Customizing Beamer Presentations with R Markdown: A Deep Dive into YAML Headers and LaTeX Themes

Beamer presentations are a popular choice for creating slideshows in LaTeX. When using R Markdown to generate these presentations, it’s essential to understand how to customize the presentation’s theme, template, and includes using YAML headers. In this article, we’ll delve into the world of Beamer presentations, exploring the intricacies of customizing themes, templates, and includes, and provide practical examples to help you create stunning slideshows with R Markdown.

Introduction

Beamer is a LaTeX package for creating presentaitons. It allows you to create complex slide structures with ease. R Markdown is a markup language that combines the features of R and Markdown. When used together, they offer an excellent way to create reports, articles, and presentations in a short amount of time.

The Role of YAML Headers in Beamer Presentations

In R Markdown, the YAML header is where you specify metadata about your document. For Beamer presentations, this includes information such as the theme, template, and includes used for customizing the presentation’s appearance.

Specifying Themes, Templates, and Includes in YAML Headers

To customize a Beamer presentation generated with rmarkdown::beamer_presentation, you can use the following syntax:

---
theme: "THEMENAME"
template: template.tex
includes:
  in_header: preamble.tex
  before_body: before_body.tex
  after_body: after_body.tex
---```

This tells R Markdown to use the specified theme, template, and includes for customizing the presentation.

### Customizing Themes

A Beamer theme consists of several files, including `beamerthemeTHEMENAME.sty`, `beamercolorthemeTHEMENAME.sty`, `beamerfontthemeTHEMENAME.sty`, `beamerinnerthemeTHEMENAME.sty`, and `beamerouterthemeTHEMENAME.sty`. Each of these files controls a specific aspect of the theme.

For example, `beamerthemeTHEMENAME.sty` contains the overall theme settings. You can customize this file to change the colors, fonts, and layout of your presentation.

### Using Custom Themes with Subfolders

If you want to store your custom themes in subfolders, you can specify the path to these files using the `latex_engine: xelatex` option:

```markdown
---
theme: "THEMENAME"
template: template.tex
includes:
  - \input{beamer_files/beamerthemeTHEMENAME.sty}
  - \input{beamer_files/preamble}       # feed title to LaTex in preamble.tex due to ":"
...

This tells R Markdown to look for the beamerthemeTHEMENAME.sty file in the beamer_files/ subfolder.

Customizing Templates

A Beamer template consists of several files, including template.tex and includefiles.tex. You can customize these files to change the layout, design, and structure of your presentation.

For example, you can add new sections or modify existing ones using the add option:

---
theme: "THEMENAME"
template: template.tex
includes:
  - \input{beamer_files/preamble}
  ...
  \addtofile{includefiles.tex}
  \title{New title}
...

This tells R Markdown to add a new section called includefiles.tex and set the title of the presentation to “New title”.

Customizing Includes

Includes allow you to reuse code from other files in your presentation. You can use includes to include images, charts, or other elements that you want to display on multiple slides.

For example:

---
theme: "THEMENAME"
template: template.tex
includes:
  - \input{beamer_files/preamble}
  ...
  \include{image/my_image.png} # include an image file
...

This tells R Markdown to include the my_image.png image file in the presentation.

Example Code

Here’s a complete example of a Beamer presentation generated with rmarkdown::beamer_presentation:

---
theme: "THEMENAME"
template: template.tex
includes:
  - \input{beamer_files/beamerthemeTHEMENAME.sty}
  - \input{beamer_files/preamble}       # feed title to LaTex in preamble.tex due to ":"
...

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

% includes
\input{beamer_files/beamerthemeTHEMENAME.sty}
\input{beamer_files/preamble}       % feed title to LaTex in preamble.tex due to ":"
%
% main content
\begin{document}

\tocframe

\section*{\large Title of the presentation}
\title[short version]{First line of the title:\par second line of the title}

\end{document}

\documentclass[11pt]{article}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}

% preamble
\definecolor{my_color}{rgb}{0.3, 0.5, 0.7} % define a new color
\newcommand{\my_command}[1] { # create a new command
    \textbf{#1} # add bold formatting to the text
}

% includes
\input{beamer_files/beamerthemeTHEMENAME.sty}
\input{beamer_files/preamble}       % feed title to LaTex in preamble.tex due to ":"

% main content
\begin{document}

\tocframe

\section*{\large Title of the presentation}
\title[short version]{First line of the title:\par second line of the title}

\end{document}

This example demonstrates how to customize a Beamer presentation using YAML headers. By modifying the theme, template, and includes specified in the YAML header, you can create stunning slideshows with R Markdown.

Conclusion

Customizing Beamer presentations with R Markdown requires understanding how to use YAML headers to specify themes, templates, and includes. This article has provided a comprehensive guide to customizing these elements, including using subfolders for custom themes and modifying templates and includes. By applying the techniques described in this article, you can create stunning slideshows that showcase your content in the best possible way.

Additional Resources

For more information on Beamer presentations and R Markdown, we recommend checking out the following resources:

The Beamer documentation: https://ctan.org/pkg/beamer
The R Markdown documentation: https://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/
The LaTeX documentation: https://latex-project.org/

These resources provide detailed information on the syntax, options, and features of Beamer presentations and R Markdown.

Last modified on 2023-07-07