summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/Master/texmf-dist/doc/latex/beamer/beamerug-guidelines.tex
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'Master/texmf-dist/doc/latex/beamer/beamerug-guidelines.tex')
-rw-r--r--Master/texmf-dist/doc/latex/beamer/beamerug-guidelines.tex973
1 files changed, 973 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Master/texmf-dist/doc/latex/beamer/beamerug-guidelines.tex b/Master/texmf-dist/doc/latex/beamer/beamerug-guidelines.tex
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..989f3d7070e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Master/texmf-dist/doc/latex/beamer/beamerug-guidelines.tex
@@ -0,0 +1,973 @@
+% $Header: /cvsroot/latex-beamer/latex-beamer/doc/beamerug-guidelines.tex,v 1.10 2004/12/09 22:31:18 tantau Exp $
+
+% Copyright 2003, 2004 by Till Tantau <tantau@users.sourceforge.net>.
+%
+% This program can be redistributed and/or modified under the terms
+% of the GNU Public License, version 2.
+
+\section{Guidelines for Creating Presentations}
+
+
+\label{section-guidelines}
+
+In this section I sketch the guidelines that I try to stick to when I
+create presentations. These guidelines either arise out of experience,
+out of common sense, or out of recommendations by other people or
+books. These rules are certainly not intended as commandments that, if
+not followed, will result in catastrophe. The central rule of
+typography also applies to creating presentations: \emph{Every rule
+ can be broken, but no rule may be ignored.}
+
+
+
+
+\subsection{Structuring a Presentation}
+
+\label{section-structure-guidelines}
+
+
+
+\subsubsection{Know the Time Constraints}
+
+When you start to create a presentation, the very first thing you
+should worry about is the amount of time you have for your
+presentation. Depending on the occasion, this can
+be anything between 2 minutes and two hours.
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ A simple rule for the number of frames is that you should have at
+ most one frame per minute.
+\item
+ In most situations, you will have less time for your presentation
+ that you would like.
+\item
+ \emph{Do not try to squeeze more into a presentation than time
+ allows for.} No matter how important some detail seems to you, it is
+ better to leave it out, but get the main message across, than
+ getting neither the main message nor the detail across.
+\end{itemize}
+
+In many situations, a quick appraisal of how much time you have will
+show that you won't be able to mention certain details. Knowing this can
+save you hours of work on preparing slides that you would have to remove
+later anyway.
+
+
+
+\subsubsection{Global Structure}
+
+To create the ``global structure'' of a presentation, with the time
+constraints in mind, proceed as follows:
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Make a mental inventory of the things you can reasonably talk about
+ within the time available.
+\item
+ Categorize the inventory into sections and subsections.
+\item
+ For very long talks (like a 90 minute lecture), you might also
+ divide your talk into independent parts (like a ``review of the
+ previous lecture part'' and a ``main part'') using the |\part|
+ command. Note that each part has its own table of contents.
+\item
+ Do not feel afraid to change the structure later on as you work on
+ the talk.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+
+\paragraph{Parts, Section, and Subsections.}
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Do not use more than four sections and not less than two per
+ part.
+\end{itemize}
+Even four sections are usually too much, unless they follow
+a very easy pattern. Five and more sections are simply too hard to
+remember for the audience. After all, when you present the table of
+contents, the audience will not yet really be able to grasp the
+importance and relevance of the different sections and will most
+likely have forgotten them by the time you reach them.
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Ideally, a table of contents should be understandable by itself. In
+ particular, it should be comprehensible \emph{before} someone has
+ heard your talk.
+\item
+ Keep section and subsection titles self-explaining.
+\item
+ Both the sections and the subsections should follow a logical
+ pattern.
+\item
+ Begin with an explanation of what your talk is all about. (Do
+ not assume that everyone knows this. The \emph{Ignorant Audience
+ Law} states: Someone important in the audience always knows less
+ than you think everyone should know, even if you take the Ignorant
+ Audience Law into account.)
+\item
+ Then explain what you or someone else has found out concerning the
+ subject matter.
+\item
+ Always conclude your talk with a summary that repeats the main
+ message of the talk in a short and simple way. People pay most
+ attention at the beginning and at the end of talks. The summary is
+ your ``second chance'' to get across a message.
+\item
+ You can also add an appendix part using the |\appendix| command. Put
+ everything into this part that you do not actually intend to talk
+ about, but that might come in handy when questions are asked.
+\item
+ Do not use subsubsections, they are evil.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+
+\paragraph{Giving an Abstract}
+
+In papers, the abstract gives a short summary of the whole paper in
+about 100 words. This summary is intend to help readers appraise
+whether they should read the whole paper or not.
