Beamer User Guide

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The beamer class
User Guide for version 3.36.
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{There Is No Largest Prime Number}
\framesubtitle{The proof uses \textit{reductio ad absurdum}.}
\begin{theorem}
There is no largest prime number.
\end{theorem}
\begin{proof}
\begin{enumerate}
\item<1-| alert@1> Suppose $p$ were the largest prime number.
\item<2-> Let $q$ be the product of the first $p$ numbers.
\item<3-> Then $q+1$ is not divisible by any of them.
\item<1-> But $q + 1$ is greater than $1$, thus divisible by some prime
number not in the first $p$ numbers.\qedhere
\end{enumerate}
\end{proof}
\end{frame}
There Is No Largest Prime Number
The proof uses reductio ad absurdum.
Theorem
There is no largest prime number.
Proof.
1Suppose pwere the largest prime number.
2Let qbe the product of the first pnumbers.
3Then q+ 1 is not divisible by any of them.
4Thus q+ 1 is also prime and greater than p.
Results
There Is No Largest Prime Number
The proof uses reductio ad absurdum.
Theorem
There is no largest prime number.
Proof.
1Suppose pwere the largest prime number.
2Let qbe the product of the first pnumbers.
3Then q+ 1 is not divisible by any of them.
4Thus q+ 1 is also prime and greater than p.
1
Für alle, die die Schönheit von Wissenschaft anderen zeigen wollen.
Copyright 2003–2007 by Till Tantau
Copyright 2010,2011 by Joseph Wright and Vedran Miletić
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the documentation under the terms of the gnu Free
Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the
section entitled gnu Free Documentation License.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the code of the package under the terms of the gnu
General Public License, Version 2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. A copy of
the license is included in the section entitled gnu General Public License.
Permission is also granted to distribute and/or modify both the documentation and the code under the conditions
of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3c of this license or (at your option) any later version. A
copy of the license is included in the section entitled L
A
T
E
X Project Public License.
2
The beamer class
http://bitbucket.org/rivanvx/beamer
User Guide for version 3.36.
Till Tantau, Joseph Wright, Vedran Miletić
March 8, 2015
Contents
1 Introduction 9
1.1 MainFeatures............................................... 9
1.2 History .................................................. 9
1.3 Acknowledgments............................................. 10
1.4 HowtoReadthisUser’sGuide ..................................... 10
1.5 GettingHelp ............................................... 12
I Getting Started 13
2 Installation 14
2.1 VersionsandDependencies ....................................... 14
2.2 Installation of Pre-bundled Packages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.1 T
E
X Live and MacT
E
X...................................... 14
2.2.2 MiKT
E
X and proT
E
Xt...................................... 14
2.2.3 DebianandUbuntu ....................................... 14
2.2.4 Fedora............................................... 14
2.3 InstallationinatexmfTree ....................................... 15
2.4 UpdatingtheInstallation ........................................ 15
2.5 TestingtheInstallation ......................................... 15
2.6 Compatibility with Other Packages and Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3 Tutorial: Euclid’s Presentation 20
3.1 ProblemStatement............................................ 20
3.2 SolutionTemplate ............................................ 20
3.3 TitleMaterial............................................... 20
3.4 TheTitlePageFrame .......................................... 21
3.5 Creating the Presentation PDF File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.6 TheTableofContents.......................................... 21
3.7 SectionsandSubsections......................................... 21
3.8 CreatingaSimpleFrame......................................... 22
3.9 CreatingSimpleOverlays ........................................ 22
3.10UsingOverlaySpecifications....................................... 23
3.11StructuringaFrame ........................................... 24
3.12AddingReferences ............................................ 25
3.13VerbatimText .............................................. 25
3.14 Changing the Way Things Look I: Theming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.15 Changing the Way Things Look II: Colors and Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3
4 Workflow For Creating a Beamer Presentation 28
4.1 StepOne:SetuptheFiles ........................................ 28
4.2 Step Two: Structure Your Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.3 Step Three: Creating a PDF or PostScript File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.3.1 CreatingPDF........................................... 29
4.3.2 CreatingPostScript ....................................... 29
4.3.3 Ways of Improving Compilation Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.4 StepFour:CreateFrames ........................................ 30
4.5 Step Five: Test Your Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.6 StepSix:CreateaHandout....................................... 30
4.6.1 CreatingtheHandout ...................................... 30
4.6.2 PrintingtheHandout ...................................... 31
5 Guidelines for Creating Presentations 32
5.1 StructuringaPresentation........................................ 32
5.1.1 KnowtheTimeConstraints................................... 32
5.1.2 GlobalStructure ......................................... 32
5.1.3 FrameStructure ......................................... 34
5.1.4 InteractiveElements....................................... 36
5.2 UsingGraphics.............................................. 36
5.3 Using Animations and Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5.4 ChoosingAppropriateThemes ..................................... 37
5.5 ChoosingAppropriateColors ...................................... 37
5.6 Choosing Appropriate Fonts and Font Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.6.1 FontSize ............................................. 38
5.6.2 FontFamilies........................................... 39
5.6.3 Font Shapes: Italics and Small Capitals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.6.4 FontWeight............................................ 41
6 Solution Templates 42
7 Licenses and Copyright 43
7.1 WhichLicenseApplies? ......................................... 43
7.2 The GNU General Public License, Version 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
7.2.1 Preamble ............................................. 43
7.2.2 Terms and Conditions For Copying, Distribution and Modification . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
7.2.3 NoWarranty ........................................... 46
7.3 The GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3, 3 November 2008 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
7.3.1 Preamble ............................................. 46
7.3.2 Applicability and definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
7.3.3 VerbatimCopying ........................................ 48
7.3.4 CopyinginQuantity....................................... 48
7.3.5 Modifications........................................... 48
7.3.6 CombiningDocuments...................................... 49
7.3.7 CollectionofDocuments..................................... 50
7.3.8 Aggregating with Independent Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
7.3.9 Translation ............................................ 50
7.3.10 Termination............................................ 50
7.3.11 Future Revisions of this License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
7.3.12 Relicensing ............................................ 51
7.3.13 Addendum: How to use this License for your documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
7.4 The L
A
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XProjectPublicLicense.................................... 52
7.4.1 Preamble ............................................. 52
7.4.2 Definitions ............................................ 52
7.4.3 Conditions on Distribution and Modification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4
7.4.4 NoWarranty ........................................... 54
7.4.5 MaintenanceofTheWork.................................... 54
7.4.6 Whether and How to Distribute Works under This License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
7.4.7 Choosing This License or Another License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
7.4.8 A Recommendation on Modification Without Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
7.4.9 HowtoUseThisLicense .................................... 56
7.4.10 Derived Works That Are Not Replacements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
7.4.11 Important Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
II Building a Presentation 57
8 Creating Frames 58
8.1 TheFrameEnvironment......................................... 58
8.2 ComponentsofaFrame ......................................... 63
8.2.1 TheHeadlineandFootline ................................... 63
8.2.2 TheSidebars ........................................... 66
8.2.3 NavigationBars ......................................... 68
8.2.4 TheNavigationSymbols..................................... 71
8.2.5 TheLogo ............................................. 72
8.2.6 TheFrameTitle ......................................... 73
8.2.7 TheBackground ......................................... 75
8.3 FrameandMarginSizes......................................... 76
8.4 Restricting the Slides of a Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
9 Creating Overlays 78
9.1 ThePauseCommands.......................................... 78
9.2 The General Concept of Overlay Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
9.3 Commands with Overlay Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
9.4 Environments with Overlay Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
9.5 Dynamically Changing Text or Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
9.6 Advanced Overlay Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
9.6.1 Making Commands and Environments Overlay Specification-Aware . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
9.6.2 ModeSpecifications ....................................... 87
9.6.3 ActionSpecifications....................................... 88
9.6.4 IncrementalSpecifications.................................... 89
10 Structuring a Presentation: The Static Global Structure 92
10.1AddingaTitlePage ........................................... 92
10.2 Adding Sections and Subsections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
10.3AddingParts ............................................... 96
10.4 Splitting a Course Into Lectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
10.5AddingaTableofContents ....................................... 98
10.6AddingaBibliography.......................................... 101
10.7AddinganAppendix........................................... 103
11 Structuring a Presentation: The Interactive Global Structure 104
11.1 Adding Hyperlinks and Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
11.2 Repeating a Frame at a Later Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
11.3AddingAnticipatedZooming ...................................... 108
5
12 Structuring a Presentation: The Local Structure 110
12.1 Itemizations, Enumerations, and Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
12.2Highlighting................................................ 114
12.3BlockEnvironments ........................................... 116
12.4TheoremEnvironments ......................................... 118
12.5FramedandBoxedText ......................................... 121
12.6FiguresandTables............................................ 124
12.7 Splitting a Frame into Multiple Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
12.8 Positioning Text and Graphics Absolutely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
12.9VerbatimandFragileText........................................ 127
12.10Abstract.................................................. 127
12.11Verse,Quotations,Quotes........................................ 128
12.12Footnotes ................................................. 129
13 Graphics 130
13.1 Including External Graphic Files Versus Inlines Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
13.2 Including Graphic Files Ending .eps or .ps .............................. 131
13.3 Including Graphic Files Ending .pdf,.jpg,.jpeg or .png ..................... 131
13.4 Including Graphic Files Ending .mps .................................. 131
13.5 Including Graphic Files Ending .mmp .................................. 132
14 Animations, Sounds, and Slide Transitions 133
14.1Animations ................................................ 133
14.1.1 Including External Animation Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
14.1.2 Animations Created by Showing Slides in Rapid Succession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
14.1.3 Including External Animations Residing in Multiple Image Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
14.2Sounds................................................... 138
14.3SlideTransitions ............................................. 140
