1

Sometimes I like to TeX up my notes for a blackboard talk (which I will print out and bring to my talk, not to distribute, but just for my own reference). However the default classes like article are not perfectly suited for this, the primary issue being that what I TeX does not end up being as nice and readable (in terms of formatting) as notes I handwrite. In particular, if I want to check my notes mid-talk, it takes more time for me to find something on my TeXed notes than on my handwritten notes.

Right now I have two ideas for resolutions to this: (1) write my own template to adjust the formatting (font, font size, spacing, indentation, etc) to something more pleasing and include things like mode for private note/material to include if time permits; and (2) use Beamer in a nonstandard way (I'm not printing out 40 pages of slides and try to flip through them).

However, I am less inclined to use Beamer, as it seems to do a lot of things I don't necessarily want, unless there is a Beamer class specifically for this. Also, I don't use Beamer much, so I'm not sure if it has all the flexibility in formatting I will want--at the least, it would probably take me more time to figure out how to do what I want in Beamer.

So: does anyone have any easy-to-use, aesthetically-pleasing solutions for TeXing notes to print for giving talks?

Kimball
  • 313
  • This is quite a broad question. It isn't clear what you want to do in particular. Sure, you can do it using LaTeX, but the specs iin what needs to be done are missing. – Johannes_B Oct 08 '15 at 09:05
  • Are there any news here? – Johannes_B Oct 08 '15 at 09:05
  • @Johannes_B I added an answer indicating what I did. Does this make my question more clear? (In retrospect, it perhaps wasn't a very good question in the first place.) – Kimball Oct 09 '15 at 12:56
  • To be honest: no. A bit of coloring is basic use in LaTeX. I don't see what you are looking for specifically. – Johannes_B Oct 09 '15 at 15:53
  • @Johannes_B I didn't mean just adding colors, but about design and implementing a sort of beameresque layout, but meant for printing on US letter/A4 paper. Sometimes I want to type notes for myself, but not write things in complete sentences/paragraphs like what the article class is meant for. So I was wondering if anyone had made any templates/packages for this sort of situation or if you can do this sort of thing in beamer. Is that better? – Kimball Oct 09 '15 at 16:48
  • Part of the issue with my question is I don't know what would go into a good design of such a document, though spacing, alignment and font seem important. Maybe good color use? section dividers? modified theorem environments? So this would probably only be a good question if people have come up with interesting templates/packages for this sort of thing. – Kimball Oct 09 '15 at 16:52
  • 1
    The question seems completely unrelated to LaTeX now. You haven't decided on the appearance yet, this is the part you are looking for. Implementing it in TeX would be quite easy. – Johannes_B Oct 09 '15 at 16:58
  • LaTeX is very flexible if you know what you want. You can use colour and/or underlining and/or changing fonts and sizes to highlight things. Split the document up into sections/subsections. Use a class like article for the basics and develop your own package to give you the formatting you (take your handwritten notes as an example) and don't use beamer which is for presentation not an aide-memoir. – Peter Wilson May 17 '16 at 18:37

0 Answers0