This repository provide a hands-on example of how RMarkdown
can be used to create a slick presentation rendered as a HTML web page or an academic-style PDF presentation.
Presentations are created from RMarkdown
files. To start, open a new RMarkdown
file and choose a presentation format. RStudio
gives three options:
We will focus on ioslides
for interactive presentations and beamer
for more formal academic presentations. Both presentation packages follow the same syntax rules:
- The title of the presentation should be specified in the header.
- A new slide is denoted by double hashes (
##
) - Text and narrative are written in the lines between hashes. But beware: too much text might not fit on the page when the presentation is rendered
- To insert code, write this: ```{r}. Then insert
R
code in the following line. To end the code chunk, add ```. - Adding
echo = FALSE
(e.g. ```{r, echo = FALSE}) suppress actual code in the presentation but keeps the results. Given space constraints, this may be a wise thing to do. - Adding
message = FALSE, warning = FALSE
(e.g. ```{r, echo = FALSE, message = FALSE, warning = FALSE}) suppresses warnings and messages from packages. For example, when loading a library,R
will often times output a text message indicating which packages were loaded. If these options are not specified, they will appear in the slides.
When developing a presentation, try to keep the following in mind:
- Start with big picture. Have a good reason why people should pay attention. What is in it for them?
- Roadmap. Briefly discuss the outline of the talk, set expectations.
- Sections. Start wide, then go deep. For each diagram/visual, there should always be a crisp one liner summary that can others can tell to others. At the end of each section, make sure to wrap up the concept and have a natural reason why you segue to the next section.
The example presentations in this section are focused on
Effects. Most of the styling and functionality of a presentation are controlled in the YAML header. In the header below, we include a set of arguments:
widescreen
: boolean, if presentation should be standard or wide screensmaller
: boolean, if text should be large or smallincremental
: boolean, if bullet points should appear one at a time (animation) or all at once (no animation)transition
: value to indicate how fast should slide transitions be. Choice of "default", "faster", "slower", or a numeric for seconds (e.g. 1, 2, 0.5).
---
title: "Insights about economic "
author: "Author goes here"
date: "January 15, 2020"
output:
ioslides_presentation:
widescreen: true
smaller: true
incremental: false
transition: slower
---
Background.
- While HTML presentations are aesthetically pleasing, they can be somewhat challenging for non-technical collaborators if they are not familiar with programming and basic Markdown.
- Compatibility is limited to certain browsers. For example,
ioslides
works best with Google Chrome. - Maintaining and styling the presentation requires knowledge of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which can be specified in the header of the Markdown file.
---
title: "Untitled"
author: "Jeff Chen"
date: "2/11/2020"
output:
beamer_presentation:
theme: Dresden
---