III Changing the Way Things Look 143
15 Themes 144
15.1FiveFlavorsofThemes ......................................... 144
15.2 Presentation Themes without Navigation Bars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
15.3 Presentation Themes with a Tree-Like Navigation Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
15.4 Presentation Themes with a Table of Contents Sidebar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
15.5 Presentation Themes with a Mini Frame Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
15.6 Presentation Themes with Section and Subsection Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
15.7 Presentation Themes Included For Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
16 Inner Themes, Outer Themes, and Templates 159
16.1InnerThemes............................................... 159
16.2OuterThemes............................................... 162
16.3 Changing the Templates Used for Different Elements of a Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
16.3.1 Overview of Beamer’s Template Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
16.3.2 UsingBeamer’sTemplates.................................... 169
16.3.3 Setting Beamer’s Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
17 Colors 174
17.1ColorThemes............................................... 174
17.1.1 Default and Special-Purpose Color Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
17.1.2 CompleteColorThemes..................................... 176
17.1.3 InnerColorThemes ....................................... 181
17.1.4 OuterColorThemes....................................... 182
6
17.2 Changing the Colors Used for Different Elements of a Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
17.2.1 Overview of Beamer’s Color Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
17.2.2 UsingBeamer’sColors...................................... 184
17.2.3 SettingBeamer’sColors..................................... 185
17.3 The Color of Mathematical Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
17.4TheColorPalettes ............................................ 187
17.5MiscellaneousColors........................................... 188
17.6TransparencyEffects........................................... 189
18 Fonts 191
18.1FontThemes ............................................... 191
18.2 Font Changes Made Without Using Font Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
18.2.1 Choosing a Font Size for Normal Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
18.2.2 ChoosingaFontFamily ..................................... 195
18.2.3 Choosing a Font Encodings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
18.3 Changing the Fonts Used for Different Elements of a Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
18.3.1 Overview of Beamer’s Font Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
18.3.2 UsingBeamer’sFonts ...................................... 196
18.3.3 SettingBeamer’sFonts ..................................... 196
IV Creating Supporting Material 198
19 Adding Notes for Yourself 199
19.1SpecifyingNoteContents ........................................ 199
19.2 Specifying Contents for Multiple Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
19.3 Specifying Which Notes and Frames Are Shown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
20 Creating Transparencies 203
21 Creating Handouts and Lecture Notes 204
21.1 Creating Handouts Using the Handout Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
21.2 Creating Handouts Using the Article Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
21.2.1 StartingtheArticleMode.................................... 204
21.2.2 Workflow ............................................. 206
21.2.3 Including Slides from the Presentation Version in the Article Version . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
21.3DetailsonModes............................................. 208
22 Taking Advantage of Multiple Screens 211
22.1 Showing Notes on the Second Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
22.2 Showing Second Mode Material on the Second Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
22.3 Showing the Previous Slide on the Second Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
V Howtos 214
23 How To Uncover Things Piecewise 215
23.1 Uncovering an Enumeration Piecewise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
23.2 Highlighting the Current Item in an Enumeration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
23.3 Changing Symbol Before an Enumeration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
23.4 Uncovering Tagged Formulas Piecewise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
23.5UncoveringaTableRowwise ...................................... 217
23.6 Uncovering a Table Columnwise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
7
24 How To Import Presentations Based on Other Packages and Classes 219
24.1 Prosper, HA-Prosper and Powerdot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
24.2Seminar .................................................. 224
24.3 FoilT
E
X .................................................. 227
24.4 T
E
XPower................................................. 230
25 Translating Strings 232
25.1Introduction................................................ 232
25.1.1 OverviewofthePackage..................................... 232
25.1.2 HowtoReadThisSection.................................... 232
25.1.3 Contributing ........................................... 232
25.1.4 Installation ............................................ 232
25.2BasicConcepts .............................................. 232
25.2.1 Keys................................................ 232
25.2.2 LanguageNames......................................... 233
25.2.3 LanguagePaths ......................................... 233
25.2.4 Dictionaries............................................ 233
25.3Usage ................................................... 233
25.3.1 BasicUsage............................................ 233
25.3.2 ProvidingTranslations...................................... 234
25.3.3 Creating and Using Dictionaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
25.3.4 Creating a User Dictionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
25.3.5 TranslatingKeys......................................... 237
25.3.6 Language Path and Language Substitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
25.3.7 PackageLoadingProcess .................................... 238
Index 239
8
1 Introduction
beamer is a L
A
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X class for creating presentations that are held using a projector, but it can also be used
to create transparency slides. Preparing presentations with beamer is different from preparing them with
wysiwyg programs like OpenOffice.org Impress, Apple Keynote, KOffice KPresenter or Microsoft PowerPoint.
Abeamer presentation is created like any other L
A
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E
X document: It has a preamble and a body, the body
contains \sections and \subsections, the different slides (called frames in beamer) are put in environments,
they are structured using itemize and enumerate environments, and so on. The obvious disadvantage of this
approach is that you have to know L
A
T
E
X in order to use beamer. The advantage is that if you know L
A
T
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X,
you can use your knowledge of L
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X also when creating a presentation, not only when writing papers.
1.1 Main Features
The list of features supported by beamer is quite long (unfortunately, so is presumably the list of bugs supported
by beamer). The most important features, in our opinion, are:
∙You can use beamer with pdflatex,latex+dvips,lualatex and xelatex.latex+dvipdfm isn’t sup-
ported (but we accept patches!).
∙The standard commands of L
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E
X still work. A \tableofcontents will still create a table of contents,
\section is still used to create structure, and itemize still creates a list.
∙You can easily create overlays and dynamic effects.
∙Themes allow you to change the appearance of your presentation to suit your purposes.
∙The themes are designed to be usable in practice, they are not just for show. You will not find such
nonsense as a green body text on a picture of a green meadow.
∙The layout, the colors, and the fonts used in a presentation can easily be changed globally, but you still
also have control over the most minute detail.
∙A special style file allows you to use the L
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X-source of a presentation directly in other L
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X classes like
article or book. This makes it easy to create presentations out of lecture notes or lecture notes out of
presentations.
∙The final output is typically a pdf-file. Viewer applications for this format exist for virtually every
platform. When bringing your presentation to a conference on a memory stick, you do not have to worry
about which version of the presentation program might be installed there. Also, your presentation is going
to look exactly the way it looked on your computer.
1.2 History
Till Tantau created beamer mainly in his spare time. Many other people have helped by sending him emails
containing suggestions for improvement or corrections or patches or whole new themes (by now, this amounts
to over a thousand emails concerning beamer). Indeed, most of the development was only initiated by feature
requests and bug reports. Without this feedback, beamer would still be what it was originally intended to be:
a small private collection of macros that make using the seminar class easier. Till created the first version of
beamer for his PhD defense presentation in February 2003. A month later, he put the package on ctan at the
request of some colleagues. After that, things somehow got out of hand.
After being unmaintained since 2007, in April 2010 Till handed over the maintenance to Joseph Wright and
Vedran Miletić, who are still maintaining it: improving code, fixing bugs, adding new features and helping users.
9
1.3 Acknowledgments
Till Tantau: “Where to begin? beamer’s development depends not only on me, but on the feedback I get from
other people. Many features have been implemented because someone requested them and I thought that these
features would be nice to have and reasonably easy to implement. Other people have given valuable feedback on
themes, on the user’s guide, on features of the class, on the internals of the implementation, on special L
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E
X
features, and on life in general. A small selection of these people includes (in no particular order and I have
surely forgotten to name lots of people who really, really deserve being in this list): Carsten (for everything),
Birgit (for being the first person to use beamer besides me), Tux (for his silent criticism), Rolf Niepraschk
(for showing me how to program L
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T
E
X correctly), Claudio Beccari (for writing part of the documentation on
font encodings), Thomas Baumann (for the emacs stuff), Stefan Müller (for not loosing hope), Uwe Kern (for
xcolor), Hendri Adriaens (for ha-prosper), Ohura Makoto (for spotting typos). People who have contributed
to the themes include Paul Gomme, Manuel Carro, and Marlon Régis Schmitz.”
Joseph Wright: “Thanks to Till Tantau for the huge development effort in creating beamer. Sincere thanks
to Vedran Miletić for taking the lead in continuing development.”
Vedran Miletić: “First, I would like to thank Karl Berry and Sanda Bujačić for encouragement, without
which I wouldn’t ever be anything but a L
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E
X user. I would also like to thank Ana Meštrović, my colleague,
who was excited by the prospect of using beamer for preparing class material; Ivona Franković and Marina
Rajnović, my students at Department of Informatics, who were the first to hear about L
A
T
E
X, beamer and how
it can help in preparing class material. I would like to thank Heiko Oberdiek (for hyperref), Johannes Braams
(for babel) and Philipp Lehman (for biblatex). Above all, I owe a lot to Till Tantau for developing beamer
in the first place and to Joseph Wright for developing siunitx and for helping me develop beamer further.”
1.4 How to Read this User’s Guide
You should start with the first part. If you have not yet installed the package, please read Section 2 first. If you
are new to beamer, you should next read the tutorial in Section 3. When you sit down to create your first real
presentation using beamer, read Section 4 where the technical details of a possible workflow are discussed. If
you are still new to creating presentations in general, you might find Section 5 helpful, where many guidelines
are given on what to do and what not to do. Finally, you should browse through Section 6, where you will find
ready-to-use solution templates for creating talks, possibly even in the language you intend to use.
The second part of this user’s guide goes into the details of all the commands defined in beamer, but it
also addresses other technical issues having to do with creating presentations (like how to include graphics or
animations).
The third part explains how you can change the appearance of your presentation easily either using themes
or by specifying colors or fonts for specific elements of a presentation (like, say, the font used for the numbers in
an enumeration).
