2, width=0.4\textwidth]{#1}}}
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.2in}\rule{0pt}{0pt}\end{minipage}
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.5\textwidth}
}{\end{minipage}
\vspace*{12pt}
}
\begin{document}
\input{beamer.notes}
\end{document}
beamerarticle
instead. And then pull in pages from the slides to another file. At least, that's how I'd do it, I suppose. If they don't have to look like the slides, it is a lot easier. Well, if it doesn't have to look like powerpoint, it is easier ;).