rbbeamer - ruby-beamer
rbbeamer is a preprocessor script to convert a structured file with informations about your slides into a .tex file. If pdflatex is installed, rbbeamer can go on and start pdflatex to build your PDF.
Most of work is done by the LaTeX-Beamer-package. But writing TEX-Files for beamer can be a little bit annoying if you usually use only a small (and everytime the same) part of the things beamer is capable to do. So if you need individual slides using all beamer-capbilities, you should use beamer directly by writing a .tex-file.
rbbeamer gives you access to (right now) just a small part of beamer-capabilities. But you can input your data very fast with nearly no hazzle about formatting and counting clicks and all this stuff.
Example
Let's say we need a couple of slides about rbbeamer. Open an ASCII-Editor of your choice and enter:
#sd|My Tests with rbbeamer | John Doe | April 2013
#toc|Agenda
#sec|Introduction
#fi| My first slide
#i| rbbeamer is for setting up slides very fast
#i|a tool for people who need lots of beautiful slides
#i| Have a closer look
#Fi
#sec|Details
#fd| Advantage and disadvantages
#d| advantage| you only type what is needed
#d|disadvantage | you have to read a \emph{small} README.
#Fd
#sub|This is my subsection
#fx|Starting an empty frame
#bd|starting a description
#d|description|bd starts a description-environment
#d|second|this is just an example
#Bd
#bi|starting an itemize
#i|bi starts an itemize-environment
#i|this is just an example too
#Bi
#Fx
Save this file as demo.rbt (rbt is default extension for rbbeamer-files). Now start rbbeamer:
if pdflatex is installed:
rbbeamer demo.rbt -p
or, if you just want to create a TEX-File for later use
rbbeamer demo.rbt
The resulting .TEX file will create a presentation with a title page, a table of content titled "Agenda" and two slides with data. Both slides will step from one item to the next by mouseclick
Install
Install with gem install rbbeamer.
rbbeamer compiles .rbt-files into .tex-files. If you want to create your PDF, you should also have a latex-installation (otherwise rbbeamer will just create a TEX-file that you can use to work with at your own). If latex is not in your $PATH, you can specify a path in ~/.rbbeamer.conf. Default binary-name ist pdflatex.
System prerequisites
rbbeamer ist a script written in Ruby. You need a running Ruby-Installation (tested: 1.9.3, 2.0.0p0), most modern operating systems include one. rbbeamer ist developed and tested under Linux - it should run under MAC OS/X and Windows too - but I didn' t test it until now. Drop me a mail if you have additional info.
Creating pictures you will need graphviz in your path
Commands
Commands start with a "#" as first char in a line. Every line not starting with # is ignored (so a blank as the first char means: this is a comment). You can use this to specify additional informations not shown on slide or just to decativate a command for testing purposes. The end of a command is defined by line break or seperator-char (default: |)
#sd|<Title Of Presentation> | <Author> | <Date> [ | sources]
start definition-command: Defines a titlepage with three entities. If you want to use citations with biblatex, just give a fourth option with name of .bib-file (specify without extension), i.e. #sd| My Title Of Presentation | John Doe | April 2013 | sources
#toc [| Agenda | <DEPTH>]
Table-Of-Content: includes a TOC-page based on defined sections and subsections. Optional: you can specify a title (default: Agenda) and a depth for building TOC (default: 1).
#sec|<yourtitle>
#sub|<yourtitle>
#ssub|<yourtitle>
Defines a section, subsection or subsubsection (are your sure using subsubsections in a presentation?) named <yourtitle>.
#fi|<yourtitle>
Defines a frame (one slide) with different items using itemize. <yourtitle> will be the title of frame.
#i| <content>
Defines one item within a frame started with #fi. This item will be visible after a click in presentation (if you didn't use handout-option, see later)
#Fi
Closes a frame started with #fi.
#fd|<yourtitle>
Defines a frame (one slide) with different items using description. <yourtitle> will be the title of frame.
#d| <keyword> | <content>
Defines one item within a frame started with #fd. This item and its description will be visible after a click in presentation (if you didn't use handout-option, see later).
#Fd
Closes a frame started with #fd.
#fx|<yourtitle>
Defines a frame (one slide) with no content. <yourtitle> will be the title of frame. You can use this to define a frame at your own (see #[-command).
#Fx
Closes a frame started with #fx.
#bi|<yourtitle>
Starts a new block inside a fx-frame named <yourtitle>. Alle entries in block should follow with #i-command (itemize).
#Bi
Closes a block started with #bi.