The fourth part talks about handouts and lecture notes, so called “support material”. You will frequently
have create some kind of support material to give to your audience during the talk or after it, and this part will
explain how to do it using the same source that you created your presentation from.
The last part contains “howtos,” which are explanations of how to get certain things done using beamer.
This user’s guide contains descriptions of all “public” commands, environments, and concepts defined by the
beamer-class. The following examples show how things are documented. As a general rule, red text is defined,
green text is optional, blue text indicates special mode considerations.
\somebeamercommand[⟨optional arguments⟩]{⟨first argument⟩}{⟨second argument⟩}
Here you will find the explanation of what the command \somebeamercommand does. The green argument(s)
is optional. The command of this example takes two parameters.
Example: \somebeamercommand[opt]{my arg}{xxx}
\begin{somebeamerenvironment}[⟨optional arguments⟩]{⟨first argument⟩}
⟨environment contents⟩
10
\end{somebeamerenvironment}
Here you will find the explanation of the effect of the environment somebeamerenvironment. As with
commands, the green arguments are optional.
Example:
\begin{somebeamerenvironment}{Argument}
Some text.
\end{somebeamerenvironment}
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font some beamer element
Here you will find an explanation of the template, color, and/or font some beamer element. A “beamer-
element” is a concept that is explained in more detail in Section 16. Roughly speaking, an element is a part
of a presentation that is potentially typeset in some special way. Examples of elements are frame titles, the
author’s name, or the footnote sign. For most elements there exists a template, see Section 16 once more,
and also a beamer-color and a beamer-font.
For each element, it is indicated whether a template, a beamer-color, and/or a beamer-font of the name
some beamer element exist. Typically, all three exist and are employed together when the element needs
to be typeset, that is, when the template is inserted the beamer-color and -font are installed first. However,
sometimes templates do not have a color or font associated with them (like parent templates). Also, there
exist beamer-colors and -fonts that do not have an underlying template.
Using and changing templates is explained in Section 16.3. Here is the essence: To change a template, you
can say
\setbeamertemplate{some beamer element}{your definition for this template}
Unfortunately, it is not quite trivial to come up with a good definition for some templates. Fortunately,
there are often predefined options for a template. These are indicated like this:
∙[square]causes a small square to be used to render the template.
∙[circle]{⟨radius⟩}causes circles of the given radius to be used to render the template.
You can install such a predefined option like this:
\setbeamertemplate{some beamer element}[square]
% Now squares are used
\setbeamertemplate{some beamer element}[circle]{3pt}
% Now a circle is used
beamer-colors are explained in Section 17. Here is the essence: To change the foreground of the color to,
say, red, use
\setbeamercolor{some beamer element}{fg=red}
To change the background to, say, black, use:
\setbeamercolor{some beamer element}{bg=black}
You can also change them together using fg=red,bg=black. The background will not always be “honoured,”
since it is difficult to show a colored background correctly and an extra effort must be made by the templates
(while the foreground color is usually used automatically).
beamer-fonts are explained in Section 18. Here is the essence: To change the size of the font to, say, large,
use:
\setbeamerfont{some beamer element}{size=\large}
In addition to the size, you can use things like series=\bfseries to set the series, shape=\itshape to
change the shape, family=\sffamily to change the family, and you can use them in conjunction. Add a
star to the command to first “reset” the font.
11
presen-
tation As next to this paragraph, you will sometimes find the word presentation in blue next to some paragraph. This
means that the paragraph applies only when you “normally typeset your presentation using L
A
T
E
X or pdfL
A
T
E
X.”
article Opposed to this, a paragraph with article next to it describes some behavior that is special for the article
mode. This special mode is used to create lecture notes out of a presentation (the two can coexist in one file).
1.5 Getting Help
When you need help with beamer, please do the following:
1. Read the user guide, at least the part that has to do with your problem.
2. If that does not solve the problem, try searching TeX-sx (tex.stackexchange.com). Perhaps someone
has already reported a similar problem and someone has found a solution.
3. If you find no answers there, or if you are sure you have found a bug in beamer, please report it via
bitbucket.org/rivanvx/beamer/issues.
4. Before you file a bug report, especially a bug report concerning the installation, make sure that this is
really a bug. In particular, have a look at the .log file that results when you T
E
X your files. This .log file
should show that all the right files are loaded from the right directories. Nearly all installation problems
can be resolved by looking at the .log file.
If you can, before reporting the bug, retest using latest version of beamer with latest version of T
E
X Live.
This can help isolate bugs from other packages that might affect beamer.
5. As a last resort you can try emailing authors. We do not mind getting emails, we simply get way too
many of them. Because of this, we cannot guarantee that your emails will be answered timely or even at
all. Reporting an issue is usually a better approach as they don’t get lost.
12
Part I
Getting Started
This part helps you getting started. It starts with an explanation of how to install the class. Hopefully, this will
be very simple, with a bit of luck the whole class is already correctly installed! You will also find an explanation
of special things you should consider when using certain other packages.
Next, a short tutorial is given that explains most of the features that you’ll need in a typical presentation.
Following the tutorial you will find a “possible workflow” for creating a presentation. Following this workflow
may help you avoid problems later on.
This part includes a guidelines sections. Following these guidelines can help you create good presentations
(no guarantees, though). This guideline section is kept as general as possible; most of what is said in that section
applies to presentations in general, independent of whether they have been created using beamer or not.
At the end of this part you will find a summary of the solutions templates that come with beamer. You
can use solutions templates to kick-start the creation of your presentation.
13
2 Installation
There are different ways of installing the beamer class, depending on your installation and needs. When
installing the class, you may have to install some other packages as well as described below. Before installing,
you may wish to review the licenses under which the class is distributed, see Section 7.
Fortunately, most likely your system will already have beamer preinstalled, so you can skip this section.
2.1 Versions and Dependencies
This documentation is part of version 3.36 of the beamer class. beamer needs a reasonably recent version of
several standard packages to run and also the following versions of two special packages (later versions should
work, but not necessarily):
∙pgf.sty version 1.00,
∙xcolor.sty version 2.00.
If you use pdflatex, which is optional, you need
∙pdflatex version 0.14 or higher. Earlier versions do not work.
2.2 Installation of Pre-bundled Packages
We do not create or manage pre-bundled packages of beamer, but, fortunately, other nice people do. We cannot
give detailed instructions on how to install these packages, since we do not manage them, but we can tell you
were to find them and we can tell you what these nice people told us on how to install them. If you have a
problem with installing, you might wish to have a look at the following first.
2.2.1 T
E
X Live and MacT
E
X
In T
E
X Live, use the tlmgr tool to install the packages called beamer,pgf, and xcolor. If you have a fairly
recent version of T
E
X Live, and you have done full installation, beamer is included.
2.2.2 MiKT
E
X and proT
E
Xt
For MiKT
E
X and proT
E
Xt, use the update wizard or package manager to install the (latest versions of the)
packages called beamer,pgf, and xcolor.
2.2.3 Debian and Ubuntu
The command “aptitude install latex-beamer” should do the trick. If necessary, the packages pgf and
latex-xcolor will be automatically installed. Sit back and relax. In detail, the following packages are installed:
http://packages.debian.org/latex-beamer
http://packages.debian.org/pgf
http://packages.debian.org/latex-xcolor
Debian 5.0 “lenny” includes T
E
X Live 2007, and version 6.0 “squeeze” will include T
E
X Live 2009. This also
allows you to manually install newer versions of beamer (into your local directory, see below) without having
to update any other L
A
T
E
X packages.
Ubuntu 8.04, 9.04 and 9.10 include T
E
X Live 2007, and version 10.04 includes T
E
X Live 2009.
2.2.4 Fedora
Fedora 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 include T
E
X Live 2007, which includes beamer. It can be installed by running the
command “yum install texlive-texmf-latex”. As with Debian, this allows you to manually install newer
versions of beamer into your local directory (explained below).
Jindrich Novy provides T
E
X Live 2010 rpm packages for Fedora 12 and 13, at
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/TeXLive
Fedora 14 will contain T
E
X Live 2010 once it’s released.
14
2.3 Installation in a texmf Tree
If, for whatever reason, you do not wish to use a prebundled package, the “right” way to install beamer is to
put it in a so-called texmf tree. In the following, we explain how to do this.
Obtain the latest source version (ending .tar.gz or .zip) of the beamer package from
http://bitbucket.org/rivanvx/beamer
(most likely, you have already done this). Next, you also need the pgf package and the xcolor packages, which
you need to install separately (see their installation instructions).
The package contains a bunch of files; beamer.cls is one of these files and happens to be the most important
one. You now need to put these files in an appropriate texmf tree.
When you ask T
E
X to use a certain class or package, it usually looks for the necessary files in so-called texmf
trees. These trees are simply huge directories that contain these files. By default, T
E
X looks for files in three
different texmf trees:
∙The root texmf tree, which is usually located at /usr/share/texmf/,/usr/local/texlive/texmf/,
c:\texmf\, or
c:\texlive\texmf\.
∙The local texmf tree, which is usually located at /usr/local/share/texmf/,/usr/local/texlive/texmf-local/
c:\localtexmf\, or
c:\texlive\texmf-local\.
∙Your personal texmf tree, which is usually located in your home directory at ~/texmf/ or ~/Library/texmf/.
You should install the packages either in the local tree or in your personal tree, depending on whether you
have write access to the local tree. Installation in the root tree can cause problems, since an update of the whole
T
E
X installation will replace this whole tree.
Inside whatever texmf directory you have chosen, create the sub-sub-sub-directory
texmf/tex/latex/beamer
and place all files of the package in this directory.