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Since you audience is unlikely to flee after the first slide, in
+ a presentation you usually do not need to present an abstract.
+\item
+ However, if you can give a nice, succinct statement of your
+ talk, you might wish to include an abstract.
+\item
+ If you include an abstract, be sure that it is \emph{not} some long
+ text but just a very short message.
+\item
+ \emph{Never, ever} reuse a paper abstract for a presentation,
+ \emph{except} if the abstract is ``We show $\operatorname{P} =
+ \operatorname{NP}$'' or ``We show $\operatorname{P} \neq
+ \operatorname{NP}$''
+\item
+ If your abstract is one of the above two, double-check whether
+ your proof is correct.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+
+
+
+\paragraph{Numbered Theorems and Definitions.}
+
+A common way of globally structuring (math) articles and books is to
+use consecutively numbered definitions and theorems. Unfortunately,
+for presentations the situation is a bit more complicated and I would
+like to discourage using numbered theorems in presentations. The
+audience has no chance of remembering these numbers. \emph{Never} say
+things like ``now, by Theorem~2.5 that I showed you earlier, we have
+\dots'' It would be much better to refer to, say, Kummer's Theorem
+instead of Theorem~2.5. If Theorem~2.5 is some obscure theorem that
+does not have its own name (unlike Kummer's Theorem or Main Theorem or
+Second Main Theorem or Key Lemma), then the audience will have
+forgotten about it anyway by the time you refer to it again.
+
+In my opinion, the only situation in which numbered theorems make
+sense in a presentation is in a lecture, in which the students can read
+lecture notes in parallel to the lecture where the theorems are
+numbered in exactly the same way.
+
+If you do number theorems and definition, number everything
+consecutively. Thus if there are one theorem, one lemma,
+and one definition, you would have Theorem~1, Lemma~2, and
+Definition~3. Some people prefer all three to be numbered~1. I would
+\emph{strongly} like to discourage this. The problem is that this
+makes it virtually impossible to find anything since Theorem~2 might
+come after Definition~10 or the other way round. Papers and, worse,
+books that have a Theorem~1 and a Definition~1 are a pain.
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Do not inflict pain on other people.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+\paragraph{Bibliographies.}
+
+You may also wish to present a bibliography at the end of your talk,
+so that people can see what kind of ``further reading'' is possible.
+When adding a bibliography to a presentation, keep the following in mind:
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ It is a bad idea to present a long bibliography in a
+ presentation. Present only very few references. (Naturally, this
+ applies only to the talk itself, not to a possible handout.)
+\item
+ If you present more references than fit on a single slide you can be
+ almost sure that none of them will not be remembered.
+\item
+ Present references only if they are intended as ``further reading.''
+ Do not present a list of all things you used like in a paper.
+\item
+ You should not present a long list of all your other great papers
+ \emph{except} if you are giving an application talk.
+\item
+ Using the |\cite| commands can be confusing since the audience
+ has little chance of remembering the citations. If you cite the
+ references, always cite them with full author name and year like
+ ``[Tantau, 2003]'' instead of something like ``[2,4]'' or
+ ``[Tan01,NT02]''.
+\item
+ If you want to be modest, you can abbreviate your name when citing
+ yourself as in ``[Nickelsen and T., 2003]'' or ``[Nickelsen and T,
+ 2003]''. However, this can be confusing for the audience since it is
+ often not immediately clear who exactly ``T.'' might be. I recommend
+ using the full name.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+
+
+\subsubsection{Frame Structure}
+
+\label{section-frame-guidelines}
+\label{section-guidelines-local}
+
+Just like your whole presentation, each frame should also be
+structured. A frame that is solely filled with some long text is very
+hard to follow. It is your job to structure the contents of each frame
+such that, ideally, the audience immediately seems which information
+is important, which information is just a detail, how the presented
+information is related, and so on.
+
+
+
+\paragraph{The Frame Title}
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Put a title on each frame. The title explains the contents of the
+ frame to people who did not follow all details on the slide.
+\item
+ The title should really \emph{explain} things, not just give a
+ cryptic summary that cannot be understood unless one has understood
+ the whole slide. For example, a title like ``The Poset'' will have
+ everyone puzzled what this slide might be about. Titles like
+ ``Review of the Definition of Partially Ordered Sets (Posets)'' or
+ ``A Partial Ordering on the Columns of the Genotype Matrix'' are
+ \emph{much} more informative.
+\item
+ Ideally, titles on consecutive frames should ``tell a story'' all by
+ themselves.
