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This won't apply to most people, but if your talk involves any math at all, use LaTeX + Beamer (www.math.binghamton.edu/erik/beameruserguide.pdf) to prepare pdf

by pseut 14y ago

This won't apply to most people, but if your talk involves any math at all, use LaTeX + Beamer (www.math.binghamton.edu/erik/beameruserguide.pdf) to prepare pdfs of your slides. They will look much better. The beamer user-guide also has a chapter on presentation preparation. You can export outlines from Emacs org-mode as pdf slides via beamer, which can be (depending on the version, etc) a little fiddly but is much easier than typing the slides up directly in LaTeX. FWIW, I started feeling much better about presentations once I convinced myself to view the audience as friends who are trying to help me understand the material I'm presenting, rather than a group that I needed to try to impress.

ZoFreX 14y ago
You can also use this to produce PDF slides that have multimedia embedded in the PDF itself - something guaranteed to impress as you seamlessly play a video without having to alt+tab, buffer, or go find an IT guy to work out why the wireless has decided to stop working.
tikhonj 14y ago
Org-mode is a good option for generating slides. You can also write your outline in normal markdown and use Pandoc[1], which is also very good. [1]: http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/ http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/ While Beamer is fine, you can also generate HTML-based slides with both Org-mode and Pandoc. You can use MathJax for the math. I personally prefer HTML slides, but it really is a matter of preference. (I also find it easier to customize with CSS than LaTeX.) The real beauty is that you can use the same document to generate both, so it's easy to try each option. More generally, I find using Org-mode or Markdown far easier than any WYSIWYG program. Life is much easier when you separate the content from its presentation.
redacted 14y ago
If you are on a Mac, try LaTeXiT [0] + Keynote. Type in your equations/math, hit render, drag the PDF (or many other image formats) to your slide. LaTeXiT gives you the best of both worlds; wonderful rendering of math, with the bonus of using Keynote (which is the best presentation software on any platform in my experience). [0] http://www.chachatelier.fr/latexit/ http://www.chachatelier.fr/latexit/
- pseut 14y ago
  That looks nice; part of the advantage of beamer, though, is that the equations and (especially) inline variables are automatically positioned correctly and consistently -- it looks like that might not be the case for LaTeXiT.

by pseut 14y ago

ZoFreX 14y ago

You can also use this to produce PDF slides that have multimedia embedded in the PDF itself - something guaranteed to impress as you seamlessly play a video without having to alt+tab, buffer, or go find an IT guy to work out why the wireless has decided to stop working.

tikhonj 14y ago

Org-mode is a good option for generating slides. You can also write your outline in normal markdown and use Pandoc[1], which is also very good. [1]: http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/ http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/ While Beamer is fine, you can also generate HTML-based slides with both Org-mode and Pandoc. You can use MathJax for the math. I personally prefer HTML slides, but it really is a matter of preference. (I also find it easier to customize with CSS than LaTeX.) The real beauty is that you can use the same document to generate both, so it's easy to try each option. More generally, I find using Org-mode or Markdown far easier than any WYSIWYG program. Life is much easier when you separate the content from its presentation.

redacted 14y ago

If you are on a Mac, try LaTeXiT [0] + Keynote. Type in your equations/math, hit render, drag the PDF (or many other image formats) to your slide. LaTeXiT gives you the best of both worlds; wonderful rendering of math, with the bonus of using Keynote (which is the best presentation software on any platform in my experience). [0] http://www.chachatelier.fr/latexit/ http://www.chachatelier.fr/latexit/

pseut 14y ago
That looks nice; part of the advantage of beamer, though, is that the equations and (especially) inline variables are automatically positioned correctly and consistently -- it looks like that might not be the case for LaTeXiT.