#bd|<yourtitle>
Starts a new block inside a fx-frame named <yourtitle>. Alle entries in block should follow with #d-command (description).
#Bd
Closes a block started with #bd.
#[|content
This command just copies all content of this line into resulting .TEX-file. Lets say, you want to specify a section with an additional short title. This you cannot do with #sec-command. Instead you can use #[|\section[Short Title]{Really Long Title}. Resulting .TEX-file will include this line: \section[Short Title]{Really Long Title}
#{|
If you need more flexibility in defining your slides, you can use this command. All lines following this command are copied 1:1 to resulting .TEX-file until you close this command. Let's assume you need a frame with special content. Design your frame with beamer. If you are done with this, copy your beamer-sourcecode into your rbt-file between a #{| and a #} line. So from this time on your special designed tex-code will be copied into tex-file.
#}
Closes the copy-mode.
#dig{|<filename> [|scale]
Using Graphviz-package you can include pictures into your presentation. With this command you define the filename being used for building and saving your picture. Have a look into example.rbt to find a graphviz-picture. Don' t forget to define an empty frame (using #fx) before defining a graphviz-picture. If you omit scale-option, 1.0 will be inserted as scale: Graph width will be 100% of textwidth.
#input|<filename>
If you have large presentations, sometimes it is easier to use different source-files for different parts. Using input-command you can include another .rbt-file into your presentation (and yes, this one also can input a third one and so on).
Commandline Options
Starting rbbeamer at least you will have to specify your .rbt-file to compile. But beside this you can specify a lot of options. Try option --help or -x to see a short description.
--seperator, -s <s>: use this pattern as seperator (default: |)
--logo, -l <s>: Logo-File (without extension) for slides (default:
logo)
--pdf, -p: Start pdflatex after creating tex-file
--handout, -h: build a handout (no animations in pdf, add _handout
to filename)
--theme, -t <s>: Beamer-Theme to use (see Beamer-Doc for more info)
(default: Luebeck)
--babel, -b <s>: Language-option for babel-Package (default: english)
--backend, -a <s>: Backend for biblatex setting up references (default:
bibtex)
--configfile, -c <s>: Use this file as configfile (default:
~/.rbbeamer.conf)
--deleteworkfiles, -d: Delete work-files from pdflatex:
.aux,.blg,.nav,.snm,.toc,.bbl,.log,.out,.run.xm,.tex,.eps,.run.xml,-blx.bib
--writeconfigfile, -w: write default config into ~/.rbbeamer.conf
(overwrite)
--debug, -e: Start in debugging mode
--debugpdf, -u: Show pdflatex-output during compilation
--help, -x: Show all options (this page)
Config-directory
During startup rbbeamer tries to find config-dir (Linux: ~/.rbbeamer). If it doesn't exist, it will be created. You can save some files used by a myjority of your presentations in this dir (i.e. logo-files, bibtex-sources). rbbeamer tries to find this files in this dir, if you didn't specify another directory. In my case, I store my bibtex-sourcefile with all entries I usually cite from in this dir. So I don't have to bother with copies of this file in different directories.
rbbeamer.conf
Nearly all options regarding rbbeamer can be specified in command-line. But most times you don' t change your options. So ist is easier to use a config-file to save them. During startup rbbeamer sets all options to default values. If it finds rbbeamer.conf, options are overriden by those specified in config-file. If you also specified options in command-line, these values will override the former ones.
To create your config-file, just specify all options needed for your work and add --writeconfigfile (or -w). rbbeamer will then create a config (Linux: ~/.rbbeamer/rbbeamer.conf) to save all options within. Next time just start rbbeamer and specify your .rbt-file. Thats it. You can edit your config-file with any editor.
handout = false
pdf = true
deleteworkfiles = true
debug = false
debugpdf = false
seperator = |
babel = english
addpackage =
logo = rbb_logo
addpackage =
theme = Luebeck
latexpath =
latexbinary = pdflatex
backend = bibtex
If you need more packages to be declared in your .tex-file, just use addpackage option:
rbbeamer.rb test.rbt --addpackage [myoption=true]{testpackage},{otherpackage}
or use addpackage-line in .rbbeamer.conf:
addpackage = [myoption=true]{testpackage},{otherpackage}
This will lead to an additional entry in resulting .tex-file like this:
\usepackage[myoption=true]{testpackage}
\usepackage{otherpackage}
License
rbbeamer is a preprocessor for creating TEX-files for LaTeX-Beamer. Copyright (C) 2013 Thomas Romeyke (rubybeamer at googlemail.com).
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.