+\item
+ In English, you should \emph{either} \emph{always} capitalize all words in
+ a frame title except for words like ``a'' or ``the'' (as in a
+ title), \emph{or} you \emph{always} use the normal lowercase
+ letters. Do \emph{not} mix this; stick to one rule. The same is true
+ for block titles. For example, do not use titles like ``A short
+ Review of Turing machines.'' Either use ``A Short Review of Turing
+ Machines.'' or ``A short review of Turing machines.'' (Turing is
+ still spelled with a capital letter since it is a name).
+\item
+ In English, the title of the whole document should be
+ capitalized, regardless of whether you capitalize anything else.
+\item
+ In German and other languages that have lots of capitalized words,
+ always use the correct upper-/lowercase letters. Never capitalize
+ anything in addition to what is usually capitalized.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+
+\paragraph{How Much Can I Put On a Frame?}
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ A frame with too little on it is better than a frame with too much
+ on it. A usual frame should have between 20 and 40 words. The
+ maximum should be at about 80 words.
+\item
+ Do not assume that everyone in the audience is an expert on the
+ subject matter. Even if the
+ people listening to you should be experts, they may last have heard
+ about things you consider obvious several years ago. You should
+ always have the time for a quick reminder of what exactly a
+ ``semantical complexity class'' or an ``$\omega$-complete partial
+ ordering'' is.
+\item
+ Never put anything on a slide that you are not going to explain
+ during the talk, not even to impress anyone with how
+ complicated your subject matter really is. However, you may
+ explain things that are not on a slide.
+\item
+ Keep it simple. Typically, your audience will see a slide for less
+ than 50 seconds. They will not have the time to puzzle through long
+ sentences or complicated formulas.
+\item
+ Lance Forthnow claims: PowerPoint users give better talks. His
+ reason: Since PowerPoint is so bad at typesetting math, they use
+ less math, making their talks easier to understand.
+
+ There is some truth in this in my opinion. The great
+ math-typesetting capabilities of \TeX\ can easily lure you into
+ using many more formulas than is necessary and healthy. For example,
+ instead of writing {\catcode `|=12``Since $\left|\{x \in \{0,1\}^*
+ \mid x \sqsubseteq y\}\right| < \infty$}, we have\dots''\ use ``Since
+ $y$ has only finitely many prefixes, we have\dots''
+
+ You will be surprised how much mathematical text can be reformulated
+ in plain English or can just be omitted. Naturally, if some
+ mathematical argument is what you are actually talking about, as in
+ a math lecture, make use of \TeX's typesetting capabilities to your
+ heart's content.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+
+\paragraph{Structuring a Frame}
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Use block environments like |block|, |theorem|, |proof|, |example|,
+ and so on.
+\item
+ Prefer enumerations and itemize environments over plain text.
+\item
+ Use |description| when you define several things.
+\item
+ Do not use more than two levels of ``subitemizing.'' \beamer\
+ supports three levels, but you should not use that third
+ level. Mostly, you should not even use the second one. Use good
+ graphics instead.
+\item
+ Do not create endless |itemize| or |enumerate| lists.
+\item
+ Do not uncover lists piecewise.
+\item
+ Emphasis is an important part of creating structure. Use |\alert| to
+ highlight important things. This can be a single word or a whole
+ sentence. However, do not overuse hilighting since this will negate
+ the effect.
+\item
+ Use columns.
+\item
+ \emph{Never} use footnotes. They needlessly disrupt the flow of
+ reading. Either what is said in the footnote is important and should
+ be put in the normal text; or it is not important and should be
+ omitted (\emph{especially} in a presentation).
+\item
+ Use |quote| or |quotation| to typeset quoted text.
+\item
+ Do not use the option |allowframebreaks| except for long
+ bibliographies.
+\item
+ Do not use long bibliographies.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+
+
+\paragraph{Writing the Text}
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Use short sentences.
+\item
+ Prefer phrases over complete sentences. For example,
+ instead of ``The figure on the left shows a Turing machine, the
+ figure on the right shows a finite automaton.''\ try ``Left: A Turing
+ machine. Right: A finite automaton.'' Even better, turn this into an
+ itemize or a description.
+\item
+ Punctuate correctly: no punctuation after phrases, complete
+ punctuation in and after complete sentences.
+\item
+ \emph{Never} use a smaller font size to ``fit more on a frame.''
+ \emph{Never ever} use the \emph{evil} option |shrink|.
+\item
+ Do not hyphenate words. If absolutely necessary, hyphenate words
+ ``by hand,'' using the command~|\-|.