Finally, you need to rebuild T
E
X’s filename database. This is done by running the command texhash or
mktexlsr (they are the same). In MiKT
E
X package manager and T
E
X Live tlmgr, there is a menu option to do
this.
For a more detailed explanation of the standard installation process of packages, you might wish to consult
http://www.ctan.org/installationadvice/. However, note that the beamer package does not come with a
.ins file (simply skip that part).
2.4 Updating the Installation
To update your installation from a previous version, simply replace everything in the directory
texmf/tex/latex/beamer
with the files of the new version. The easiest way to do this is to first delete the old version and then to proceed
as described above.
Note that if you have two versions installed, one in texmf and other in texmf-local directory, T
E
X distribu-
tion will prefer one in texmf-local directory. This generally allows you to update packages manually without
administrator privileges.
2.5 Testing the Installation
To test your installation, copy the file generic-ornate-15min-45min.en.tex from the directory
beamer/solutions/generic-talks
to some place where you usually create presentations. Then run the command pdflatex several times on the
file and check whether the resulting pdf file looks correct. If so, you are all set.
15
2.6 Compatibility with Other Packages and Classes
When using certain packages or classes together with the beamer class, extra options or precautions may be
necessary.
\usepackage{AlDraTex}
Graphics created using AlDraTex must be treated like verbatim text. The reason is that DraTex fiddles
with catcodes and spaces much like verbatim does. So, in order to insert a picture, either add the fragile
option to the frame or use the \defverbatim command to create a box containing the picture.
\usepackage{alltt}
Text in an alltt environment must be treated like verbatim text. So add the fragile option to frames
containing this environment or use \defverbatim.
\usepackage{amsthm}
This package is automatically loaded since beamer uses it for typesetting theorems. If you do not wish it
to be loaded, which can be necessary especially in article mode if the package is incompatible with the
document class, you can use the class option noamsthm to suppress its loading. See Section 12.4 for more
details.
\usepackage[french]{babel}
When using the french style, certain features that clash with the functionality of the beamer class will
be turned off. For example, enumerations are still produced the way the theme dictates, not the way the
french style does.
\usepackage[spanish]{babel}
presen-
tation When using the spanish style, certain features that clash with the functionality of the beamer class will
be turned off. In particular, the special behavior of the pointed brackets <and >is deactivated.
article To make the characters <and >active in article mode, pass the option activeospeccharacters to the
package beamerbasearticle. This will lead to problems with overlay specifications.
\usepackage{color}
presen-
tation The color package is automatically loaded by beamer.cls. This makes it impossible to pass options to
color in the preamble of your document in the normal manner. To pass a ⟨list of options⟩to color, you
can use the following class option:
\documentclass[color=⟨list of options⟩]{beamer}
Causes the ⟨list of options⟩to be passed on to the color package. If the ⟨list of options⟩contains more
than one option you must enclose it in curly brackets.
article The color package is not loaded automatically if beamerarticle is loaded with the noxcolor option.
\usepackage{colortbl}
presen-
tation With newer versions of xcolor.sty, you need to pass the option table to xcolor.sty if you wish to use
colortbl. See the notes on xcolor below, on how to do this.
\usepackage{CJK}
presen-
tation When using the CJK package for using Asian fonts, you must use the class option CJK.
\usepackage{deluxetable}
presen-
tation The caption generation facilities of deluxetable are deactivated. Instead, the caption template is used.
16
\usepackage{DraTex}
See AlDraTex.
\usepackage{enumerate}
article This package is loaded automatically in the presentation modes, but not in the article mode. If you
use its features, you have to load the package “by hand” in the article mode.
\documentclass{foils}
If you wish to emulate the foils class using beamer, please see Section 24.3.
\usepackage[T1,EU1,EU2]{fontenc}
Use the T1 option only with fonts that have outline fonts available in the T1 encoding like times or the
lmodern fonts. In a standard installation standard Computer Modern fonts (the fonts Donald Knuth
originally designed and which are used by default) are not available in the T1 encoding. Using this option
with them will result in very poor rendering of your presentation when viewed with pdf viewer applications
like Acrobat, xpdf,evince or okular. To use the Computer Modern fonts with the T1 encoding, use the
package lmodern. See also Section 18.2.3. This applies both to latex+dvips and pdflatex
Use the EU1 option with xelatex, and EU2 option with lualatex. Note that xelatex and luatex support
OpenType fonts, and font encodings work very different compared to pdflatex. Again, see Section 18.2.3
for more information.
\usepackage{fourier}
The package switches to a T1 encoding, but it does not redefine all fonts such that outline fonts (non-
bitmapped fonts) are used by default. For example, the sans-serif text and the typewriter text are not
replaced. To use outline fonts for these, write \usepackage{lmodern} before including the fourier package.
\usepackage{HA-prosper}
You cannot use this package with beamer. However, you might try to use the package beamerprosper
instead, see Section 24.1.
\usepackage{hyperref}
presen-
tation The hyperref package is automatically loaded by beamer.cls and certain options are set up. In order to
pass additional options to hyperref or to override options, you can use the following class option:
\documentclass[hyperref=⟨list of options⟩]{beamer}
Causes the ⟨list of options⟩to be passed on to the hyperref package.
Example: \documentclass[hyperref={bookmarks=false}]{beamer}
Alternatively, you can also use the \hypersetup command.
article In the article version, you must include hyperref manually if you want to use it. You can do so by
passing option hyperref to beamerarticle. It is not included automatically.
\usepackage[utf8,utf8x]{inputenc}
presen-
tation When using Unicode, you may wish to use some of the following class options:
\documentclass[ucs]{beamer}
Loads the package ucs and passes the correct Unicode options to hyperref. Also, it preloads the
Unicode code pages zero and one.
\documentclass[utf8x]{beamer}
Same as the option ucs, but also sets the input encoding to utf8x. You could also use the option ucs
and say \usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc} in the preamble. This also automatically loads ucs package
in most T
E
X systems.
17
If you use a Unicode character outside the first two code pages (which includes the Latin alphabet
and the extended Latin alphabet) in a section or subsection heading, you have to use the command
\PreloadUnicodePage{⟨code page⟩}to give ucs a chance to preload these code pages. You will know
that a character has not been preloaded, if you get a message like “Please insert into preamble.” The code
page of a character is given by the unicode number of the character divided by 256.
\documentclass[utf8]{beamer}
This option sets the input encoding to utf8. It’s designed to be used without ucs. It’s the same as
saying \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} in the preamble.
Note that none of these options apply to lualatex and xelatex, since both support Unicode natively
without any extra packages. Most of the time using these options actually harms output quality, so be
careful about what you use. If you want to have a document that allows compiling with multiple drivers,
take a look at iftex,ifxetex and ifluatex packages.
article Passing option utf8 to beamerarticle has the same effect as saying \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} in
the preamble.
Again, take care if you use lualatex or xelatex.
\usepackage{listings}
presen-
tation Note that you must treat lstlisting environments exactly the same way as you would treat verbatim
environments. When using \defverbatim that contains a colored lstlisting, use the colored option of
\defverbatim.
Example:
\usepackage{listings}
\begin{document}
\defverbatim[colored]\mycode{%
\begin{lstlisting}[frame=single, emph={cout}, emphstyle={\color{blue}}]
cout << "Hello world!";
\end{lstlisting}
}
\begin{frame}
\mycode
\end{frame}
\end{document}
\usepackage{msc}
presen-
tation Since this package uses pstricks internally, everything that applies to pstricks also applies to msc.
\usepackage{musixtex}
When using MusiXT
E
X to typeset musical scores, you have to have 𝜀-T
E
Xextensions enabled. Most modern
distributions enable that by default both in pdflatex and latex. However, if you have an older distribution,
the document must be compiled with pdfelatex or elatex instead of pdflatex or latex.
Inside a music environment, the \pause is redefined to match MusiXT
E
X’s definition (a rest during one
quarter of a whole). You can use the \beamerpause command to create overlays in this environment.
\usepackage{pdfpages}
Commands like \includepdf only work outside frames as they produce pages “by themselves.” You may
also wish to say
\setbeamercolor{background canvas}{bg=}
18
when you use such a command since the background (even a white background) will otherwise be printed
over the image you try to include.
Example:
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
\titlepage
\end{frame}
{
\setbeamercolor{background canvas}{bg=}
\includepdf{somepdfimages.pdf}
}
\begin{frame}
A normal frame.
\end{frame}
\end{document}
\usepackage{⟨professional font package⟩}
presen-
tation If you use a professional font package, beamer’s internal redefinition of how variables are typeset may
interfere with the font package’s superior way of typesetting them. In this case, you should use the class
option professionalfont to suppress any font substitution. See Section 18.2.2 for details.
\documentclass{prosper}
If you wish to (partly) emulate the prosper class using beamer, please see Section 24.1.
\usepackage{pstricks}
You should add the option xcolor=pst to make xcolor aware of the fact that you are using pstricks.
\documentclass{seminar}
If you wish to emulate the seminar class using beamer, please see Section 24.2.
\usepackage{texpower}
You cannot use this package with beamer. However, you might try to use the package beamertexpower
instead, see Section 24.4.
\usepackage{textpos}
presen-
tation
beamer automatically installs a white background behind everything, unless you install a different back-
ground template. Because of this, you must use the overlay option when using textpos, so that it will
place boxes in front of everything. Alternatively, you can install an empty background template, but this
may result in an incorrect display in certain situtations with older versions of the Acrobat Reader.
\usepackage{ucs}
See \usepackage[utf8,utf8x]{inputenc}.
\usepackage{xcolor}
presen-
tation The xcolor package is automatically loaded by beamer.cls. The same applies as to color.
