Export handout with notes using org-mode and beamer

Question

I'm having a lot of trouble getting a nice solution to this problem.

I want to export a handout for a beamer presentation using org-mode. I can write a note using \note{sample note}, which creates a separate notes page, but I can't have line breaks in the note and I can't do \note[itemize]{\item ...} either. Not sure what's going on here. But I would like the slide on the top half of the page and the notes on the bottom (which aren't displayed on the slide). Below is the sample code.

#+startup: beamer
#+LaTeX_CLASS: beamer
#+LaTeX_CLASS_OPTIONS: [handout]
#+LATEX_HEADER: \usepackage{pgfpages}
#+LATEX_HEADER: \mode<handout>{\setbeameroption{show notes} \pgfpagesuselayout{2 on 1}[a4paper,border shrink=5mm]}

Answer 1

Here is an example of a slide with a note:

 * Slide
  - Item 1 
  - item 2

 ** Note
 :PROPERTIES:
 :BEAMER_ENV: note
 :END:

 This is a note.

IOW, a second level section with a BEAMER_ENV property with a value of "note" becomes a beamer note.

Whether this will get printed out properly the way you want, I don't know.

EDIT: if you look at the tex file that is produced when you export the above, the Note section becomes

\note{Note
 This is a note.}

You can leave out the "Note" in the org file:

** 
:PROPERTIES:
:BEAMER_ENV: note
:END:

This is a note.

Then the tex file shows:

\note {
 This is a note.}

I'm not sure whether newlines are important in a \note environment, but I suspect they are not (they are unimportant in most tex environments I believe).