How to integrate custom beamer template in rmarkdown/ issues with yaml

Question

I am procrastinating for fun on a modern beamer template using IBMs awesome new PLEX font (i will share it on git once finished or atleast half-done). As I am planning to completely switch to Rmarkdown, I would love to integrate this template in a pipeline. However, as I am new to RMD, I am having troubles doing this.

Right know, i only manage to achieve this with the following code:

RMD:

output:
  beamer_presentation:
    includes:
      in_header: template.tex
    keep_tex: yes
    latex_engine: pdflatex
---

# {.plain}
\titlepage

# test

This is a test.

Tex-file:

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{fontawesome}

\usetheme{stylefile}

\title{A theme}
\subtitle{A modern beamer and Rmarkdown template}
\date{\today}
\author{XY}
\supervisor{XY}
\institute{Institution or Company of High Esteem}
\symbols{\twitter{}{}\git{}{}}

After knitting, this gives me the desired output. However, I would like to include title/date/author/supervisor(costum command) in the rmd yaml header. How do I achieve this?

Also, does anyone know of a good example/walk-through for integrating costum tex templates with rmd - google did not help so far?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

I would like to include title/date/author/supervisor(costum command) in the rmd yaml header. How do I achieve this?

So simple:

---
title: A theme
subtitle: A modern beamer and Rmarkdown template
date: \today
author: XY
supervisor: YZ
institute: Institution or Company of High Esteem
output: beamer_presentation
---
# test

This is a test.

If you compile this, this produce a title frame and the only thing ignored of the YALM header is YZ.

The reason is that there are not any $supervisor$ variable nor $if(supervisor)$ <whatever> $else$ <whatever> $endif$ in the default template. This link the second question:

Does anyone know of a good example/walk-through for integrating costum tex templates?

cd  /usr/share/pandoc/data/templates # In Linux Mint
nano default.beamer                  # change "nano" to your favorite editor

OK, ok, some simpler to start: simplest.template:

\documentclass{beamer}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
$body$
\end{frame}
\end{document}

Test.Rmd:

---
output:
  pdf_document:
    template: simplest.template
--- 

This is the body.

Too simple? Ok, ok, I know, ... some less simple: the supervisor.template:

\documentclass{beamer}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
$if(supervisor)$ Supervisor: $supervisor$ 
$else$ I have not a supervisor $endif$ 
\end{frame}
\end{document}

Test2.Rmd:

---
supervisor: YZ
output:
  pdf_document:
    keep_tex: yes
    template: supervisor.template
---
  
This is ignored text.

... And so on.