\documentclass[xcolor=⟨list of options⟩]{beamer}
Causes the ⟨list of options⟩to be passed on to the xcolor package.
When using beamer together with the pstricks package, be sure to pass the xcolor=pst option to
beamer (and hence to xcolor).
article The color package is not loaded automatically if beamerarticle is loaded with the noxcolor option.
19
3 Tutorial: Euclid’s Presentation
This section presents a short tutorial that focuses on those features of beamer that you are likely to use when
you start using beamer. It leaves out all the glorious details that are explained in great detail later on.
3.1 Problem Statement
We wish to help Prof. Euclid of the University of Alexandria to create a presentation on his latest discovery: There
are infinitely many prime numbers! Euclid wrote a paper on this and it got accepted at the 27th International
Symposium on Prime Numbers −280 (ISPN ’80). Euclid wishes to use the beamer class to create a presentation
for the conference. On the conference webpage he found out that he will have twenty minutes for his talk,
including questions.
3.2 Solution Template
The first thing Euclid should do is to look for a solution template for his presentation. Having a look at Section 6,
he finds that the file
beamer/solutions/conference-talks/conference-ornate-20min.en.tex
might be appropriate. He creates a subdirectory presentation in the directory that contains the actual paper
and copies the solution template to this subdirectory, renaming to main.tex.
He opens the file in his favorite editor. It starts
\documentclass{beamer}
which Euclid finds hardly surprising. Next comes a line reading
\mode<presentation>
which Euclid does not understand. Since he finds more stuff in the file that he does not understand, he decides
to ignore all of that for time being, hoping that it all serves some good purpose.
3.3 Title Material
The next thing that seems logical is the place where the \title command is used. Naturally, he replaces it with
\title{There Is No Largest Prime Number}
since this was the title of the paper. He sees that the command \title also takes an optional “short” argument
in square brackets, which is shown in places where there is little space, but he decides that the title is short
enough by itself.
Euclid next adjusts the \author and \date fields as follows:
\author{Euclid of Alexandria}
\date[ISPN ’80]{27th International Symposium of Prime Numbers}
For the date, he felt that the name was a little long, so a short version is given (ISPN ’80). On second thought,
Euclid decides to add his email address and replaces the \author field as follows:
\author[Euclid]{Euclid of Alexandria \\ \texttt{euclid@alexandria.edu}}
Somehow Euclid does not like the fact that there is no “\email” command in beamer. He decides to write an
email to beamer’s author, asking him to fix this, but postpones this for later when the presentation is finished.
There are two fields that Euclid does not know, but whose meaning he can guess: \subtitle and \institute.
He adjusts them. (Euclid does not need to use the \and command, which is used to separate several authors,
nor the \inst command, which just makes its argument a superscript).
20
3.4 The Title Page Frame
The next thing in the file that seems interesting is where the first “frame” is created, right after the
\begin{document}:
\begin{frame}
\titlepage
\end{frame}
In beamer, a presentation consists of a series of frames. Each frame in turn may consist of several slides (if there
is more than one, they are called overlays). Normally, everything between \begin{frame} and \end{frame} is
put on a single slide. No page breaking is performed. So Euclid infers that the first frame is “filled” by the title
page, which seems quite logical.
3.5 Creating the Presentation PDF File
Eager to find out how the first page will look, he invokes pdflatex on his file main.tex (twice). He could also
use latex (twice), followed by dvips, and then possibly ps2pdf, or lualatex (twice), or xelatex (twice). Then
he uses the Acrobat Reader, xpdf,evince or okular to view the resulting main.pdf. Indeed, the first page
contains all the information Euclid has provided until now. It even looks quite impressive with the colorful title
and the rounded corners and the shadows, but he is doubtful whether he should leave it like that. He decides
to address this problem later.
Euclid is delighted to find out that clicking on a section or subsection in the navigation bar at the top
hyperjumps there. Also, the small symbols at the bottom seem to be clickable. Toying around with them for
a while, he finds that clicking on the arrows left or right of a symbol hyperjumps him backward or forward one
slide / frame / subsection / section. He finds the symbols quite small, but decides not to write an email to
beamer’s authors since he also thinks that bigger symbols would be distracting.
3.6 The Table of Contents
The next frame contains a table of contents:
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Outline}
\tableofcontents
\end{frame}
Furthermore, this frame has an individual title (Outline). A comment in the frame says that Euclid might wish
to try to add the [pausesections] option. He tries this, changing the frame to:
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Outline}
\tableofcontents[pausesections]
\end{frame}
After re-pdfL
A
T
E
Xing the presentation, he finds that instead of a single slide, there are now two “table
of contents” slides in the presentation. On the first of these, only the first section is shown, on the second
both sections are shown (scanning down in the file, Euclid finds that, indeed, there are \section commands
introducing these sections). The effect of the pausesections seems to be that one can talk about the first
section before the second one is shown. Then, Euclid can press the down- or right-key, to show the complete
table of contents and can talk about the second section.
3.7 Sections and Subsections
The next commands Euclid finds are
\section{Motivation}
\subsection{The Basic Problem That We Studied}
21
These commands are given outside of frames. So Euclid assumes that at the point of invocation they have no
direct effect, they only create entries in the table of contents. Having a “Motivation” section seems reasonable
to Euclid, but he changes the \subsection title.
As he looks at the presentation, he notices that his assumption was not quite true: each \subsection
command seems to insert a frame containing a table of contents into the presentation. Doubling back he
finds the command that causes this: The \AtBeginSubsection inserts a frame with only the current subsec-
tion highlighted at the beginning of each section. If Euclid does not like this, he can just delete the whole
\AtBeginSubsection stuff and the table of contents at the beginning of each subsection disappears.
The \section and \subsection commands take optional short arguments. These short arguments are used
whenever a short form of the section of subsection name is needed. While this is in keeping with the way beamer
treats the optional arguments of things like \title, it is different from the usual way L
A
T
E
X treats an optional
argument for sections (where the optional argument dictates what is shown in the table of contents and the
main argument dictates what is shown everywhere else; in beamer things are exactly the other way round).
3.8 Creating a Simple Frame
Euclid then modifies the next frame, which is the first “real” frame of the presentation, as follows:
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{What Are Prime Numbers?}
A prime number is a number that has exactly two divisors.
\end{frame}
This yields the desired result. It might be a good idea to put some emphasis on the object being defined (prime
numbers). Euclid tries \emph but finds that too mild an emphasis. beamer offers the command \alert, which
is used like \emph and, by default, typesets its argument in bright red.
Next, Euclid decides to make it even clearer that he is giving a definition by putting a definition environ-
ment around the definition.
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{What Are Prime Numbers?}
\begin{definition}
A \alert{prime number} is a number that has exactly two divisors.
\end{definition}
\end{frame}
Other useful environments like theorem,lemma,proof,corollary, or example are also predefined by
beamer. As in amsmath, they take optional arguments that they show in brackets. Indeed, amsmath is au-
tomatically loaded by beamer.
Since it is always a good idea to add examples, Euclid decides to add one:
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{What Are Prime Numbers?}
\begin{definition}
A \alert{prime number} is a number that has exactly two divisors.
\end{definition}
\begin{example}
\begin{itemize}
\item 2 is prime (two divisors: 1 and 2).
\item 3 is prime (two divisors: 1 and 3).
\item 4 is not prime (\alert{three} divisors: 1, 2, and 4).
\end{itemize}
\end{example}
\end{frame}
3.9 Creating Simple Overlays
The frame already looks quite nice, though, perhaps a bit colorful. However, Euclid would now like to show the
three items one after another, not all three right away. To achieve this, he adds \pause commands after the
22
first and second items:
\begin{itemize}
\item 2 is prime (two divisors: 1 and 2).
\pause
\item 3 is prime (two divisors: 1 and 3).
\pause
\item 4 is not prime (\alert{three} divisors: 1, 2, and 4).
\end{itemize}
By showing them incrementally, he hopes to focus the audience’s attention on the item he is currently talking
about. On second thought, he deletes the \pause stuff once more since in simple cases like the above the pausing
is rather silly. Indeed, Euclids has noticed that good presentations make use of this uncovering mechanism only
in special circumstances.
Euclid finds that he can also add a \pause between the definition and the example. So, \pauses seem to
transcede environments, which Euclid finds quite useful. After some experimentation he finds that \pause only
does not work in align environments. He immediately writes an email about this to beamer’s author, but
receives a polite answer stating that the implementation of align does wicked things and there is no fix for this.
Also, Euclid is pointed to the last part of the user’s guide, where a workaround is described.
3.10 Using Overlay Specifications
The next frame is to show his main argument and is put in a “Results” section. Euclid desires a more complicated
overlay behavior for this frame: In an enumeration of four points he wishes to uncover the points one-by-one,
but he wishes the fourth point to be shown at the same time as the first. The idea is to illustrate his new
proof method, namely proof by contradiction, where a wrong assumption is brought to a contradiction at the
end after a number of intermediate steps that are not important at the beginning. For this, Euclid uses overlay
specifications:
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{There Is No Largest Prime Number}
\framesubtitle{The proof uses \textit{reductio ad absurdum}.}
\begin{theorem}
There is no largest prime number.
\end{theorem}
\begin{proof}
\begin{enumerate}
\item<1-> Suppose $p$ were the largest prime number.
\item<2-> Let $q$ be the product of the first $p$ numbers.
\item<3-> Then $q + 1$ is not divisible by any of them.
\item<1-> But $q + 1$ is greater than $1$, thus divisible by some prime
number not in the first $p$ numbers.\qedhere
\end{enumerate}
\end{proof}
\uncover<4->{The proof used \textit{reductio ad absurdum}.}
\end{frame}
The overlay specifications are given in pointed brackets. The specification <1-> means “from slide 1 on.”
