Variants to PowerPoint for math paper presentations?

Question

For a math talk, typing equations in PowerPoint is a really painful process, and yes, it's very far from the beautiful layout of LaTeX.

Is there a FREE non-PowerPoint software which I can use to create a nice talk which has support for LaTeX?

Answer 1

Beamer is very powerful, and (after the usual learning curve) easy to use. Looks good, too!

After unsatisfactory experiences with earlier LaTeX presentation tools, I have used Beamer (for contest typesetting) without too many headaches for a few years.

Answer 2

As Andre has pointed out, Beamer is a "classical" way in which presentations are made for a math talk. It looks cute.

Here is a very quick guided tour of how to use this package. (This link was found on the Wikipedia!)

Here is a tutorial that talks about other ways of preparing slides using $\LaTeX$ for a seminar talk.

But having said this, I prefer giving a talk on the black board, and handing out notes for the talk.

P.S.: If the task is to be accomplished pretty quickly, you may resort to searching for a template. Ask Prof. Google and he seems to know pretty good templates!