How to do cool slides (according to my aesthetics)

When preparing my slides, I rely on two main tools: LaTeX/Beamer and Python/Manim. Each has its strengths, depending on the type of content I’m presenting, and both are open-source.

LaTeX/Beamer

Beamer is a LaTeX package designed specifically for creating academic presentations. One of its main advantages is that if you’re already using LaTeX to write papers, you can easily transfer equations, tables, and figures directly into your slides without needing to worry about formatting.

You can check out an example of slides made with LaTeX/Beamer here: link to my slides.

Pro trick: On the last slide of my presentations, I automatically generate thumbnails with hyperlinks to all the previous slides, giving viewers a complete overview of the entire presentation.

Python/Manim

When I need animations to explain concepts more dynamically, I use Manim, a Python library for creating mathematical videos. This allows me to:

• Generate smooth and precise animations, ideal for explaining visual concepts.
• Control every aspect of the animation using Python code.
• Create effects like images that gradually emerge from noise until they are fully generated (as shown in this video I made: link to the video).

Fun fact: Manim is the library used and developed by 3Blue1Brown.

Conclusion

Depending on the content and the goals of my presentation (conferences, lectures, educational videos), I choose LaTeX/Beamer for clean, mathematical slides or Python/Manim for engaging, dynamic animations.

If you have any questions, want to learn more, or have discovered a new approach that could be helpful, feel free to reach out, I’d love to hear from you!