An example: how to create a slides presentation using LaTeX

This directory contains template files that show how to build a slides presentation using LaTeX and the seminar package.

All the LaTeX components (style files, fonts) not present here may be downloaded from the CTAN web sites, e.g. the UK CTAN archive or the the German CTAN archive.

The class files have been slightly modified for the version of the pstricks package that comes with teTeX 3.0.

The files in this directory are:

Makefile: the dependencies and the commands needed to build the output files (PostScript and Portable Document Format) from the LaTeX sources.
MLOslides.cls: the class file, with all the definitions related to the slides layout. Essentially loads the seminar package (written by Timoty van Zandt) and a few other packages: color, graphicx, amsmath, amssymb and pstcol; and sets the value of some internal constants. For more informations, refer to the documentation of the above packages.
calor.tex: the LaTeX source for a small presentation about a calorimetry experiment in physics. Requires, in addition to the above packages, the BrushscriptX-Italic PostScript fonts (available from CTAN://tex-archive/fonts/brushscr or from here).
cal1.eps and cal2.eps: two Encapsulated PostScript files included by calor.tex.
calor.ps: the PostScript output.
calor.pdf: the Portable Document Format output.

For a real set of slides produced using a document class closely related to the above one , have a look to the about 200 slides used for a course I did for the local PhD School in Physics in 1999 (PDF).

How to use MLOslides.cls

Put a line \documentclass[options]{MLOslides} as class declaration for your document; options is a list of, well, options to be passed to the seminar package: e.g., you may want to use something like:
\documentclass[a4,portrait]{MLOslides}
Insert after the \documentclass line the statements declaring additional packages you may want to load: e.g.
\usepackage[italian]{babel}
The class MLOslides defines the following new commands and environments:
- \slideTitle: a command to define a title to be printed in a box, to be used e.g. like:
  \slideTitle{The title of this slide}
- an itemize-like environment, \myt, not indented from the left margin; requires a parameter to be used as item marker. To be invoked e.g. like:
  \begin{myt}{$\bullet$}
  \item ...
  \item ...
  \end{myt}
- a new page style, slidata, valid both for landscape- and portrait-oriented slides; to be used e.g. with
  \pagestyle{slidata}
  slidata uses three internal commands: \presTitle, \presAuthor and \presStyle. The first two (the presentation title and the author name) MUST be defined by the user with \newcommand; the third one is already defined as a do-nothing command, and may be redefined with \renewcommand in order to e.g. change the fonts used for presentation title, author name and slide number (that command is executed right before these printouts). Example:
  \newcommand{\presTitle}{How I discovered the Higgs boson}
  \newcommand{\presAuthor}{Maurizio Loreti}
  \renewcommand{\presStyle}{\bold}
calor.tex is an example file of the above instructions; if you have all the packages required, just type "make calor.ps" to generate calor.ps; and type "make calor.pdf" to generate calor.pdf

Watermarks

Usually I do not like to include background pictures (the so called watermarks) in my slides; in my opinion they make these slides too crowded and, so, harder to understand. But, since my students with stubbornness insist to use them, I have included a small example file watermark.tex. The background image used is the seal of our University, scanned in black and white and edited with the GIMP in order to convert the black to a gray97 shade: it is included using the picture LaTeX environment (that allows absolute placement on the page); its X- and Y-coordinates have been determined experimentally (and are different for portrait- and landscape-oriented slides). The commands "make watermark.ps" and "make watermark.pdf" generate the PostScript and the Portable Document Format output.

Another example: slides for CMS at CERN

The file CMSslides.cls is an example style file that shows how to create a presentation using the seminar and fancyhdr packages; the file cms.tex uses that style file to generate these PostScript and Portable Document Format outputs. The University of Padova seal is the same used to generate the watermark image of the previous example, without the conversion of the black pixels to gray tones.

Another example: an University of Padova and INFN slides class

The file UNINFN.cls is a small variation on the previous class file; the header includes the seals of the University of Padova, and of the Italian Agency for Research in Physics (INFN). The file uisample.tex uses that class to generate these PostScript and Portable Document Format outputs.

==> Revised July 17, 2003 - MLO (loreti@pd.infn.it)

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