+\item
+ Break lines ``by hand'' using the command~|\\|. Do not rely on
+ automatic line breaking. Break where there is a logical pause. For
+ example, good breaks in ``the tape alphabet is larger
+ than the input alphabet'' are before ``is'' and before the second
+ ``the.'' Bad breaks are before either ``alphabet'' and before
+ ``larger.''
+\item
+ Text and numbers in figures should have the \emph{same} size as
+ normal text. Illegible numbers on axes usually ruin a chart and its
+ message.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+
+
+\subsubsection{Interactive Elements}
+
+Ideally, during a presentation you would like to present your
+slides in a perfectly linear fashion, presumably by pressing the
+page-down-key once for each slide. However, there are different
+reasons why you might have to deviate from this linear order:
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Your presentation may contain ``different levels of detail'' that
+ may or may not be skipped or expanded, depending on the audience's
+ reaction.
+\item
+ You are asked questions and wish to show supplementary slides.
+\item
+ You present a complicated picture and you have to ``zoom out''
+ different parts to explain details.
+\item
+ You are asked questions about an earlier slide, which forces you to
+ find and then jump to that slide.
+\end{itemize}
+You cannot really prepare against the last kind of questions. In this
+case, you can use the navigation bars and symbols to find the slide
+you are interested in, see \ref{section-navigation-bars}.
+
+Concerning the first three kinds of deviations, there are several
+things you can do to prepare ``planned detours'' or ``planned
+short cuts''.
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ You can add ``skip buttons.'' When such a button
+ is pressed, you jump over a well-defined part of your talk. Skip
+ button have two advantages over just pressing the forward key
+ is rapid succession: first, you immediately end up at the correct
+ position and, second, the button's label can give the audience a
+ visual feedback of what exactly will be skipped. For example, when
+ you press a skip button labeled ``Skip proof'' nobody will start
+ puzzling over what he or she has missed.
+\item
+ You can add an appendix to your talk. The appendix is kept
+ ``perfectly separated'' from the main talk. Only once you ``enter''
+ the appendix part (presumably by hyperjumping into it), does the
+ appendix structure become visible. You can put all frames that you
+ do not intend to show during the normal course of your talk, but
+ which you would like to have handy in case someone asks, into this
+ appendix.
+\item
+ You can add ``goto buttons'' and ``return buttons'' to create
+ detours. Pressing a goto button will jump to a certain part of the
+ presentation where extra details can be shown. In this part, there
+ is a return button present on each slide that will jump back to the
+ place where the goto button was pressed.
+\item
+ In \beamer, you can use the |\againframe| command to ``continue''
+ frames that you previously started somewhere, but where certain
+ details have been suppressed. You can use the |\againframe| command
+ at a much later point, for example only in the appendix to show
+ additional slides there.
+\item
+ In \beamer, you can use the |\framezoom| command to create links to
+ zoomed out parts of a complicated slide.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+
+
+
+\subsection{Using Graphics}
+
+Graphics often convey concepts or ideas much more efficiently than
+text: A picture can say more than a thousand words. (Although,
+sometimes a word can say more than a thousand pictures.)
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Put (at least) one graphic on each slide, whenever
+ possible. Visualizations help an audience enormously.
+\item
+ Usually, place graphics to the left of the text. (Use the
+ |columns| environment.) In a left-to-right reading culture, we look
+ at the left first.
+\item
+ Graphics should have the same typographic parameters as the
+ text: Use the same fonts (at the same size) in graphics as in the
+ main text. A small dot in a graphic should have exactly the same
+ size as a small dot in a text. The line width should be the same as
+ the stroke width used in creating the glyphs of the font. For
+ example, an 11pt non-bold Computer Modern font has a stroke width of
+ 0.4pt.
+\item
+ While bitmap graphics, like photos, can be much more colorful than the
+ rest of the text, vector graphics should follow the same ``color
+ logic'' as the main text (like black~= normal lines, red~= hilighted
+ parts, green~= examples, blue~= structure).
+\item
+ Like text, you should explain everything that is shown on a
+ graphic. Unexplained details make the audience puzzle whether this
+ was something important that they have missed. Be careful when
+ importing graphics from a paper or some other source. They usually
+ have much more detail than you will be able to explain and should be
+ radically simplified.
+\item
+ Sometimes the complexity of a graphic is intensional and you
+ are willing to spend much time explaining the graphic in great
+ detail. In this case, you will often run into the problem that fine
+ details of the graphic are hard to discern for the audience. In this
+ case you should use a command like |\framezoom| to create
+ anticipated zoomings of interesting parts of the graphic, see
+ Section~\ref{section-zooming}.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+
+\subsection{Using Animations and Transitions}
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Use animations to explain the dynamics of systems, algorithms, etc.
