Tips to organize LaTeX presentations for a semester

Question

I am giving my first course this fall and, as a LaTeX enthusiast, plan to prepare my slides in LaTeX for all the usual reasons.

For those of you who also do this, I wonder what resources you use to manage your slides for a semester. For ex., do you have one "master presentation" with different "chapters" for different classes or some other strategy?

What's your best practice?

Answer 1

I use a different file for each topic. Each file covers 1-2 hours of teaching, more or less.

All files are in the same per-course folder, and their names start with numbers which define the order of the topics, for instance 1-introduction.tex, 2-polynomials.tex, 2.5-rationalfunctions.tex, 3-analytic.tex... If I have to insert an extra topic at the last minute (or in the next year), I can do it by adding decimals like in the example with 2.5. :)

Dates are a bad idea because if you want to re-use the same material the next year you have to change all file names. :) Lecture numbers can also be quite fragile, so I prefer to use topics like this.

I just copy the same preamble over to each file, because I don't change the preamble too frequently. If I had to make more frequent changes to the preamble, probably I'd consider a custom Latex class, but for now it works for me like this so I keep it simple.

I suspect that this works well for me only because I have a good set of tools though: for instance, a file manager that uses natural sort order and an editor that can compile Latex without clobbering the directory with lots of .aux and .log files.

Another tip is: sometimes you notice weak points and mistakes only after giving a lecture. If there is a chance that you will be giving the same course next year, keep a file called notes where you note down all the things you'd like to change.

Answer 2

• Use \include and/or \input to insert repetitive latex code used in the slides. If you use chapters then you will still want to have a separate file for each chapter.
• Use git to do version control and backup your slides. This works well for changes through the years. If you put the slides into a public repository (github, bitbucket), your students/other teachers can help you fix typos.
• Subfolder graphics and other included files.
• Use a good latex editor that supports code folding and easy navigation of your documents. For example, eclipse (texlipse plugin) is organized into projects (with multiple files) and has a navigation/outline panel with the different sections/chapters/etc.. Even some commercial editors (overleaf) lack this feature! A good document/project navigation panel makes it almost irrelevant whether you use chapters or separate .tex files.
• \usepackage{beamer} is useful but not the only way to organize your slides. You may also simply write lecture notes and scroll through them while giving elaborations on the board.
• Make good use of packages like \usepackage{beameraudience} or \usepackage{versions} to distinguish between slides you use in class and the full lecture notes.

Answer 3

My courses are usually a mixture of blackboard lectures and slide presentations, and along the years I taught more than 10 different courses, with slight changes in each course from year to year.

Given the above, my slides are divided in subfolders by course/topic/year because I need to track of the differences from one year to another.

Some courses have a few topics in common, but there are always differences that justify the creation of different slide decks targeted to each course.

Overall, if you don't have disk space limitations, this structure is quite flexible, but indeed, many folders will contain replicated material.

Answer 4

So, I have small groups of slides (1,2, or 4 as necessary) about particular topics - then I can tailor a presentation level and content quite rapidly.