Inspirated

The standard way of including source code listings in Beamer is to use the semiverbatim environment. Needless to say, it does not provide all the syntax highlighting and line-numbering love of the listings package. Combine the two and you have something pretty as well as extremely helpful in delivering presentations which have code:

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\documentclass{beamer}
 
\setbeamercovered{transparent}
 
\usepackage{pxfonts}
\usepackage{listings}
 
\begin{document}
 
\lstset{language=python,
        numbers=left,
        numberstyle=\tiny,
        showstringspaces=false,
        aboveskip=-40pt,
        frame=leftline
        }
 
\begin{frame}[fragile]
\frametitle{\texttt{parrot.py}}
\begin{semiverbatim}
\pause
\begin{lstlisting}
if __name__ == "__main":
 
\end{lstlisting}
 
\pause
\begin{lstlisting}[firstnumber=last]
    print "Oh yes, the, uh,
           the Norwegian Blue..."
    print "What's, uh...
           What's wrong with it? "
 
\end{lstlisting}
 
\pause
\begin{lstlisting}[firstnumber=last]
    print "I'll tell you what's wrong with it,
           my lad."
    print "'E's dead,
           that's what's wrong with it!"
 
\end{lstlisting}
\end{semiverbatim}
\end{frame}
 
\end{document}

Continuing the process of presenting my proposal for the graduation project, I was required to do a presentation. Now, I have never really liked PowerPoint and for more reasons than it being a product of Microsoft (I was never really into OpenOffice.org Impress either).

In fact, I have never liked doing presentations in the first place. My preferred means of communicating an idea is through written material or face-to-face discussions. Anyhow, seeing as I had to do a formal presentation, I turned towards the solution that would provide some additional attraction for me: Beamer.

After fiddling around with my .tex for a few hours, I was able to create something which looked ^[*] far more professional, sexier and informative than anything I had ever created using traditional presentation software:

ittc-defense-presentation.pdf

To view the presentation you have to open it in “Slide Show” mode of your favorite PDF reader. What totally blew me away was the ease with which I could create lovely bibliographic references, mathematical equations and little fun things like navigational bar on top of every page. Perhaps it’s got to do something with the mindset of a programmer, but I certainly became more productive with Beamer within a couple of hours than I had been throughout my experience with PowerPoint/Impress.

^[*] Whether they were professional, sexy or informative is a totally different matter and has very little to do with either LaTeX or Beamer.