[texhax] beamer and pgfpages

[Tom Backer Johnsen]

Steve Schwartz wrote:
> Hi Tom,
> 
> I've just come from giving a presentation, and I took the opportunity to
> try out the pgf approach, having fetched and installed the package.
> 
> Actually, it generated one or two extra characters - something in my
> beamer templates or whatever that got interfered with by including the
> pfgpages package I think - but otherwise worked. However, I've come to
> the conclusion that it is not the best approach because it is forced to
> re-typeset your document for what is essentially a printing issue.

Yes, I agree, it is less than optimal to have to re-typeset the 
document if you already have a presentation that looks the way you 
want it, there is always the risk of introducing some errors due to 
unwanted interactions etc.. as you experienced.
> 
> The pdfpages solution is better in this respect because it is
> independent of the original presentation. Of course, if you use lots of
> fancy animations and interactions, you may need to use beamer's handout
> option to generate decent handouts with overlays, etc., but this is true
> independent of the solutions.
> 
> I must confess, having played with all these options, I'm most content
> with my original solution, which uses psnup to put multiple pages on a
> page, wrapped inside things to unpack and repack the pdf. Indeed, it
> would be possible to pipe the result out directly to a printer rather
> than saving (as I do) the repacked pdf.
> 
> I don't work in the Windows world, but there must be tools and/or
> printer drivers that will (a) expand beamer's small pages to A4 and (b)
> print multiple pages to a page.

As I said in the previous message, the only problem I can see with the 
pdfpages solution is synchronization, and that is not a big one.  In 
all other respects it seems to be more flexible.  A solution is to use 
what is called a .bat file in the Windows world.  That is simply a 
file with commands directly to the operating system, a script in the 
linux world.  That is a very basic feature in any operating system I 
can think of.  Make a file with two lines, the first one with the 
command "pdflatex file1.tex" to generate the presentation, and the 
second with "pdflatex file2.tex" to generate the handout with 
appropriate latex scripts in the file1.tex and file2.tex files.  Run 
the script whenever you need the two and they are always synchronized.

Tom
> 
> Cheers,
> Steve
> 
> On Tue, 2007-01-23 at 15:42 +0100, Tom Backer Johnsen wrote:
>> Yes, that is true.  You want to be sure the presentation itself to be 
>> synchronized with the handouts, which means that you have to generate 
>> the presentation first, and then the handout.  If you forget one of 
>> the two after an editing of the frames, they are not synchronized 
>> anymore.
>>
>> On the other hand, it seems to me that the \includepdf alternative is 
>> better in one respect, it is more flexible in respect to page
>> numbers, 
>> headers on the handouts etc. (but that may be due to my
>> inexperience). 
>>   So, perhaps using pdfpages is the best solution. 


-- 
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| Tom Backer Johnsen, Psychometrics Unit,  Faculty of Psychology |
| University of Bergen, Christies gt. 12, N-5015 Bergen,  NORWAY |
| Tel : +47-5558-9185                        Fax : +47-5558-9879 |
| Email : backer at psych.uib.no    URL : http://www.galton.uib.no/ |
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