Snapshot like macro for entire beamer frame?

Question

I'm wondering if there is some macro I can use to take a snapshot of an entire Beamer frame (in its last slide) and reuse it in another frame. The following code does not work, is just for illustrating the idea.

\documentclass{beamer}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
\mymacro{
%normal frame content goes here
}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
\insertmymacro[scale=.30] %this will insert the snapshot of the previous frame, possibly scaled 
\end{frame}
\end{document}

There should also be a way to tell the macro which frame has to be inserted if more than one has been snapshotted.

Does something like this already exist?

Answer 1

Here, I save the first frame in a named \vbox. I can then recall the content (as is, or scaled and framed) with a \usebox.

I had to horizontally pad out the saved box a little; I think the padding is needed because the \vbox is of width \textwidth whereas the slide width is wider than that.

EDITED to remove stray blank frame.

MANUAL VERSION:

\documentclass{beamer}
\newsavebox\saveframe
\fboxsep=0pt
\begin{document}
%SAVE-FRAME
\savebox{\saveframe}{\vbox{
\begin{frame}
{1st Frame}
frame text from the first frame.  I will now begin an itemized list.  And we begin:
\begin{itemize}
\item AAA
\item BBB
\item CCC
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}}}

%PRESENT THE SAVE-FRAME AS IS
\begin{frame}
\usebox{\saveframe}
\end{frame}

%PRESENT THE 2ND FRAME INCLUDING A SCALED SAVE-FRAME
\begin{frame}
{2nd frame}
Here is my prior frame\par
\fbox{\scalebox{.6}{\hspace{1cm}\usebox{\saveframe}\hspace{1cm}}}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

---

AUTOMATED VERSION:

If one would like the boxing automated, I provide the sframe{} environment in the following MWE to output and save a frame. A {title} is a mandatory argument to the environment. A boxed, scaled version of the saved frame can be obtained with \savedframe{scale}, invoked inside a frame environment. The following MWE behaves identically to the manual version above.

\documentclass{beamer}
\global\newsavebox\thesaveframe

\newenvironment{sframe}[1]%
{\setbox0=\vbox\bgroup\begin{frame}{#1}}
{\end{frame}\leavevmode\unskip\setbox0=\lastbox \egroup%
 \global\sbox{\thesaveframe}{\box0}
 \begin{frame}\usebox{\thesaveframe}\end{frame}
}

\newcommand\savedframe[1]{\fboxsep=0pt%
  \fbox{\scalebox{#1}{\hspace{1cm}\usebox{\thesaveframe}\hspace{1cm}}}%
}
\begin{document}
%SAVE-FRAME AND OUTPUT IT
\begin{sframe}{1st Frame}
frame text from the first frame.  I will now begin an itemized list.  And we begin:
\begin{itemize}
\item AAA
\item BBB
\item CCC
\end{itemize}
\end{sframe}

%PRESENT THE 2ND FRAME INCLUDING A SCALED SAVE-FRAME
\begin{frame}
{2nd frame}
Here is my prior frame\par
\savedframe{.6}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

Answer 2

I needed this today as well, and I expanded a bit on Steven's answer, defining two commands which allow you to save and use immediately multiple frames and then reuse them later:

% \saveuseframe{id}{...} saves a frame to \saveid and uses it immediately, to be reused with \reuseframe{id}
\newcommand{\saveuseframe}[2]{%
  \expandafter\newsavebox\csname save#1\endcsname%
  \expandafter\savebox\csname save#1\endcsname{\vbox{\vspace{-.1em}#2}}%
  \begin{frame}\expandafter\usebox\csname save#1\endcsname\end{frame}}
\newcommand{\reuseframe}[1]{\fbox{\scalebox{.25}{\hspace{.9cm}\expandafter\usebox\csname save#1\endcsname\hspace{.8cm}}}}

This allows you to do this:

\savedframe{motivation}{\begin{frame}{Motivation}
  why?
\end{frame}}

... more stuff ...

\savedframe{future}{\begin{frame}{Future work}
  future stuff
\end{frame}}

\begin{frame}{Thank you!}
  \reuseframe{motivation}
  \reuseframe{future}
\end{frame}

Answer 3

For the special case the the previous frame should be inserted again, one can use the \insertslideintonotes{<scale>} macro:

\documentclass{beamer}

\makeatletter
\edef\beamer@origlmargin{\Gm@lmargin}%
\edef\beamer@origrmargin{\Gm@rmargin}%
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
normal frame
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
\insertslideintonotes{0.3}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

---

If the frame in question should be saved for later reuse, one could do something like this:

\documentclass{beamer}

\makeatletter
\edef\beamer@origlmargin{\Gm@lmargin}%
\edef\beamer@origrmargin{\Gm@rmargin}%
\makeatother

\newsavebox{\mybox}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
interesting frame
\end{frame}
\savebox{\mybox}{\insertslideintonotes{0.3}}

\begin{frame}
some other stuff
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
\usebox{\mybox}
\end{frame}
\end{document}