+\item
+ Do \emph{not} use animations just to attract the attention of your
+ audience. This often distracts attention away from the main topic of the
+ slide. No matter how cute a rotating,
+ flying theorem seems to look and no matter how badly you feel your
+ audience needs some action to keep it happy, most people in the
+ audience will typically feel you are making fun of them.
+\item
+ Do \emph{not} use distracting special effects like ``dissolving''
+ slides unless you have a very good reason for using them. If you use
+ them, use them sparsely.
+ They \emph{can} be useful in some situations: For example, you might
+ show a young boy on a slide and might wish to dissolve this slide
+ into slide showing a grown man instead. In this case, the
+ dissolving gives the audience visual feedback that the young boy
+ ``slowly becomes'' the man.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+
+
+\subsection{Choosing Appropriate Themes}
+
+\beamer\ comes with a number of different themes. When choosing a
+theme, keep the following in mind:
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Different themes are appropriate for different occasions. Do not
+ become too attached to a favorite theme; choose a
+ theme according to occasion.
+\item
+ A longer talk is more likely to require navigational hints
+ than a short one. When you give a 90 minute lecture to students, you
+ should choose a theme that always shows a sidebar with the current
+ topic hilighted so that everyone always knows exactly what's the
+ current ``status'' of your talk is; when you give a ten-minute
+ introductory speech, a table of contents is likely to just seem
+ silly.
+\item
+ A theme showing the author's name and affiliation is appropriate in
+ situation where the audience is likely not to know you (like during
+ a conference). If everyone knows you, having your name on each slide
+ is just vanity.
+\item
+ First choose a presentation theme that has a layout that is
+ appropriate for your talk.
+\item
+ Next you might wish to change the colors by installing a different
+ color theme. This can drastically change the appearance of your
+ presentation. A ``colorful'' theme like |Berkeley| will look much
+ less flashy if you use the color themes |seahorse| and |lily|.
+\item
+ You might also wish to change the fonts by installing a different
+ font theme.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+
+\subsection{Choosing Appropriate Colors}
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Use colors sparsely. The prepared themes are already quite
+ colorful (blue~= structure, red~= alert, green~= example). If you
+ add more colors for things like code, math text, etc., you should
+ have a \emph{very} good reason.
+\item
+ Be careful when using bright colors on white background,
+ \emph{especially} when using green. What looks good on your monitor
+ may look bad during a presentation due to the different ways
+ monitors, beamers, and printers reproduce colors. Add lots of black
+ to pure colors when you use them on bright backgrounds.
+\item
+ Maximize contrast. Normal text should be black on white or at least
+ something very dark on something very bright. \emph{Never} do things
+ like ``light green text on not-so-light green background.''
+\item
+ Background shadings decrease the legibility without increasing the
+ information content. Do not add a background shading just because it
+ ``somehow looks nicer.''
+\item
+ Inverse video (bright text on dark background) can be a problem
+ during presentations in bright environments since only a small
+ percentage of the presentation area is light up by the
+ beamer. Inverse video is harder to reproduce on printouts and on
+ transparencies.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+
+
+
+
+\subsection{Choosing Appropriate Fonts and Font Attributes}
+
+Text and fonts literally surround us constantly. Try to think of the
+last time when there was no text around you within ten
+meters. Likely, this has never happened in your life!
+(Whenever you wear clothing, even a swim suit, there is a lot of text
+right next to your body.) The history of fonts is nearly as long as
+the history of civilization itself. There are tens of thousands of fonts
+available these days, some of which are the product of hundreds of
+years of optimization.
+
+Choosing the right fonts for a presentation is by no means
+trivial and wrong choices will either just ``look bad'' or, worse,
+make the audience having trouble reading your slides.
+This user's guide cannot replace a good book on typography, but in the
+present section you'll find several hints that should help you setup
+fonts for a \beamer\ presentation that look good.
+A font has numerous attributes like weight, family, or size. All of
+these have an impact on the usability of the font in
+presentations. In the following, these attributes are described and
+advantages and disadvantages of the different choices are sketched.
+
+
+\subsubsection{Font Size}
+
+\label{section-sizes}
+
+Perhaps the most obvious attribute of a font is its size. Fonts are
+traditionally measured in ``points.'' How much a point is depends on
+whom you ask. \TeX\ thinks a point is the 72.27th part of an inch,
+which is 2.54 cm. On the other hand, PostScript and Adobe think a
+point is the 72th part of an inch (\TeX\ calls this a big point). The
+are differences between American and European points. Once it is
+settled how much a point is, claiming that a text is in ``11pt'' means
+that the ``height'' of the letters in the font are 11pt. However, this
+``height'' stems from the time when letters where still cast in lead
+and refers to the the vertical size of the lead letters. It thus does
+not need to have any correlation with the actual height of, say, the
+letter x or even the letter M. The letter x of an 11pt Times from
+Adobe will have a height that is different from the height of the
+letter x of an 11pt Times from UTC and the letter x of an 11pt
+Helvetica from Adobe will have yet another height.
