Hi Carsten - thanks for looking into this. I pulled the latest version and the problem was still present.

Here's a minimal setup.

I run

/usr/bin/emacs -Q -l test.el example.org<http://example.org>

with test.el containing

(setq load-path (cons "~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/org/lisp" load-path))
(setq load-path (cons "~/.emacs.d/site-lisp/org/contrib/lisp" load-path))
(require 'org-install)
;; The following lines are always needed.  Choose your own keys.
     (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.org\\'<smb://.org//'>" . org-mode))
     (global-set-key "\C-cl" 'org-store-link)
     (global-set-key "\C-ca" 'org-agenda)
     (global-set-key "\C-cb" 'org-iswitchb)

(custom-set-variables
  ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom.
  ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
  ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
  ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
 '(case-fold-search nil))

and the example.org<http://example.org> containing the org document at the end of http://orgmode.org/manual/Beamer-class-export.html#Beamer-class-export:


#+LaTeX_CLASS: beamer
     #+TITLE: Example Presentation
     #+AUTHOR: Carsten Dominik
     #+LaTeX_CLASS_OPTIONS: [presentation]
     #+BEAMER_FRAME_LEVEL: 2
     #+BEAMER_HEADER_EXTRA: \usetheme{Madrid}\usecolortheme{default}
     #+COLUMNS: %35ITEM %10BEAMER_env(Env) %10BEAMER_envargs(Args) %4BEAMER_col(Col) %8BEAMER_extra(Ex)

     * This is the first structural section

     ** Frame 1 \\ with a subtitle
     *** Thanks to Eric Fraga                                      :BMCOL:B_block:
         :PROPERTIES:
         :BEAMER_env: block
         :BEAMER_envargs: C[t]
         :BEAMER_col: 0.5
         :END:
         for the first viable beamer setup in Org
     *** Thanks to everyone else                                   :BMCOL:B_block:
         :PROPERTIES:
         :BEAMER_col: 0.5
         :BEAMER_env: block
         :BEAMER_envargs: <2->
         :END:
         for contributing to the discussion
     **** This will be formatted as a beamer note                  :B_note:
     ** Frame 2 \\ where we will not use columns
     *** Request                                                   :B_block:
         Please test this stuff!
         :PROPERTIES:
         :BEAMER_env: block
         :END:

Cheers,

Tony



On 2010-08-19, at 3:06 PM, Carsten Dominik wrote:


On Aug 19, 2010, at 5:16 PM, Antony Ware wrote:

I've been having a problem exporting to beamer. I've now found the
problem and fixed it, but it was (to my mind) something pretty
obscure, and I think it might be of interest to the list, at least
as a salutary tale.

When I opened an org file such as the example beamer presentation
from the manual (section 12.6.6) and executed C-c C-e d, it kept
generating a .tex file with an article document class, instead of
the expected beamer class.

After a few days of frustrated searching through the manual and
tutorials, and this list, for any clues, I found some advice to run
something like

/usr/bin/emacs -Q -l test.el

with a series of versions of test.el progressively approximating
my .emacs file. I was expecting the problem to lie in one of my org-
or latex-specific settings, but eventually found the cause of the
problem to be that the variable

case-fold-search

was being set to nil (its default value) as one of my custom-set-
variables. I don't remember why. Anyway, according to the
information from C-h v, this makes the setting buffer-local, and for
some reason that fouled up the beamer export. When I commented out
that line, everything worked as advertised.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who could shed light on why
that might be.

Well,

apparently Org does do a search that relies on case-fold-search
being t.  Normally when this is the case
I try to set this explicitly to t during the function call.
Can you make a minimal example with your setup and a small file which
reproduced the error?

- Carsten