Introduction
============

A docutils script converting restructured text into Beamer-flavoured LaTeX.

Beamer is a LaTeX document class for presentations. rst2beamer [#homepage]_
provides a Docutils [#docutils]_ writer that transforms restructured text
[#rst]_ into Beamer-flavoured LaTeX. and provides a commandline script for the
same. Via this script, ReST can therefore be used to prepare slides and
presentations.


Installation
============

rst2beamer can be installed via setuptools / easy_install or manually. Consult the enclosed manual for further details.


Usage
=====

*Depending on your platform, the scripts may be installed as ``.py`` scripts,
or some form of executable, or both.*

rst2beamer is called::

  rst2beamer [options] [<source> [<destination>]]

For example::

	rst2beamer infile.txt outfile.tex

where ``infile.txt`` contains the ReST and ``outfile.tex`` contains the produced Beamer LaTeX. 

It supports the usual docutils and LaTeX writer (rst2latex) options, save the ``documentclass`` option (which is fixed to ``beamer``) and hyperref options (which are already set in beamer). It also supports:

--theme=THEME           Specify Beamer theme.
--overlaybullets=OVERLAYBULLETS
                        Overlay bulleted items. Put [<+-| alert@+>] at the end
                        of \begin{itemize} so that Beamer creats an overlay
                        for each bulleted item and the presentation reveals
                        one bullet at a time
--centerfigs=CENTERFIGS
                        Center figures.  All includegraphics statements will
                        be put inside center environments.
--documentoptions=DOCUMENTOPTIONS
                        Specify document options. Multiple options can be
                        given, separated by commas.  Default is
                        "10pt,a4paper".
--shownotes=SHOWNOTES   Print embedded notes along with the slides. Possible
                        arguments include 'false' (don't show), 'only' (show
                        only notes), 'left', 'right', 'top', 'bottom' (show in
                        relation to the annotated slide).

rst2beamer should interpret a reasonable subset of restructured text and produce reasonable LaTeX. Not all features of beamer have been implemented, just a (large) subset that allows the quick production of good looking slides.
These include:

* Overlay lists (i.e. those that appear point-by-point)
* Beamer themes
* Automatic centering and resizing of figures
* Embedded notes and the output of note slides.
* Arranging slide contents into columns.

Some examples can be found in the ``docs/examples`` directory of the distribution. In practice, rst2beamer can be used  with ``pdflatex`` to get PDF versions of a presentation.


Limitations
===========

Earlier versions of rst2beamer did not work with docutils 0.4, seemingly due to changes in the LaTeX writer. While this has been fixed, most work has been done with docutils snapshots from version 0.5 and up. In balance, users are recommended to update docutils.

Not all features of beamer are supported, and some - that deal with with page layout or presentation - may never be. Introducing complex syntax to achieve complex and specific page effects defeats the point of ReST's simple and easy-to-write format. If you need a complex presentation, use Powerpoint or Keynote.

If the content for an individual slide is too large, it will simply overflow the edges of the slide and disappear. Arguably, this is a sign you should put less on each slide.


Credits
=======

rst2beamer is developed by `Ryan Krauss <ryanwkrauss@gmail.com>`__ and `Paul-Michael Agapow <agapow@bbsrc.ac.uk>`__. Thanks to Dale Hathaway for helping track down the docutils 0.4 bug. Thanks to James Haggerty for detecting and reporting packaging problems.


References
==========

.. [#homepage] rst2beamer homepages at `agapow.net <http://www.agapow/net/software/rst2beamer>`__ and `cs.siue.edu <http://home.cs.siue.edu/rkrauss/python_website/>`__

.. [#setuptools] `Installing setuptools <http://peak.telecommunity.com/DevCenter/setuptools#installing-setuptools>`__

.. [#docutils] `Docutils homepage <http://docutils.sourceforge.net/>`__

.. [#rst] `Restructured text <http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html>`__

.. [#beamer] `Beamer homepage <http://latex-beamer.sourceforge.net/>`__