+
+Summing up, the font size has little to do with the actual size of
+letters. Rather, these days it is a convention that 10pt or 11pt is
+the size a font should be printed for ``normal reading.'' Fonts are
+designed so that they can optimally be read at these sizes.
+
+In a presentation the classical font sizes obviously loose their
+meaning. Nobody could read a projected text if it were actually
+11pt. Instead, the projected letters need to be several centimeters
+high. Thus, it does not really make sense to specify ``font sizes''
+for presentations in the usual way. Instead, you should try to think
+of the number of lines that will fit on a slide if you were to fill
+the whole slide with line-by-line text (you are never going to do that
+in practice, though). Depending on how far your audience is removed
+from the projection and on how large the projection is, between 10 and
+20 lines should fit on each slide. The less lines, the more readable
+your text will be.
+
+In \beamer, the default sizes of the fonts are chosen in a way that
+makes it difficult to fit ``too much'' onto a slide. Also, it will
+ensure that your slides are readable even under bad conditions like a
+large room and a small only a small projection area. However, you may
+wish to enlarge or shrink the fonts a bit if you know this to be more
+appropriate in your presentation environment.
+
+Once the size of the normal text is settled, all other sizes are
+usually defined relative to that size. For this reason, \LaTeX\ has
+commands like |\large| or |\small|. The actual size these commands
+select depends on the size of normal text.
+
+In a presentation, you will want to use a very small font for text in
+headlines, footlines, or sidebars since the text shown there is not
+vital and is read at the audience's leasure. Naturally, the text should
+still be large enough that it actually \emph{can} be read without
+binoculars. However, in a normal presentation environment the audience
+will still be able to read even |\tiny| text when necessary.
+
+However, using small fonts can be tricky. Many PostScript fonts are
+just scaled down when used at small sizes. When a font is
+used at less than its normal size, the characters should actually be
+stroked using a slightly thicker ``pen'' than the one resulting from
+just scaling things. For this reason, high quality
+multiple master fonts or the Computer Modern fonts use different
+fonts for small characters and for normal characters. However, when
+you use a normal Helvetica or Times font, the characters are just
+scaled down. A similar problem arises when you use a light font on a
+dark background. Even when printed on paper in high resolution,
+light-on-dark text tends to be ``overflooded'' by the dark
+background. When light-on-dark text is rendered in a presentation this
+effect can be much worse, making the text almost impossible to read.
+
+You can counter both negative effects by using a bold versions for
+small text.
+
+In the other direction, you can use larger text for titles. However,
+using a larger font does not always have the desired effect. Just
+because a frame title is printed in large letters does not
+mean that it is read first. Indeed, have a look at the cover of your
+favorite magazine. Most likely, the magazine's name is the typeset in the
+largest font, but you your attention will nevertheless first go to the
+topics advertised on the cover. Likewise, in the table of contents you
+are likely to first focus on the entries, not on the words ``Table of
+Contents.'' Most likely, you would not spot a spelling mistake there
+(a friend of mine actually managed to misspell \emph{his own name} on
+the cover of his master's thesis and nobody noticed until a year
+later). In essence, large text at the top of a page signals
+``unimportant since I know what to expect.'' So, instead of using a
+very large frame title, also consider using a normal size frame title
+that is typeset in bold or in italics.
+
+
+
+
+
+\subsubsection{Font Families}
+
+\label{section-guidelines-serif}
+
+The other central property of any font is its family. Examples of font
+families are Times or Helvetica or Futura. As the name suggests, a lot
+of different fonts can belong to the same family. For example, Times
+comes in different sizes, there is a bold version of Times, an
+italics version, and so on. To confuse matters, font families like
+Times are often just called the ``font Times.''
+
+The are two large classes of font families: serif fonts and
+sans-serif fonts. A sans-serif font is a font in
+which the letters do not have serifs (from French \emph{sans}, which
+means ``without''). Serifs are the little hooks at the ending of the
+strokes that make up a letter. The font you are currently reading is a
+serif font. \textsf{By comparison, this text is in a sans-serif font.}
+Sans-serif fonts are (generally considered to be) easier to read
+when used in a presentation. In low resolution rendering, serifs
+decrease the legibility of a font. However, on projectors with very
+high resolution serif text is just as readable as sans-serif text. A
+presentation typeset in a serif font creates a more conservative
+impression, which might be exactly what you wish to create.