Thus, the first and fourth item are shown on the first slide of the frame, but the other two items are not shown.
Rather, the second point is shown only from the second slide onward. beamer automatically computes the
number of slides needed for each frame. More generally, overlay specification are lists of numbers or number
ranges where the start or ending of a range can be left open. For example -3,5-6,8- means “on all slides,
except for slides 4 and 7.”
The \qedhere is used to put the qed symbol at the end of the line inside the enumeration. Normally, the
qed symbol is automatically inserted at the end of a proof environment, but that would be on an ugly empty
line here.
23
The \item command is not the only command that takes overlay specifications. Another useful command
that takes one is the \uncover command. It only shows its argument on the slides specified in the overlay
specification. On all other slides, the argument is hidden (though it still occupies space). The command \only
is similar and Euclid could also have tried
\only<4->{The proof used \textit{reductio ad absurdum}.}
On non-specified slides the \only command simply “throws its argument away” and the argument does not
occupy any space. This leads to different heights of the text on the first three slides and on the fourth slide. If
the text is centered vertically, this will cause the text to “wobble” and thus \uncover should be used. However,
you sometimes wish things to “really disappear” on some slides and then \only is useful. Euclid could also have
used the class option t, which causes the text in frames to be vertically flushed to the top. Then a differing
text height does not cause wobbling. Vertical flushing can also be achieved for only a single frame by giving the
optional argument [t] like this to the frame environment as in
\begin{frame}[t]
\frametitle{There Is No Largest Prime Number}
...
\end{frame}
Vice versa, if the tclass option is given, a frame can be vertically centered using the [c] option for the frame.
It turns out that certain environments, including the theorem and proof environments above, also take
overlay specifications. If such a specification is given, the whole theorem or proof is only shown on the specified
slides.
3.11 Structuring a Frame
On the next frame, Euclid wishes to contrast solved and open problems on prime numbers. Since there is no
“Solved problem” environment similar to the theorem environment, Euclid decides to use the block environment,
which allows him to give an arbitrary title:
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{What’s Still To Do?}
\begin{block}{Answered Questions}
How many primes are there?
\end{block}
\begin{block}{Open Questions}
Is every even number the sum of two primes?
\end{block}
\end{frame}
He could also have defined his own theorem-like environment by putting the following in the preamble:
\newtheorem{answeredquestions}[theorem]{Answered Questions}
\newtheorem{openquestions}[theorem]{Open Questions}
The optional argument [theorem] ensures that these environments are numbered the same way as everything
else. Since these numbers are not shown anyway, it does not really matter whether they are given, but it’s a
good practice and, perhaps, Euclid might need these numbers some other time.
An alternative would be nested itemize:
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{What’s Still To Do?}
\begin{itemize}
\item Answered Questions
\begin{itemize}
\item How many primes are there?
\end{itemize}
\item Open Questions
\begin{itemize}
24
\item Is every even number the sum of two primes?
\end{itemize}
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}
Pondering on the problem some more, Euclid decides that it would be even nicer to have the “Answered
Questions” on the left and the “Open Questions” on the right, so as to create a stronger visual contrast. For
this, he uses the columns environment. Inside this environment, \column commands create new columns.
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{What’s Still To Do?}
\begin{columns}
\column{.5\textwidth}
\begin{block}{Answered Questions}
How many primes are there?
\end{block}
\column{.5\textwidth}
\begin{block}{Open Questions}
Is every even number the sum of two primes?
\end{block}
\end{columns}
\end{frame}
Trying this, he is not quite satisfied with the result as the block on the left has a different height than the
one on the right. He thinks it would be nicer if they were vertically top-aligned. So he adds the [t] option to
the columns environment.
Euclid is somewhat pleased to find out that a \pause at the end of the first column allows him to “uncover”
the second column only on the second slide of the frame.
3.12 Adding References
Euclid decides that he would like to add a citation to his open questions list, since he would like to attribute
the question to his good old friend Christian. Euclid is not really sure whether using a bibliography in his talk
is a good idea, but he goes ahead anyway.
To this end, he adds an entry to the bibliography, which he fortunately already finds in the solution file.
Having the bibliography in the appendix does not quite suit Euclid, so he removes the \appendix command. He
also notices <presentation> overlay specifications and finds them a bit strange, but they don’t seem to hurt
either. Hopefully they do something useful. His bibliography looks like this:
\begin{thebibliography}{10}
\bibitem{Goldbach1742}[Goldbach, 1742]
Christian Goldbach.
\newblock A problem we should try to solve before the ISPN ’43 deadline,
\newblock \emph{Letter to Leonhard Euler}, 1742.
\end{thebibliography}
and he can then add a citation:
\begin{block}{Open Questions}
Is every even number the sum of two primes?
\cite{Goldbach1742}
\end{block}
3.13 Verbatim Text
On another frame, Euclid would like to show a listing of an algorithm his friend Eratosthenes has sent him (saying
he came up with it while reorganizing his sieve collection). Euclid normally uses the verbatim environment and
25
sometimes also similar environments like lstlisting to typeset listings. He can also use them in beamer, but
he must add the fragile option to the frame:
\begin{frame}[fragile]
\frametitle{An Algorithm For Finding Prime Numbers.}
\begin{verbatim}
int main (void)
{
std::vector<bool> is_prime (100, true);
for (int i = 2; i < 100; i++)
if (is_prime[i])
{
std::cout << i << " ";
for (int j = i; j < 100; is_prime [j] = false, j+=i);
}
return 0;
}
\end{verbatim}
\begin{uncoverenv}<2>
Note the use of \verb|std::|.
\end{uncoverenv}
\end{frame}
On second thought, Euclid would prefer to uncover part of the algorithm stepwise and to add an emphasis
on certain lines or parts of lines. He can use package like alltt for this, but in simple cases the environment
{semiverbatim} defined by beamer is more useful: It works like {verbatim}, except that \,{, and }retain
their meaning (one can typeset them by using \\,\{, and \}). Euclid might now typeset his algorithm as
follows:
\begin{frame}[fragile]
\frametitle{An Algorithm For Finding Primes Numbers.}
\begin{semiverbatim}
\uncover<1->{\alert<0>{int main (void)}}
\uncover<1->{\alert<0>{\{}}
\uncover<1->{\alert<1>{ \alert<4>{std::}vector<bool> is_prime (100, true);}}
\uncover<1->{\alert<1>{ for (int i = 2; i < 100; i++)}}
\uncover<2->{\alert<2>{ if (is_prime[i])}}
\uncover<2->{\alert<0>{ \{}}
\uncover<3->{\alert<3>{ \alert<4>{std::}cout << i << " ";}}
\uncover<3->{\alert<3>{ for (int j = i; j < 100;}}
\uncover<3->{\alert<3>{ is_prime [j] = false, j+=i);}}
\uncover<2->{\alert<0>{ \}}}
\uncover<1->{\alert<0>{ return 0;}}
\uncover<1->{\alert<0>{\}}}
\end{semiverbatim}
\visible<4->{Note the use of \alert{\texttt{std::}}.}
\end{frame}
The \visible command does nearly the same as \uncover. A difference occurs if the command \setbeamercovered{transparent}
has been used to make covered text “transparent” instead, \visible still makes the text completely “invisible”
on non-specified slides. Euclid has the feeling that the naming convention is a bit strange, but cannot quite
pinpoint the problem.
26
3.14 Changing the Way Things Look I: Theming
With the contents of this talk fixed, Euclid decides to have a second look at the way things look. He goes back
to the beginning and finds the line
\usetheme{Warsaw}
By substituting other cities (he notices that these cities seem to have in common that there has been a
workshop or conference on theoretical computer science there at which always the same person had a paper,
attended, or gave a talk) Euclid can change the way his presentation is going to look. He decides to choose some
theme that is reasonably simple but, since his talk is not too short, shows a bit of navigational information.
He settles on the Frankfurt theme but decides that the light-dark contrast is too strong. He adds
\usecolortheme{seahorse}
\usecolortheme{rose}
The result seems some more subdued to him.
Euclid decides that the font used for the titles is not quite classical enough (classical fonts are the latest chic
in Alexandria). So, he adds
\usefonttheme[onlylarge]{structuresmallcapsserif}
Euclid notices that the small fonts in the navigation bars are a bit hard to read as they are so thin. Adding the
following helps:
\usefonttheme[onlysmall]{structurebold}
3.15 Changing the Way Things Look II: Colors and Fonts
Since Euclid wants to give a perfect talk, he decides that the font used for the title simply has to be a serif
italics. To change only the font used for the title, Euclid uses the following command:
\setbeamerfont{title}{shape=\itshape,family=\rmfamily}
He notices that the font is still quite large (which he likes), but wonders why this is the case since he did not
specify this. The reason is that calls of \setbeamerfont accumulate and the size was already set to \large by
some font theme. Using the starred version of \setbeamerfont “resets” the font.
Euclid decides that he would also like to change the color of the title to a dashing red, though, perhaps, with
a bit of black added. He uses the following command:
\setbeamercolor{title}{fg=red!80!black}
Trying the following command, Euclid is delighted to find that specifying a background color also has an effect:
\setbeamercolor{title}{fg=red!80!black,bg=red!20!white}
Finally, Euclid is satisfied with the presentation and goes ahead and gives a great talk at the conference,
making many new friends. He also writes that email to beamer’s author containing that long list of things that
he missed in beamer or that do not work. He is a bit disappointed to learn that it might take till ISPN ’79 for
all these things to be taken care of, but he also understands that beamer’s authors also need some time to do
research or otherwise he would have nothing to give presentations about.
