[Tex/LaTex] Beamer class creating 3 modes: presentation, handout, and custom

beamer

Currently, the beamer class has two modes: presentation and handout. I want to create a third mode for the beamer class, i.e., to have presentation, handout, and a new mode – the exercise handout mode. I want the exercise handout mode is to function in the same as the handout mode except that it will not have all elements from the handout mode.

An example of what I have right now:

\documentclass
%[handout]
{beamer}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
\[
1+1=\uncover<handout:1|2->{\alert<handout:0|2>{2}}
\]
\end{frame}
\end{document}

Now, the presentation mode shows the computation of 1+1 gradually. The handout mode shows the computation in a single slide. Now, I need a third mode in which I have the slide without the answer. I am imagining something like:

1+1=\uncover<handout:1|exerciseHandout:0|2->{\alert<handout:0|2>{2}}

Now when I compile in "exerciseHandout" mode, I want to get the same as the handout mode but without the answer 2. I want to have all three versions of my slides (presentation for showing to students, handout for reference, and exerciseHandout for handing out to students to exercise themselves “fill-in-the-blanks'' style).

How would you do this?

Best Answer

Do note that this is extremely poorly tested. As in, hardly at all. The MWE works for me right now on this machine today. That is all.

Caveat emptor...

This creates a new class hackedbeamer.cls which is essentially a wrapper around beamer.cls. It is not possible to mimic exactly what the class does because it uses \DeclareOptionBeamer{}{} to define the mode options passed to the class. I can't use that here because I need to define the option before the class is loaded and \DeclareOptionBeamer{}{} defined. So I'm using a regular \DeclareOption{}{} and hoping that the worst doesn't turn out too badly.

This makes no attempt to adjust for themes which handle modes differently. This includes the default outer theme.

Anyway, for what it is worth:

\begin{filecontents}{hackedbeamer.cls}
\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}% LaTeX 2.09 can't be used (nor non-LaTeX)
[1994/12/01]% LaTeX date must December 1994 or later
\ProvidesClass{hackedbeamer}
\newif\ifhacked@beamer@exhandout\hacked@beamer@exhandoutfalse
\DeclareOption{exhandout}{\hacked@beamer@exhandouttrue}
\DeclareOption*{\PassOptionsToClass{\CurrentOption}{beamer}}
\ProcessOptions*
\LoadClass{beamer}
\ifhacked@beamer@exhandout
  \AtEndOfClass{%
    \gdef\beamer@currentmode{exhandout}%
    \def\animate<#1>{\transduration<#1| handout:0| exhandout:0| trans:0>{0}}%
  }
\fi
\endinput
\end{filecontents}
\documentclass
[exhandout]
{hackedbeamer}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
  \[
    1+1=\uncover<2-| handout:1| exhandout:0>{\alert<2| handout:0>{2}}
  \]
\end{frame}
\end{document}

As written, the code produces a single slide:

Switching to handout produces a single slide which differs from the one above:

Switching to default mode produces two sides:

EDIT

I think the above method is cleaner but, if you don't want to use a parasitic class like hackedbeamer.cls, you can avoid it as follows:

\documentclass
[handout]
{beamer}
% \makeatletter
%     \gdef\beamer@currentmode{exhandout}%
%     \def\animate<#1>{\transduration<#1| handout:0| exhandout:0| trans:0>{0}}%
% \makeatother
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
  \[
    1+1=\uncover<2-| handout:1| exhandout:0>{\alert<2| handout:0>{2}}
  \]
\end{frame}
\end{document}

When you want to enable exhandout mode, uncomment the commented lines. When you want handout, comment those lines and specify the class option. When you want default mode, comment those lines and comment the class option.

This is doing the same as the parasitic class does. It is just doing it in your preamble.

Either method seems a bit mysterious but this one feels like positive sleight of hand. Notice that the code above works despite exhandout mode never being defined even thought the overlay specification uses it. I assume Beamer's parser must just discard any mode specification not relevant to the currently active mode.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to use the exact same file for handout and presentation modes in beamer

My answer to this question came from exactly this situation. The code is there, I shan't repeat that, but I'll try to explain what it does so that you can see if it's worth clicking through to that question.

My solution is exactly what you outline in your first paragraph. I have a main file that contains all the code, say seminar.tex, and then a set of symlinks which all point to this file and are of the form seminar.beamer.tex, seminar.handout.tex and the same for trans or article if appropriate. The class that I load is actually a wrapper class which looks at various parameters - both the \jobname and any passed to it from the document - to decide which real class to load (and with what options). Thus the start of my real document is something like:

\documentclass[beamer,defaults]{myclass}

beamer tells it to load the beamer class, defaults sets up some stuff that I almost always use. Then it looks at the \jobname to see what type of document it is: beamer, handout, etc, and passes the appropriate option to the beamer class.

For lectures, I have a further option in that the format for my symlinks is actually:

main_file[.type[.lecture_name]].tex

When I'm editing the document, I make sure that I load it via the symlink that I'm most interested in (usually the beamer version) and then my editor correctly compiles that version.

I used to use a method like the one Seamus outlines. I switched to this method because:

When doing a lecture series, it's much easier to create a batch load of symlinks than a batch load of files with specific content.
If I do compile the master document, it falls back to something sensible.
It doesn't actually need all the symlinks to still work. Since you can reset the jobname via the commandline, you could just do pdflatex -jobname=seminar.beamer.tex seminar.tex to get the right version compiled.

[Tex/LaTex] declare a different overlay specification in different beamer modes

From what I know of beamer:

\begin{frame}<92> means \begin{frame}<beamer:92|handout:1>

similarly

\only<5> means \only<beamer:5|handout:1>

In handout mode, if overlays do not contain specification for handout mode, all slides of a frame are the same and contain all overlay elements (except \alt for which it is the alternative one, I think but I am not sure). So printing one specific slide of a frame in handout mode does not make sense, unless overlays contain a specification for handout mode.

In the extreme case where you want the overlays to be the same in beamer and handout modes, you give an overlay specification for "all" modes.

\only<all:5>

So to do what you want:

\begin{frame}<handout:92>
...
\only<all:5-97>
...
\only<all:143>
...
\end{frame}

The following code demonstrates an easier solution for what you seem to be willing to do.

\documentclass[handout]{beamer}

\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\foreach \n  in {1,...,10} {
    \pgfmathtruncatemacro{\oneifnisfive}{\n==5}
    \only<\n| handout:\oneifnisfive>{Slide \n\par}
}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}<handout:5>
\foreach \n  in {1,...,10} {
    \only<all:\n>{Slide \n\par}
}
\end{frame}

\end{document}