[Tex/LaTex] How to create beamer slides with source code that can be copied

beamerlistingssourcecode

We are converting our course slides from Powerpoint to LaTeX, to be able to offer all code in a more open format and to let students easily copy code from the slides. However, the latter does not seem to work: LaTeX or listings or beamer transform all code into more beautiful characters, which can not be copied anymore. Consider this LaTeX code:

\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage{listings}

\begin{document}

\lstset{breakatwhitespace=true,
language=C++,
columns=fullflexible,
keepspaces=true,
breaklines=true,
tabsize=3, 
showstringspaces=false,
extendedchars=true}

\begin{frame}[fragile]
\begin{lstlisting}
const char *processing() const{
    somestring = "-1";
}
\end{lstlisting}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Copying the code from a PDF opened in OSX Preview will result in a special asterisk, special quotes and even a different minus sign. How can this be avoided, how can we make sure all code can be copied immediately as-is?

Or is the PDF viewer to blame? Then which format should we render out LaTeX to, to make sure the code can be copied: HTML?

Best Answer

use the \defverbatim[...]\command definition:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{cmap}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{listings}
\lstset{breakatwhitespace,
language=C++,
columns=fullflexible,
keepspaces,
breaklines,
tabsize=3, 
showstringspaces=false,
extendedchars=true}

\begin{document}
\defverbatim[colored]\lst{%
\begin{lstlisting}[tabsize=8,basicstyle=\ttfamily]
const char *processing() const{
    somestring = "-1";
}
\end{lstlisting}
}

\begin{frame}
\lst
\end{frame}

\end{document}

it is a problem with beamer which ignores the tabs. However, the above works

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Create a list of beamer slides

Howdy this is my solution:

   \documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{etextools}
\makeatletter
%Here comes the Framelist
%
\newcommand{\printframelist}{ }
\newcommand{\@savefrml}{ }
\newcommand{\frameliston}{%
\let\oldframetitle\frametitle
\newcommand{\tgframelistfronthook}{$\cdot$}
\newcommand{\tgframelistbackhook}{\\ }
\newcommand\myaddto[1]{%
  \write\@auxout{\noexpand\@writefile{frml}{\noexpand ##1}}}
  \renewcommand{\printframelist}{\@starttoc{frml}}
\renewcommand{\frametitle}[1]{\oldframetitle{##1}%
\xifstrequal{##1}{\@savefrml}{}{
\myaddto{ \noexpand%
\tgframelistfronthook ##1 \noexpand\tgframelistbackhook}%
}
\global\def\@savefrml{##1}%
}
}


\makeatother
\frameliston
\begin{document}
\frame{\frametitle{FIRST}}
\frame{\frametitle{Second}}
\frame{\frametitle{Third}}
\begin{frame}
\printframelist
\end{frame}
% The following should turn the framlist off for one slide when\anotherft is used  
\let\anotherft\oldframetitle
\frame{\anotherft{FIRST A}}
\frame{\frametitle{Second A}}
\frame{\frametitle{Third A}}
\end{document}

This uses the very basic LaTeX mechanism on creating external files (like toc). extetools are used to compare strings and decide to print or not to print the title (for overlays). See in bitbucket.org/tobig/hohenheimbeamertheme/

Redefine \tgframelistbackhookand \tgframelistfronthook as you please.

EDIT: What you are showing in your example given above is that you put the whole columns stuff into the frametitle. And it breaks. Remember the frame environment is defined as

    \begin{frame}<⟨overlay specification⟩>[<⟨default overlay specification⟩>][⟨options⟩]{⟨title⟩}{⟨subtitle⟩}
 ⟨environment contents⟩
    \end{frame}

(see beamer documentation)

The first brakets after \begin{frame} will be interpreted as the title. This will work:

\begin{frame}
    \Huge
        \vspace {0.35\textwidth}
% Don't remove
        \begin{columns}
            \begin{column}{0.3\textwidth}
            \end{column}
% Don't remove
            \begin{column}{0.3\textwidth}
                    \textbf{Thanks!}
            \end{column}
% Don't remove
            \begin{column}{0.3\textwidth}
            \end{column}
        \end{columns}
\end{frame}

[Tex/LaTex] Listings package lstinline command has strange spacing behaviour after double quotation mark

What about using the keepspaces key?

keepspaces=true tells the package not to drop spaces to fix column alignment and always converts tabulators to spaces.

You just have to add this line:

\lstset{keepspaces=true}

Here is the full code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{listings}
\lstset{keepspaces=true} % add this line
\begin{document}
\noindent Here is an example of gobbling spaces after quotes in lstinline. I am testing the combinations of with and without '[b]"' and ttfamily fonts:

\begin{description}
\item[No arguments: 2nd space is removed]~\\
  \begin{description}
  \item[0:] \lstinline !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"3!
  \item[1:] \lstinline !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d" 3!
  \item[2:] \lstinline !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"  3!
  \item[3:] \lstinline !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"   3!
  \end{description}
\item[{[b]"}: 1st space is removed]~\\
  \begin{description}
  \item[0:] \lstinline[morestring={[b]"}] !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"3!
  \item[1:] \lstinline[morestring={[b]"}] !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d" 3!
  \item[2:] \lstinline[morestring={[b]"}] !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"  3!
  \item[3:] \lstinline[morestring={[b]"}] !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"   3!
  \end{description}
\item[ttfamily: more than 1 space removed]~\\
   \begin{description}
  \item[0:] \lstinline[basicstyle=\ttfamily] !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"3!
  \item[1:] \lstinline[basicstyle=\ttfamily] !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d" 3!
  \item[2:] \lstinline[basicstyle=\ttfamily] !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"  3!
  \item[3:] \lstinline[basicstyle=\ttfamily] !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"   3!
  \end{description}
\item[{[b]"} and ttfamily - first 2 spaces are removed]~\\
   \begin{description}
  \item[0:] \lstinline[morestring={[b]"},basicstyle=\ttfamily] !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"3!
  \item[1:] \lstinline[morestring={[b]"},basicstyle=\ttfamily] !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d" 3!
  \item[2:] \lstinline[morestring={[b]"},basicstyle=\ttfamily] !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"  3!
  \item[3:] \lstinline[morestring={[b]"},basicstyle=\ttfamily] !printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"   3!
  \end{description}
\end{description}
Which is different when using begin-end-lstlisting, no arguments:
\begin{lstlisting}
printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"3
printfn "Test 1 2 \%d" 3
printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"  3 
printfn "Test 1 2 \%d"   3 
\end{lstlisting}
\end{document}

Here is the result:

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Create a list of beamer slides

[Tex/LaTex] Listings package lstinline command has strange spacing behaviour after double quotation mark

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