org-mode isn't just an agenda-making program. It can also export to lots of formats: LaTeX, PDF, Beamer, iCalendar (agendas), HTML, Markdown, ODT, plain text, man pages, and more complicated formats such as a set of web pages.

This isn't just some afterthought either; it's a core part of the system and integrates very well.

One file can be source code, automatically-generated output, task list, documentation, and presentation, all at once.

Some use org-mode as their preferred markup format, even for things like LaTeX documents. The org-mode manual has an extensive section on exporting.

From any org-mode document, just hit C-c C-e. From there will come up a menu, letting you choose various export formats and options. These are generally single-key options so it's easy to set and execute. For instance, to export a document to a PDF, use C-c C-e l p or for HTML export, C-c C-e h h.

There are lots of settings available for all of these export options; see the manual. It is, in fact, quite possible to use LaTeX-format equations in both LaTeX and HTML modes, to insert arbitrary preambles and settings for different modes, etc.

ELPA containts many addition exporters for org-mode as well. Check there for details.

Beamer is a LaTeX environment for making presentations. Its features include:

• Automated generating of structural elements in the presentation (see, for example, the Marburg theme). This provides a visual reference for the audience of where they are in the presentation.
• Strong help for structuring the presentation
• Themes
• Full LaTeX available

org-mode has a lot of benefits for working with Beamer. Among them:

• org-mode's very easy and strong support for visualizing and changing the structure makes it very quick to reorganize your material.
• Combined with org-babel, live source code (with syntax highlighting) and results can be embedded.
• The syntax is often easier to work with.

I have completely replaced my usage of LibreOffice/Powerpoint/GoogleDocs with org-mode and beamer. It is, in fact, rather frustrating when I have to use one of those tools, as they are nowhere near as strong as org-mode for visualizing a presentation structure.

org-mode's Beamer export will convert sections of your document (defined by headings) into slides. The question, of course, is: which sections? This is governed by the H export setting (org-export-headline-levels).

There are many ways to go, which suit people. I like to have my presentation like this:

#+OPTIONS: H:2
#+BEAMER_HEADER: \AtBeginSection{\frame{\sectionpage}}

This gives a standalone section slide for each major topic, to highlight major transitions, and then takes the level 2 (two asterisks) headings to set the slide. Many Beamer themes expect a third level of indirection, so you would set H:3 for them.

You can configure many Beamer and LaTeX settings in your document by inserting lines at the top of your org file. This document, for instance, defines:

#+TITLE:  Documents and presentations with org-mode
#+AUTHOR: John Goerzen
#+BEAMER_HEADER: \institute{The Changelog}
#+PROPERTY: comments yes
#+PROPERTY: header-args :exports both :eval never-export
#+OPTIONS: H:2
#+BEAMER_THEME: CambridgeUS
#+BEAMER_COLOR_THEME: default

I like to change some colors, bullet formatting, and the like. I round out my document with:

# We can't just +BEAMER_INNER_THEME: default because that picks the theme default.
# Override per https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/11168/change-bullet-style-formatting-in-beamer
#+BEAMER_INNER_THEME: default
#+LaTeX_CLASS_OPTIONS: [aspectratio=169]
#+BEAMER_HEADER: \definecolor{links}{HTML}{0000A0}
#+BEAMER_HEADER: \hypersetup{colorlinks=,linkcolor=,urlcolor=links}
#+BEAMER_HEADER: \setbeamertemplate{itemize items}[default]
#+BEAMER_HEADER: \setbeamertemplate{enumerate items}[default]
#+BEAMER_HEADER: \setbeamertemplate{items}[default]
#+BEAMER_HEADER: \setbeamercolor*{local structure}{fg=darkred}
#+BEAMER_HEADER: \setbeamercolor{section in toc}{fg=darkred}
#+BEAMER_HEADER: \setlength{\parskip}{\smallskipamount}

Here, aspectratio=169 sets a 16:9 aspect ratio, and the remaining are standard LaTeX/Beamer configuration bits.

Sometimes you've got some really large code examples and you might prefer to just shrink the slide to fit.

Just type C-c C-x p, set the BEAMER_opt property to shrink=15.

(Or a larger value of shrink). The previous slide uses this here.

Here's the end result:

With the org-tree-slide package, you can display your slideshow from right within Emacs. Just run M-x org-tree-slide-mode. Then, use C-> and C-< to move between slides.

You might find C-c C-x C-v (which is org-toggle-inline-images) helpful to cause the system to display embedded images.

There are a lot of ways to export org-mode presentations to HTML, with various levels of JavaScript integration. See the non-beamer presentations section of the org-mode wiki for details.

• orgmode.org beamer tutorial
• LaTeX wiki
• Generating section title slides
• Shrinking content to fit on slide
• A great resource: refcard-org-beamer
  • See its Github repo
  • Make sure to check out both the PDF and the .org file
• A nice Theme matrix

mu4e for email!