+
+Most likely, you'll have a lot of different font families preinstalled
+on you system. The default font used by \TeX\ (and \beamer) is the
+Computer Modern font. It is the original font family designed by Donald
+Knuth himself for the \TeX\ program. It is a mature font that comes
+with just about everything you could wish for: extensive mathematical
+alphabets, outline PostScript versions, real small caps, real oldstyle
+numbers, specially designed small and large letters, and so on.
+
+However, there are reasons for using font families other than Computer
+Modern:
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ The Computer Modern fonts are a bit boring if you have seen them too
+ often. Using another font (but not Times!) can give a fresh look.
+\item
+ Other fonts, especially Times and Helvetica, are sometime rendered
+ better since they seem to have better internal hinting.
+\item
+ The sans-serif version of Computer Modern is not nearly as
+ well-designed as the serif version. Indeed, the sans-serif version
+ is, in essence, the serif version with different design parameters,
+ not an independent design.
+\item
+ Computer modern needs much more space than more economic fonts like
+ Times (this explains why Times is so popular with people who need
+ to squeeze their great paper into just twelve pages). To be fair,
+ Times was specifically designed to be economic (the newspaper
+ company publishing The Times needed robust, but space-economic font).
+\end{itemize}
+
+A small selection of alternatives to Computer Modern:
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Helvetica is an often used alternative. However, Helvetica also
+ tends to look boring (since we see it everywhere) and it has a very
+ large x-height (the height of the letter~x in comparison to a letter
+ like~M). A large x-height is usually considered good for languages
+ (like English) that use uppercase letters seldomly and not-so-good
+ for languages (like German) that use uppercase letters a lot. (I
+ have never been quite convinced by the argument for this, though.)
+ Be warned: the x-height of Helvetica is so different from the
+ x-height of Times that mixing the two in a single line looks
+ strange. The packages for loading Times and Helvetica provide
+ options for fixing this, though.
+\item
+ Futura is, in my opinion, a beautiful font that is very well-suited
+ for presentations. Its thick letters make it robust against
+ scaling, inversion, and low contrast. Unfortunately, while it is
+ most likely installed on your system somewhere in some form, getting
+ \TeX\ to work with it is a complicated process.
+\item
+ Times is a possible alternative to Computer Modern. Its main
+ disadvantage is that it is a serif font, which requires a
+ high-resolution projector. Naturally, it also used very often, so we
+ all know it very well.
+\end{itemize}
+
+Families that you should \emph{not} use for normal text include:
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ All monospaced fonts (like Courier).
+\item
+ Script fonts (which look like handwriting). Their stroke width is
+ way too small for a presentation.
+\item
+ More delicate serif fonts like Stempel and possibly even Garamond
+ (though Garamond is really a beautiful font for books).
+\item
+ Gothic fonts. Only a small fraction of your audience will be able to
+ read them fluently.
+\end{itemize}
+
+There is one popular font that is a bit special: Microsoft's Comic
+Sans. On the one hand, there is a website lobbying for banning the use
+of this font. Indeed, the main trouble with the font is that it is not
+particularly well-readable and that math typeset partly using this
+font looks terrible. On the other hand, this font \emph{does} create
+the impression of a slide ``written by hand,'' which gives the
+presentation a natural look. Think twice before using this font, but
+do not let yourself be intimidated.
+
+One of the most important rules of typography is that you should use
+as little fonts as possible in a text. In particular, typographic
+wisdom dictates that you should not use more than two different
+families on one page. However, when typesetting
+mathematical text, it is often necessary and useful to use different
+font families. For example, it used to be common practice to use
+Gothic letters do denote vectors. Also, program texts are often
+typeset in monospace fonts. If your audience is used to a certain font
+family for a certain type of text, use that family, regardless of what
+typographic wisdom says.
+
+A common practice in typography is to use a sans serif fonts for
+titles and serif fonts for normal text (check your favorite
+magazine). You can \emph{also} use two different sans serif fonts or
+two different serif fonts, but you then have to make sure that the
+fonts look ``sufficiently different.'' If they look only slightly
+different, the page will look ``somehow strange,'' but the audience
+will not be able to tell why. For example, do not mix Arial and
+Helvetica (they are almost identical) or Computer Modern and
+Baskerville (they are quite similar). A combination of Gills Sans and
+Helvetica is dangerous but perhaps possible. A combination like Futura
+and Optima is certainly ok, at least with respect to the fonts being
+very different.
