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diff --git a/2019/talks/06.md b/2019/talks/06.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..f656d85b --- /dev/null +++ b/2019/talks/06.md @@ -0,0 +1,141 @@ +[[!meta title="Org-mode and FoilTeX - an unlikely (but useful) combination for teaching - Tom Faulkenberry"]] +[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2019 Tom Faulkenberry"]] + +[[!template id=vid +src="https://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/emacsconf/2019/emacsconf-2019-06-org-mode-foiltex-combo-for-teaching--orgfoils--faulkenberry.webm" +type="video/webm"]] + +### Download + +- [Video](https://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/emacsconf/2019/emacsconf-2019-06-org-mode-foiltex-combo-for-teaching--orgfoils--faulkenberry.webm) +- [orgFoils](https://github.com/tomfaulkenberry/orgFoils) + +### Transcript + +- Hi my name is Tom Faulkenberry and I am a mathematical psychologist + and professor at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. + My talk is about using something that's kind of old, a lot of people + don't think about it any more, with something new, like Emacs + Org-mode. Particularly I'm going to talk about using FoilTeX in + Emacs Org-mode. So first I want to give you a little bit of + background about what this is and why you would want to do it. As + you can see I have some things available for you on a GitHub repo. + The address you can see up here, is + <https://github.com/tomfaulkenberry/orgFoils> with the F + capitalized. So if you go there you'll see this README and it kind + of tells the story, I've been using Emacs for a long time and even + before that I was using LaTex in my graduate studies in mathematics. + +- Now with the advent of Org-mode many of us know that we are able to + combine the efficiency of using an Emacs workflow, and particularly + the markdown language that's provided by Org-mode, with the + mathematical type setting power of LaTeX, and so there are standard + ways to export Org-mode into LaTeX-type documents. Particularly + this works for presentations, and of course I'm a professor so I + make a lot of presentations, both at conferences as well as for + classes that I teach. Now I found that Org-mode did this very + nicely, as long as you were willing to use the ?Beamer? class, so if + I wanted to make things that were horizontally oriented and use the + standard color schemes in ?Beamer? then Org-mode export works fine + for that. But I have to admit I longed for simplicity of old days + of using LaTeX, where we made slides for - okay I'm going to date + myself here - but we made slides for overhead projectors that were + in a portrait orientation, and they just didn't have a lot of + decoration on them. + +- They kind of got to the point, they showed some mathematics, they + showed some things, and that was about it. + +- Well those were made back in those days using something called the + FoilTeX package, I've provided a link here on this README. You can + see if we go to the package for FoilTeX it hasn't been updated since + 2008, and even before that it went six years between updates. This + is not by any means an active development package. Rather it is + something that is old, it is archival but it is still distributed + with the full installation of LaTeX. So back to the point, why do + we care about this? Well, it's a pretty simple way of making + presentations, but Org-mode won't do it without a little bit of + hacking. So the point of this presentation is to show you that it + can be done, to show you that you can actually make very nice + presentations for both conferences as well as teaching notes, and + teaching slides, with just a little bit of work on your .emacs file. + So before I show you how that works, and it's all documented here on + the GitHub repo, I want to just demonstrate it in action, so I'm + going to flop over to Emacs real quick. Here is a document, there + is a copy of this document in the GitHub repository that I mentioned + about, so as you can see it does seem to follow the structure of a + standard Org-mode document. + +- At the top we have some header matter that I will explain in just a + second, and then we have these lists that begin with asterisks, and + if we tab them you can see that there's text underneath these. + These sections, if you will, will each turn into separate pages on + my lectures notes. So I've got several, this is for about a two + hour long course, so how does it turn into a pretty document that I + can then take to my course with me? + +- Well it works just like any standard Org-mode to LaTeX export. We + type C-c C-e which then provides us with this export menu, and as we + can see here to export to LaTeX and then a resulting PDF file I can + type l and then o and I do that and it will generate my LaTeX file + as well as open it for me and we'll see that pop up. Okay. And let + me go to the very beginning. This is what it looks like. Let me + scroll or zoomout a little bit so you can see the full page. So + these are in portrait orientation, I use my lecture like this + because usually I'm giving a lecture on an, not an overhead, but a + document camera where I'll take the paper with me and I'll have some + things written but I'll also have some space to write additional + things throughout the class. So sort of a hybrid between a chalk + talk if you will and a formal presentation. + +- And so as you can see this is nicely done with some readable fonts, + using LaTeX type type-setting, so it's really good for mathematical + content, and I found it's just a really clean way of doing things. + So that's what it looks like. So the question is how do you do + this, how do you generate this and get your Org-mode and Emacs set + up to work this way. Well I detail this in the GitHub repository. + There are two things you need to do to make this work. First is you + need to edit your .emacs file to include this codeblock. So this + codeblock is, I'll show you on my .emacs file, it doens't really + matter where it goes, I usually put it somewhere in the middle. Let + me open that just real quick for you. + +- My .emacs file's got some stuff in it and if we go down to about + right here you can see that code chunk is right here. So that code + chunk is what it takes to make that exporting that I demonstrated + work. You can see it here it basically does two things. First is + it defines a Foils class, that you can call in the Org document, and + then it maps your section header, that asterisk, to the FoilTeX + command which is Foil head. So if you type all of this in your + .emacs and then reload that you will be able to then turn the + example Org mode document into a nice set of lecture notes. The + other thing that you need to include, is you need to include a + document header. + +- Now this is kind of a barebones header, I will say that strictly + speaking, not everyone of these things is required, for example, you + do not need this `\usepackage{amsmath}`, unless you are using some + fonts or things that are in that package. + +- Another thing is this little bit of LaTeX command, this makes it to + where my paragraphs don't indent, which for presentations and + lecture slides I prefer. There are also some class options, I do + mine portrait, but if I'm giving a presentation at a conference + those are usually done via computer projector, so I would turn that + into landscape. And also this 17-point font you see, that's the + size that works nicely for me, but there are other font sizes + available in FoilTeX that you can use. All of those are detailed in + the FoilTeX manual which I've provided a link to for you here. + +- Finally, in this repository I do give you the Org-mode file itself, + it doesn't render nicely in the browser but you can clone this + repository and pull it up in your Emacs just fine, and then finally + the resulting PDF I showed you is also living in this GitHub repo. + So, it's a little bit slow right now, but it's there. I'm moving it + around too much as you can see. But anyway there is, so if you + think this is interesting and something you might like to do I + certainly welcome you to contact me by or by Twitter, there's my + email address and my Twitter handle. This I think is a really cool + thing and I hope that you do too. If you want old-school type LaTeX + ability with new-school Emacs Org-mode this is the way to do it. So + hope you enjoyed it and I look forward to talking with you further. |