/splitslides

LaTeX package for making simple "slides" by splitting up a page

Primary LanguageTeX

splitslides

Michael Yoshitaka Erlewine (mitcho), public domain, 2020

splitslides is a LaTeX package for creating simple "slides" from a running document, allowing you to quickly turn a handout into a deck of "slides."

Useful when all your class materials exist in handout form and there's a pandemic and your university switches to online learning and so you want to quickly turn your handouts into "slides" with minimal effort. Just an example.

Tutorial

It is easiest to explain the package usage by example:

  1. Load the package with \usepackage{splitslides} in your preamble.
  2. Add \slidestart, then some \slidebreaks, and then \slideend; compile and you should see some lines appear in your document.
  3. Recompile in "active" mode: \usepackage[active]{splitslides}. It should give you a deck of "slides": the content between each adjacent pair of \slide... commands will appear on their own page and cropped.
  4. Note that the "slides" may all be different sizes, as each page size will vary based on the content. If you want slides of uniform size, I would suggest opening the resulting PDF in a PDF viewer and "print" it in a particular paper size and save that result as a PDF. Now you have slides which are all of the same size.
  5. To get back your original document without the lines, recompile in "hide" mode: \usepackage[hide]{splitslides}.

How to

  • How to include figures and tables (without getting a "Not in outer par mode" error): Add \usepackage{float} to the preamble and use the [H] placement option. — tip from @qpheevr
  • How to split a list across multiple slides: Unfortunately \slidestart / \slidebreak / \slideend cannot be used inside a list (e.g. itemize, enumerate, exe etc.). If you want \slidebreak etc. in a list, my suggestion is to split up the list into multiple lists.
    • If you are writing an enumerated list with enumerate and need your numbering to persist across multiple slides, you can use the enumitem package to retain numbering across multiple enumerate environments (look for the resume option in enumitem docs).
    • (I have looked into getting around it briefly and think it would be a headache so I don't plan on "fixing" this limitation.)
  • How to hide something in the slides: End the slide above with \slideend, enter the content that should only be in the full document, and then start the next slide with \slidestart. The material in between will not show up in the slides.
  • How to hide something in the full document: You can wrap some content in \slideonly{...} and it will only appear in "active" slide mode.
  • How to do something more complicated, like overlays with Beamer \pause: Please use Beamer.