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/translate-to-quarto

Category: drafting
Field: economics
License: MIT
Updated: 2026-09-26
Stages: paper-drafting

Beamer → Quarto Translation Workflow

Full translation of a Beamer LaTeX lecture to Quarto RevealJS HTML slides.

The Beamer .tex is the source of truth: the .qmd mirrors it, and corrections found during translation go back to the .tex (Phase 10).

Phase 0: Pre-Flight Checks

0A. Environment Parity Audit

Scan Beamer for all custom environments. Verify CSS equivalents exist in your theme SCSS. If any are missing, create them FIRST.

0B. TikZ Freshness Verification

Run /extract-tikz to verify SVGs match current Beamer source.

0C. RDS Data Inventory

List all RDS files needed for interactive charts.

0D. Citation Key Mapping

Extract all citations from Beamer, map to bibliography keys.

Phase 1: Pre-Translation Preparation

  • Read complete Beamer source, count frames
  • Inventory figures (TikZ → SVG, R plots → plotly, other → SVG)

Phase 2: Create QMD File with YAML Header

  • Standard RevealJS YAML with theme, logo, footer, bibliography
  • Setup chunk for R data loading if needed

Phase 3: Slide-by-Slide Translation

  • Delegate to beamer-translator agent
  • 1:1 frame-to-slide mapping
  • Verbatim math, environment parity, no font reduction

Phase 4: TikZ Diagram Integration

Reference extracted SVGs with 0-based indexing.

Phase 5: R Figure Integration (Plotly-First)

Interactive plotly from RDS data, static SVG for TikZ/complex figures.

Phase 6: First Render & Content Fidelity Check

Render, count slides, go through EVERY slide checking for issues.

Phase 6.5: Pedagogical Review

Run pedagogy-reviewer before visual polish.

Phase 7: Visual Polish

Semantic colors, transition slides, framing sentences.

Phase 8: Proofreading

Run /proofread on the QMD file.

Phase 9: Final Verification & Deployment

Render, then check the rendered output yourself (the rendered HTML, plus any screenshot or PDF export the user supplies) — every figure present, no overflow, all environments styled.

Phase 10: Beamer Source Sync

Apply any corrections back to Beamer source.

Phase 11: Parity QA + Documentation

Run /qa-quarto on the new mirror for Beamer↔Quarto parity. Then update the lecture row in CLAUDE.md and the session log, and tell the user the deck is ready for /commit — this skill does not commit or open a PR.