+
+
+
+
+\subsubsection{Font Shapes: Italics and Small Capitals}
+
+\label{section-italics}
+\label{section-smallcaps}
+
+\LaTeX\ introduces the concept of the \emph{shape} of a font. The only
+really important ones are italic and small caps.
+An \emph{italic} font is a font in which the text is slightly slanted
+to the right \emph{like this}. Things to know about
+italics:
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Italics are commonly used in novels to express emphasis. However,
+ especially with sans-serif fonts, italics are typically not ``strong
+ enough'' and the emphasis gets lost in a presentation. Using a
+ different color or bold text seems better suited for presentations
+ to create emphasis.
+\item
+ If you look closely, you will notice that italic text is not only
+ slanted but that different letters are actually used (compare a and
+ \emph{a}, for example). However, this is only true for serif text,
+ not for sans-serif text. Text that is only slanted without using
+ different characters is called ``slanted'' instead of ``italic.''
+ Sometimes, the word ``oblique'' is also used for slanted, but it
+ sometimes also used for italics, so it is perhaps best to avoid
+ it. Using slanted serif text is very much frowned upon by
+ typographers and is considered ``cheap computer typography.''
+ However, people who use slanted text in their books include Donald
+ Knuth.
+
+ In a presentation, if you go into the trouble of using a serif font
+ for some part of it, you should also use italics, not slanted text.
+\item
+ The different characters used for serif italics have changed much
+ less from the original handwritten letters they are based on than
+ normal serif text. For this reason, serif italics creates the
+ impression of handwritten text, which may be desirable to give a
+ presentation a more ``personal touch'' (although you can't get very
+ personal using Times italics, which everyone has seen a thousand
+ times). However, it is harder to read than normal text, so do not
+ use it for text more than a line long.
+\end{itemize}
+
+The second font shape supported by \TeX\ are small capital
+letters. Using them can create a conservative, even formal
+impression, but some words of caution:
+
+\begin{itemize}
+\item
+ Small capitals are different from all-uppercase text. A small caps
+ text leaves normal uppercase letters unchanged and uses smaller
+ versions of the uppercase letters for normal typesetting lowercase
+ letters. Thus the word ``German'' is typeset as \textsc{German}
+ using small caps, but as \uppercase{German} using all uppercase
+ letters.
+\item
+ Small caps either come as ``faked'' small caps or as ``real''
+ small caps. Faked small caps are created by just scaling down
+ normal uppercase letters. This leads to letters the look too
+ thin. Real small caps are specially designed smaller versions of
+ the uppercase letters that have the same stroke width as normal
+ text.
+\item
+ Computer Modern fonts and expert version of PostScript fonts come
+ with real small caps (though the small caps of Computer Modern are
+ one point size too large for some unfathomable reason---but your
+ audience is going to pardon this since it will not notice
+ anyway). ``Simple'' PostScript fonts like out-of-the-box Helvetica
+ or Times only come with faked small caps.
+\item
+ Text typeset in small caps is harder to read than normal text. The
+ reason is that we read by seeing the ``shape'' of words. For
+ example, the word ``shape'' is mainly recognized by seing one
+ normal letter, one ascending letter, a normal letter, one
+ descending letter, and a normal letter. One has much more trouble
+ spotting a misspelling like ``shepe'' than ``spape''. Small caps
+ destroy the shape of words since \textsc{shape}, \textsc{shepe}
+ and \textsc{spape} all have the same shape, thus making it much
+ harder to tell them apart. Your audience will read small caps more
+ slowly than normal text. This is, by the way, why legal
+ disclaimers are often written in uppercase letters: not to make
+ them appear more important to you, but to make them much harder to
+ actually read.
+\end{itemize}
+
+
+
+\subsubsection{Font Weight}
+
+The ``weight'' of a font refers to the thickness of the
+letters. Usually, fonts come as regular or as bold fonts. There often
+also exist semibold, ultrabold (or black), thin, or ultrathin (or hair)
+versions.
+
+In typography, using a bold font to create emphasis, especially within
+normal text, is frowned upon (bold words in the middle of a normal
+text are referred to as ``dirt''). For presentations this rule of not
+using bold text does not really apply. On a presentation slide there
+is usually very little text and there are numerous elements that try
+to attract the viewer's attention. Using the traditional italics to
+create emphasis will often be overlooked. So, using bold text, seems a
+good alternative in a presentation. However, an even better
+alternative is using a bright color like red to attract attention.
+
+As pointed out earlier, you should use bold text for small text
+unless you use an especially robust font like Futura.
+
+
+
+%%% Local Variables:
+%%% mode: latex
+%%% TeX-master: "beameruserguide"
+%%% End: