On Friday 22 April 2005 12:28, samar wrote:
> Eugenio wrote:
> > After some help from Till Tantau, and consulting every related document I
> > could find, including de Lyx page, I developed an approach that works (?)
> > for me including the following commands in the preamble:
> >
> > \newcommand\BackgroundPicture[1]{%
> > \setbeamertemplate{background}{%
> > \parbox[c][\paperheight]{\paperwidth}{%
> > \vfill \hfill
> > \includegraphics[width=0.8\paperwidth,height=0.8\paperheight]{#1}
> > \hfill \vfill
> > }}}
> >
> > and using the command
> >
> > \BackgroundPicture{image}
> >
> > before the slide I need the background in.
> >
> > I did the image processing with ImageMagick 1.6.9 tools, in order to
> > "reduce" the intensity of the image in the background (dissolving an
> > image onto a white background of the same size)
> >
> > Any more contributions are accepted
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Eugenio Guevara
> >
>
> Eugenio
>
> Thanks for the persistence. That was great. Works like a dream.
>
> A few thoughts:
>
> 1. Depending on the size of your background bitmap you may need to adjust
> the 0.8 factor in the preamble.
I think a better approach would be to define the scale on a per image basis,
i.e. in the form of \BackgroundPicture{<image>, <desiredscale>}. This can be
rather easily done, by not declaring a fixed value on the preamble but rather
defining a variable. This would allow different images with different
dimensions for different slides.
Thus:
In the preamble:
\newcommand\BackgroundPicture[3]{%
\setbeamertemplate{background}{%
\parbox[c][\paperheight]{\paperwidth}{%
\vfill \hfill
\includegraphics[width=#2\paperwidth,height=#3\paperheight]{#1}
\hfill \vfill
}}}
In the document body:
\BackgroundPicture{<image>, <width factor>, <height factor>}
I have not tried it yet, but I think it should work
> 2. if like me you are using a dark background and find your
> text becoming invisible the simple solution I use is to put in the
> preamble:
>
> \usecolortheme{albatross}
>
> Gives a great effect with a nearly black background
You can also define colors explicitly, but this rather defies the ease-of-use
and rapid-deployment points of the beamer class.
> 3. Is there any chance you or someone else can explain the logic of the
> preamble code?
Ok, let's see if I can get this:
\newcommand\BackgroundPicture[3]{%
%define a new command for later use (so that we don't have to write down this
%all of this each time we need to do the same thing)
%The command will be "\BackgroundPicture" and it takes 3 arguments (Eugenio's
%code took only one instead - [1] - the image file path)
\setbeamertemplate{background}{%
%define the background beamer template as a:
\parbox[c][\paperheight]{\paperwidth}{%
%"paragraph style box" with the papersize dimensions
% ([\paperheight]{\paperwidth}) and its contents centered ([c])
\vfill \hfill
%expand both vertically and horizontally
\includegraphics[width=#2\paperwidth,height=#3\paperheight]{#1}
%instead of entering some text as is usually the case with \parbox
%insert an image whose path will be given as the first argument (#1)
%of the \BackgroundPicture command, width proportional to paperwidth
%at a scale factor given as the 2nd argument (#2) and height proportional
%to paperheight at a scale factor given as the 3rd argument (#3)
\hfill \vfill
%again, expand both horizontal and vertical so that the end result is nicelly
%centered and fills up the hole page
}
%closing the \parbox definition
}
%closing the background beamertemplate definition
}
%closing the BackgroundPicture newcommand definition
> 4. As a beamer user I am indebted to Till Tantau and his team for a great
> product that really fills a void
> and for documentation which is probably as good as it ever gets. For me,
> its goodbye powerpoint which I abhorred
> and mostly used Flash instead. That was hard work. Beamer is a dream by
> contrast.
PowerPoint (or any other of its contenders like OO.org's Impress) is nowhere
near the class of this product. After discovering beamer, I never looked
back:
- Graphical quality others never dreamed of. I'm very fond of the "rounded"
inner theme with shadows enabled that invariably leaves people
speechless. :-)
- Unmatched ease of use and productivity speed. Try embedding complex tables
and/or footnotes on any office-suite presentation app just for an example of
exercise in futility.
- Portability. No need to bring along the whole computer or HOPE that the one
provided by the organizers is compatible as in not only providing the
necessary software (and thus practically LOCKING you on PowerPoint and NOT
the latest version if you want to play it safely) but also configured
appropriately for your presentation to work at 100%. Nah, the only need is
for Acrobat Reader or almost any other pdf viewer app: a standard tool even
for computers 10 years old.
The only case I will not use beamer is for "special cases" calling for
MagicPoint, i.e. incorporating fully functional applications interactively
inside the presentation. But nobody will ever claim the latter is easier or
faster to deploy than beamer and LaTeX.
Gerasimos
