Hiding some items in student's handout using beamer

Question

I am creating a presentation and along with the presentation (that I am going to show in the class), I am trying to make a student handout. So far, everything is fine. The part I am struggling with is that I would like to hide some parts of the presentation in the handout. Then students are supposed to write down these parts in their handouts during the presentation. One way I can do this (suggested by a friend!) is by changing the color of the "to be hidden" part. Is there any other more systematic way of doing it?

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On a simple example it works. But in my document I got into trouble. The only difference between my code and yours is in Preamble. I use

\documentclass [11 pt, xcolor=pdftex,x11names,table]{beamer}     
\documentclass[11 pt, handout,xcolor=pdftex,x11names,table]{beamer}
\usepackage{pgfpages}
\pgfpagesuselayout{2 on 1}[a4paper,border shrink=5mm]
\pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{1}{border code=\pgfusepath{stroke}}
\pgfpageslogicalpageoptions{2}{border code=\pgfusepath{stroke}}

In my code and for handout, I comment the first line and specifically \item<beamer> doesn't work at all. I am using a lot of different packages. I was wondering if any package possibly can create problem. By the way \only<beamer> { ... } works fine and I only have trouble with \item<beamer>

UPDATE: I found the problem! It had problem with \setbeamercovered{transparent=50} after making this line a comment, it worked well

Answer 1

This might depend on how you are producing the handout; if you are using the handout class option, then you can use the beamer mode specification for the material that you want only for the presentation and not for the handout. A little example: processing the following simple document as it is:

\documentclass%[handout]%
{beamer}
\mode<beamer>{\usetheme{CambridgeUS}}
%\usepackage{pgfpages}
%\pgfpagesuselayout{2 on 1}[a4paper,border shrink=5mm]

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{First test frame}
\only<beamer>{Text for the presentation.}
Text for presentation and handout
\begin{itemize}
\item Item for presentation and handout.
\item<beamer> Item for presentation.
\item Another item for presentation and handout.
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle<beamer>{Second test frame}
\only<beamer>{Another example text for the presentation.}
Text for presentation and handout
\begin{block}<beamer>{Example block}
Some text in the block
\end{block}
\end{frame}

\end{document} 

you get the full document for the presentation:

Now, to produce the handout you uncomment the relevant parts:

\documentclass[handout]%
{beamer}
\mode<beamer>{\usetheme{CambridgeUS}}
\usepackage{pgfpages}
\pgfpagesuselayout{2 on 1}[a4paper,border shrink=5mm]

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{First test frame}
\only<beamer>{Text for the presentation.}
Text for presentation and handout
\begin{itemize}
\item Item for presentation and handout.
\item<beamer> Item for presentation.
\item Another item for presentation and handout.
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle<beamer>{Second test frame}
\only<beamer>{Another example text for the presentation.}
Text for presentation and handout
\begin{block}<beamer>{Example block}
Some text in the block
\end{block}
\end{frame}

\end{document} 

and now you get a handout document not showing the parts written in beamer mode: