Lectures

Build Beamer lecture slides and notes from a common source document

James Keirstead

20 September 2011

http://www.jameskeirstead.ca

Description

The LaTeX 'beamer' package provides an excellent way to develop lecture notes in a literate programming style, combining both detailed background notes and presentation slides in a single source file. However users have to manually create wrapper files that will build this source into the appropriate format.

This software provides a set of templates and a Python script to automate the process. Simply install the tool and type:

build-lecture source style 

from your working directory and it will automatically generate both the slides and notes for the lecture, including any references you might have used.

Installation

To install the software:

1. Unzip the code into a convenient location.

2. Update your TeX search path to include the 'latex' directory.

   If on Windows with MikTeX, use the Settings program and select the Roots tab. Add the project's latex directory. Then select the General tab and click the "Refresh FNDB" button. This will add the files to MiKTeX's file name database.

   If on a *nix system, type:

	texhash ~/lectures/latex

substituting with your local path as appropriate.  You may also
need to set the TEXINPUTS environment variable.  This is a pain
to set up but here's the bottom of my ~/.bashrc as an example:

	# TEX 
	TEXINPUTS=.:~/software/texmf//:/usr/share/texmf-texlive//:/usr/share/texmf//:
	export TEXINPUTS

For completeness, this is on Ubuntu 10.04 system.

3. Install the scripts.

   If on Windows, edit the SCRIPTDIR variable in the 'build-lecture.bat' file to match your local installation. Then copy the batch file to C:\Windows\System32 or another directory accessible from the command line.

   If on a *nix system, you should be able to drop the build-lecture.py script from the python directory into a similar location, like ~/bin. You may need to add this directory to your $PATH variable and also change the permissions on the file, e.g.

	chmod 766 build-lecture.py

4. If you are using a version control system, please install the vc latex package and change the following lines.

• In lectures.sty, uncomment \input{vc}

• In build-lectures.py, change useVC to True

  You will also need to copy the relevant files from the vc latex package into your working directory. The package and documentation are available at http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/support/vc