27
4 Workflow For Creating a Beamer Presentation
This section presents a possible workflow for creating a beamer presentation and possibly a handout to go along
with it. Technical questions are addressed, like which programs to call with which parameters.
4.1 Step One: Setup the Files
presen-
tation It is advisable that you create a folder for each presentation. Even though your presentation will usually reside
in a single file, T
E
X produces so many extra files that things can easily get very confusing otherwise. The
folder’s name should ideally start with the date of your talk in ISO format (like 2003-12-25 for a Christmas
talk), followed by some reminder text of what the talk is all about. Putting the date at the front in this format
causes your presentation folders to be listed nicely when you have several of them residing in one directory. If
you use an extra directory for each presentation, you can call your main file main.tex.
To create an initial main.tex file for your talk, copy an existing file from the beamer/solutions directory
and adapt it to your needs. A list of possible beamer solutions that contain templates for presentation T
E
X-files
can be found below.
If you wish your talk to reside in the same file as some different, non-presentation article version of your text,
it is advisable to setup a more elaborate file scheme. See Section 21.2.2 for details.
4.2 Step Two: Structure Your Presentation
The next step is to fill the presentation file with \section and \subsection to create a preliminary outline.
You’ll find some hints on how to create a good outline in Section 5.1.
Put \section and \subsection commands into the (more or less empty) main file. Do not create any frames
until you have a first working version of a possible table of contents. The file might look like this:
\documentclass{beamer}
% This is the file main.tex
\usetheme{Berlin}
\title{Example Presentation Created with the Beamer Package}
\author{Till Tantau}
\date{\today}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
\titlepage
\end{frame}
\section*{Outline}
\begin{frame}
\tableofcontents
\end{frame}
\section{Introduction}
\subsection{Overview of the Beamer Class}
\subsection{Overview of Similar Classes}
\section{Usage}
\subsection{...}
\subsection{...}
\section{Examples}
\subsection{...}
28
\subsection{...}
\begin{frame}
\end{frame} % to enforce entries in the table of contents
\end{document}
The empty frame at the end (which should be deleted later) ensures that the sections and subsections are actually
part of the table of contents. This frame is necessary since a \section or \subsection command following the
last page of a document has no effect.
4.3 Step Three: Creating a PDF or PostScript File
presen-
tation Once a first version of the structure is finished, you should try to create a first PDF or PostScript file of your
(still empty) talk to ensure that everything is working properly. This file will only contain the title page and
the table of contents.
4.3.1 Creating PDF
presen-
tation To create a PDF version of this file, run the program pdflatex on main.tex at least twice. You need to run it
twice, so that T
E
X can create the table of contents. (It may even be necessary to run it more often since all
sorts of auxiliary files are created.) In the following example, the greater-than-sign is the prompt.
> pdflatex main.tex
... lots of output ...
> pdflatex main.tex
... lots of output ...
Alternatively, you can use lualatex or xelatex instead of pdflatex in above commands.
You can next use a program like the Acrobat Reader, xpdf,evince or okular to view the resulting presen-
tation.
> acroread main.pdf
4.3.2 Creating PostScript
presen-
tation To create a PostScript version, you should first ascertain that the hyperref package (which is automatically
loaded by the beamer class) uses the option dvips or some compatible option, see the documentation of the
hyperref package for details. Whether this is the case depends on the contents of your local hyperref.cfg
file. You can enforce the usage of this option by passing dvips or a compatible option to the beamer class
(write \documentclass[dvips]{beamer}), which will pass this option on to the hyperref package.
You can then run latex twice, followed by dvips.
> latex main.tex
... lots of output ...
> latex main.tex
... lots of output ...
> dvips -P pdf main.dvi
The option (-P pdf) tells dvips to use Type 1 outline fonts instead of the usual Type 3 bitmap fonts. You
may wish to omit this option if there is a problem with it.
You can convert a PostScript file to a pdf file using
> ps2pdf main.ps main.pdf
29
4.3.3 Ways of Improving Compilation Speed
While working on your presentation, it may sometimes be useful to T
E
X your .tex file quickly and have the
presentation contain only the most important information. This is especially true if you have a slow machine.
In this case, you can do several things to speed up the compilation. First, you can use the draft class option.
\documentclass[draft]{beamer}
Causes the headlines, footlines, and sidebars to be replaced by gray rectangles (their sizes are still computed,
though). Many other packages, including pgf and hyperref, also “speed up” when this option is given.
Second, you can use the following command:
\includeonlyframes{⟨frame label list⟩}
This command behaves a little bit like the \includeonly command: Only the frames mentioned in the list
are included. All other frames are suppressed. Nevertheless, the section and subsection commands are still
executed, so that you still have the correct navigation bars. By labeling the current frame as, say, current
and then saying \includeonlyframes{current}, you can work on a single frame quickly.
The ⟨frame label list⟩is a comma-separated list (without spaces) of the names of frames that have been
labeled. To label a frame, you must pass the option label=⟨name⟩to the \frame command or frame
environment.
Example:
\includeonlyframes{example1,example3}
\frame[label=example1]
{This frame will be included. }
\frame[label=example2]
{This frame will not be included. }
\frame{This frame will not be included.}
\againframe{example1} % Will be included
4.4 Step Four: Create Frames
Once the table of contents looks satisfactory, start creating frames for your presentation by adding frame
environments. You’ll find guidelines on what to put on a frame in Section 5.1.3.
4.5 Step Five: Test Your Presentation
Always test your presentation. For this, you should vocalize or subvocalize your talk in a quiet environment.
Typically, this will show that your talk is too long. You should then remove parts of the presentation, such
that it fits into the allotted time slot. Do not attempt to talk faster in order to squeeze the talk into the given
amount of time. You are almost sure to lose your audience this way.
Do not try to create the “perfect” presentation immediately. Rather, test and retest the talk and modify it
as needed.
4.6 Step Six: Create a Handout
4.6.1 Creating the Handout
Once your talk is fixed, you can create a handout, if this seems appropriate. For this, you can use the class
option handout as explained in Section 21.1. Typically, you might wish to put several handout slides on one
page, see below on how to do this easily.
You may also wish to create an article version of your talk. An “article version” of your presentation is a
normal T
E
X text typeset using, for example, the document class article or perhaps llncs or a similar document
30
class. The beamer class offers facilities to have this version coexist with your presentation version in one file
and to share code. Also, you can include slides of your presentation as figures in your article version. Details
on how to setup the article version can be found in Section 21.2.
4.6.2 Printing the Handout
The easiest way to print a presentation is to user the Acrobat Reader with the option “expand small pages to
paper size” form the printer dialog enabled. This is necessary, because slides are by default only 128mm by
96mm large.
For the PostScript version and for printing multiple slides on a single page this simple approach does not
work. In such cases you can use the pgfpages package, which works directly with pdflatex,lualatex,xelatex
and latex plus dvips. Note however that this package destroys hyperlinks. This is due to fundamental flaws in
the pdf-specification and it is not likely to change.
The pgfpages can do all sorts of tricks with pages. The most important one for printing beamer slides is
the following command:
\usepackage{pgfpages}
\pgfpagesuselayout{resize to}[a4paper,border shrink=5mm,landscape]
This says “Resize all pages to landscape A4 pages, no matter what their original size was, but shrink the pages
by 5mm, so that there is a bit of a border around everything.” Naturally, instead of a4paper you can also use
letterpaper or any of the other standard paper sizes. For further options and details see the documentation
of pgfpages.
The second thing you might wish to do is to put several slides on a single page. This can be done as follows:
\usepackage{pgfpages}
\pgfpagesuselayout{2 on 1}[a4paper,border shrink=5mm]
This says “Put two pages on one page and then resize everything so that it fits on A4 paper.” Note that this
time we do not need landscape as the resulting page is, after all, not in landscape mode.
Instead of 2 on 1 you can also use 4 on 1, but then with landscape once more, and also 8 on 1 and even
16 on 1 to get a grand (though unreadable) overview.
If you put several slides on one page and if these slides normally have a white background, it may be useful
to write the following in your preamble:
\mode<handout>{\setbeamercolor{background canvas}{bg=black!5}}
This will cause the slides of the handout version to have a very light gray background. This makes it easy to
discern the slides’ border if several slides are put on one page.
31
/
5 Guidelines for Creating Presentations
In this section we sketch the guidelines that we try to stick to when we create presentations. These guidelines
either arise out of experience, out of common sense, or out of recommendations by other people or books. These
rules are certainly not intended as commandments that, if not followed, will result in catastrophe. The central
rule of typography also applies to creating presentations: Every rule can be broken, but no rule may be ignored.
5.1 Structuring a Presentation
5.1.1 Know the Time Constraints
When you start to create a presentation, the very first thing you should worry about is the amount of time you
have for your presentation. Depending on the occasion, this can be anything between 2 minutes and two hours.
∙A simple rule for the number of frames is that you should have at most one frame per minute.
∙In most situations, you will have less time for your presentation that you would like.
∙Do not try to squeeze more into a presentation than time allows for. No matter how important some detail
seems to you, it is better to leave it out, but get the main message across, than getting neither the main
message nor the detail across.
In many situations, a quick appraisal of how much time you have will show that you won’t be able to mention
certain details. Knowing this can save you hours of work on preparing slides that you would have to remove
later anyway.
5.1.2 Global Structure
To create the “global structure” of a presentation, with the time constraints in mind, proceed as follows:
∙Make a mental inventory of the things you can reasonably talk about within the time available.
∙Categorize the inventory into sections and subsections.
