Multiple screens
Beam uses two screens to make presenting easier to you. Your screen shows you your notes, the main screen shows your slide in all its glory, always keeping both screens in sync.
The presentation software LaTeX Beamer needs.
LaTeX, along with Beamer, generates beautiful presentations - that is a given. However, when the time comes for presenting, the experience comes short.
Software like PowerPoint or Keynote offers a much nicer experience when you present, allowing you to use multiple screens efficiently and showing some information only to you.
This is specially true if your presentation has notes. Beamer allows you to add notes to your slides but does not offer a way to show them to you while presenting.
Beam is the answer to those needs.
Beam uses two screens to make presenting easier to you. Your screen shows you your notes, the main screen shows your slide in all its glory, always keeping both screens in sync.
Beam only requires your PDF output from LaTeX to work. Generate your PDF, with your notes along your screen, and Beam does the rest of the work.
Your PDF must have the notes on the right.
To allow you to control the time of your presentation from your screen, Beam includes a stopwatch.
If you need to change to a slide which is not the previous or the next, Beam has got you covered. Within the notes screen, you can see a grid with your slides and change to one of them without visibly going through all the slides between.
Beam is easily controllable with your keyboard or your pointer. You can change slides using the keyboard arrows or the Page Up/Down keys and the stopwatch using the Space key.
If you have to demo a website while doing your presentation, Beam allows you to do it seamlessly. Just insert your URL before going to the presenting screen and, when presenting, switch to the web view any time - the second screen will mirror your demo.
Beam will refresh the mirroring every 600 ms.
Beam is an open-source project. Which means you can download its code, build it and help improve Beam, to make it a better software for anyone.
Beam is built using web technologies and runs on Electron, a framework for building cross platform apps.
Join Beam in GitLab at joaopluis/beam.
An app packaged as an AppImage runs everywhere. To run an AppImage, make it executable and run it:
$ chmod a+x Beam*.AppImage $ ./Beam*.AppImage