This .Rmd shows how to use two (or more) columns in a Beamer Presentation from RStudio

beamer_two_col.Rmd

---
title: "Untitled"
author: "Jeff W. Hollister"
date: "2/2/2016"
output: beamer_presentation
---

```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = FALSE)

if(!require(commonmark)){
  install.packages("commonmark",repos = "https://cran.rstudio.com/")
}

create_cols <- function(md,width=rep(1/length(md),length(md))){
  for(i in 1:length(md)){
    if(length(md) == 1){
      out<-paste0("\\begin{columns}\n\\begin{column}{",
                 width[i],
                 "\\textwidth}\n",
                 commonmark::markdown_latex(md[i]),
                 "\n\\end{column}\n\\end{columns}")
      return(cat(out))
    }else if(i == 1){
      out<-paste0("\\begin{columns}\n\\begin{column}{",
                 width[i],
                 "\\textwidth}\n",
                 commonmark::markdown_latex(md[i]))
    } else if(i == length(md)){
      out<-c(out,paste0("\n\\end{column}\n\\begin{column}{",
             width[i],
             "\\textwidth}\n",
             commonmark::markdown_latex(md[i]),
             "\n\\end{column}\n\\end{columns}"))
    } else {
      out<-c(out,paste0("\n\\end{column}\n\\begin{column}{",
             width[i],
             "\\textwidth}\n",
             commonmark::markdown_latex(md[i])))
    }
  }
  return(cat(out))
}

download.file("https://developer.r-project.org/Logo/Rlogo-3.png","rlogo.png",
              method = "curl")
```

#Test

```{r results='asis'}
create_cols(c("
- Multiple columns     
- is a pain    
- But now it at least works
- in Beamer and markdwon",
"![img](rlogo.png)",
"**IT KINDA WORKS**"),
width=c(0.3,0.45,0.2))
```