The way I go about this usually is to compile such elements in a separate file, creating a PDF file which I can then put into the presentation via \includegraphics
. It's especially convenient if you reuse the same illustration made up by several components more than once.
My minimum template example for such a figure file is as follows:
\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage[graphics,tightpage,active]{preview}
\PreviewEnvironment{tikzpicture}
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
\sffamily
\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw (0,0) circle (2cm);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}
The use of the preview
package will crop the PDF to exactly the dimensions of the drawn picture. I am using \sffamily
here because it mostly looks better for presentations, but depending on usage it could also be left out.
[shift={(x,y)}]
option to the scope.textpos
not longer sufficient? This could be related: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/85269/…