∙For very long talks (like a 90 minute lecture), you might also divide your talk into independent parts (like
a “review of the previous lecture part” and a “main part”) using the \part command. Note that each part
has its own table of contents.
∙Do not feel afraid to change the structure later on as you work on the talk.
Parts, Section, and Subsections.
∙Do not use more than four sections and not less than two per part.
Even four sections are usually too much, unless they follow a very easy pattern. Five and more sections are
simply too hard to remember for the audience. After all, when you present the table of contents, the audience
will not yet really be able to grasp the importance and relevance of the different sections and will most likely
have forgotten them by the time you reach them.
∙Ideally, a table of contents should be understandable by itself. In particular, it should be comprehensible
before someone has heard your talk.
∙Keep section and subsection titles self-explaining.
∙Both the sections and the subsections should follow a logical pattern.
32
∙Begin with an explanation of what your talk is all about. (Do not assume that everyone knows this.
The Ignorant Audience Law states: Someone important in the audience always knows less than you think
everyone should know, even if you take the Ignorant Audience Law into account.)
∙Then explain what you or someone else has found out concerning the subject matter.
∙Always conclude your talk with a summary that repeats the main message of the talk in a short and simple
way. People pay most attention at the beginning and at the end of talks. The summary is your “second
chance” to get across a message.
∙You can also add an appendix part using the \appendix command. Put everything into this part that you
do not actually intend to talk about, but that might come in handy when questions are asked.
∙Do not use subsubsections, they are evil.
Giving an Abstract In papers, the abstract gives a short summary of the whole paper in about 100 words.
This summary is intend to help readers appraise whether they should read the whole paper or not.
∙Since your audience is unlikely to flee after the first slide, in a presentation you usually do not need to
present an abstract.
∙However, if you can give a nice, succinct statement of your talk, you might wish to include an abstract.
∙If you include an abstract, be sure that it is not some long text but just a very short message.
∙Never, ever reuse a paper abstract for a presentation, except if the abstract is “We show P = NP” or “We
show P̸= NP”
∙If your abstract is one of the above two, double-check whether your proof is correct.
Numbered Theorems and Definitions. A common way of globally structuring (math) articles and books
is to use consecutively numbered definitions and theorems. Unfortunately, for presentations the situation is a
bit more complicated and we would like to discourage using numbered theorems in presentations. The audience
has no chance of remembering these numbers. Never say things like “now, by Theorem 2.5 that I showed you
earlier, we have . . . ” It would be much better to refer to, say, Kummer’s Theorem instead of Theorem 2.5. If
Theorem 2.5 is some obscure theorem that does not have its own name (unlike Kummer’s Theorem or Main
Theorem or Second Main Theorem or Key Lemma), then the audience will have forgotten about it anyway by
the time you refer to it again.
In our opinion, the only situation in which numbered theorems make sense in a presentation is in a lecture, in
which the students can read lecture notes in parallel to the lecture where the theorems are numbered in exactly
the same way.
If you do number theorems and definitions, number everything consecutively. Thus if there are one theorem,
one lemma, and one definition, you would have Theorem 1, Lemma 2, and Definition 3. Some people prefer all
three to be numbered 1. We would strongly like to discourage this. The problem is that this makes it virtually
impossible to find anything since Theorem 2 might come after Definition 10 or the other way round. Papers
and, worse, books that have a Theorem 1 and a Definition 1 are a pain.
∙Do not inflict pain on other people.
Bibliographies. You may also wish to present a bibliography at the end of your talk, so that people can see
what kind of “further reading” is possible. When adding a bibliography to a presentation, keep the following in
mind:
∙It is a bad idea to present a long bibliography in a presentation. Present only very few references. (Natu-
rally, this applies only to the talk itself, not to a possible handout.)
∙If you present more references than fit on a single slide you can be almost sure that none of them will be
remembered.
33
∙Present references only if they are intended as “further reading.” Do not present a list of all things you
used like in a paper.
∙You should not present a long list of all your other great papers except if you are giving an application
talk.
∙Using the \cite commands can be confusing since the audience has little chance of remembering the
citations. If you cite the references, always cite them with full author name and year like “[Tantau, 2003]”
instead of something like “[2,4]” or “[Tan01,NT02]”.
∙If you want to be modest, you can abbreviate your name when citing yourself as in “[Nickelsen and T.,
2003]” or “[Nickelsen and T, 2003]”. However, this can be confusing for the audience since it is often not
immediately clear who exactly “T.” might be. We recommend using the full name.
5.1.3 Frame Structure
Just like your whole presentation, each frame should also be structured. A frame that is solely filled with some
long text is very hard to follow. It is your job to structure the contents of each frame such that, ideally, the
audience immediately sees which information is important, which information is just a detail, how the presented
information is related, and so on.
The Frame Title
∙Put a title on each frame. The title explains the contents of the frame to people who did not follow all
details on the slide.
∙The title should really explain things, not just give a cryptic summary that cannot be understood unless
one has understood the whole slide. For example, a title like “The Poset” will have everyone puzzled what
this slide might be about. Titles like “Review of the Definition of Partially Ordered Sets (Posets)” or “A
Partial Ordering on the Columns of the Genotype Matrix” are much more informative.
∙Ideally, titles on consecutive frames should “tell a story” all by themselves.
∙In English, you should either always capitalize all words in a frame title except for words like “a” or “the”
(as in a title), or you always use the normal lowercase letters. Do not mix this; stick to one rule. The same
is true for block titles. For example, do not use titles like “A short Review of Turing machines.” Either
use “A Short Review of Turing Machines.” or “A short review of Turing machines.” (Turing is still spelled
with a capital letter since it is a name).
∙In English, the title of the whole document should be capitalized, regardless of whether you capitalize
anything else.
∙In German and other languages that have lots of capitalized words, always use the correct upper-/lowercase
letters. Never capitalize anything in addition to what is usually capitalized.
How Much Can I Put On a Frame?
∙A frame with too little on it is better than a frame with too much on it. A usual frame should have
between 20 and 40 words. The maximum should be at about 80 words.
∙Do not assume that everyone in the audience is an expert on the subject matter. Even if the people
listening to you should be experts, they may last have heard about things you consider obvious several
years ago. You should always have the time for a quick reminder of what exactly a “semantical complexity
class” or an “𝜔-complete partial ordering” is.
∙Never put anything on a slide that you are not going to explain during the talk, not even to impress anyone
with how complicated your subject matter really is. However, you may explain things that are not on a
slide.
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∙Keep it simple. Typically, your audience will see a slide for less than 50 seconds. They will not have the
time to puzzle through long sentences or complicated formulas.
∙Lance Fortnow, a professor of computer science, claims: PowerPoint users give better talks. His reason:
Since PowerPoint is so bad at typesetting math, they use less math, making their talks easier to understand.
There is some truth in this in our opinion. The great math-typesetting capabilities of T
E
X can easily lure
you into using many more formulas than is necessary and healthy. For example, instead of writing “Since
|{𝑥∈ {0,1}*|𝑥⊑𝑦}| <∞, we have. . . ” use “Since 𝑦has only finitely many prefixes, we have. . . ”
You will be surprised how much mathematical text can be reformulated in plain English or can just be
omitted. Naturally, if some mathematical argument is what you are actually talking about, as in a math
lecture, make use of T
E
X’s typesetting capabilities to your heart’s content.
Structuring a Frame
∙Use block environments like block,theorem,proof,example, and so on.
∙Prefer enumerations and itemize environments over plain text.
∙Use description when you define several things.
∙Do not use more than two levels of “subitemizing.” beamer supports three levels, but you should not use
that third level. Mostly, you should not even use the second one. Use good graphics instead.
∙Do not create endless itemize or enumerate lists.
∙Do not uncover lists piecewise.
∙Emphasis is an important part of creating structure. Use \alert to highlight important things. This can
be a single word or a whole sentence. However, do not overuse highlighting since this will negate the effect.
∙Use columns.
∙Never use footnotes. They needlessly disrupt the flow of reading. Either what is said in the footnote is
important and should be put in the normal text; or it is not important and should be omitted (especially
in a presentation).
∙Use quote or quotation to typeset quoted text.
∙Do not use the option allowframebreaks except for long bibliographies.
∙Do not use long bibliographies.
Writing the Text
∙Use short sentences.
∙Prefer phrases over complete sentences. For example, instead of “The figure on the left shows a Turing
machine, the figure on the right shows a finite automaton.” try “Left: A Turing machine. Right: A finite
automaton.” Even better, turn this into an itemize or a description.
∙Punctuate correctly: no punctuation after phrases, complete punctuation in and after complete sentences.
∙Never use a smaller font size to “fit more on a frame.” Never ever use the evil option shrink.
∙Do not hyphenate words. If absolutely necessary, hyphenate words “by hand,” using the command \-.
∙Break lines “by hand” using the command \\. Do not rely on automatic line breaking. Break where there
is a logical pause. For example, good breaks in “the tape alphabet is larger than the input alphabet” are
before “is” and before the second “the.” Bad breaks are before either “alphabet” and before “larger.”
∙Text and numbers in figures should have the same size as normal text. Illegible numbers on axes usually
ruin a chart and its message.
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5.1.4 Interactive Elements
Ideally, during a presentation you would like to present your slides in a perfectly linear fashion, presumably by
pressing the page-down-key once for each slide. However, there are different reasons why you might have to
deviate from this linear order:
∙Your presentation may contain “different levels of detail” that may or may not be skipped or expanded,
depending on the audience’s reaction.
∙You are asked questions and wish to show supplementary slides.
∙You present a complicated picture and you have to “zoom out” different parts to explain details.
∙You are asked questions about an earlier slide, which forces you to find and then jump to that slide.
You cannot really prepare against the last kind of questions. In this case, you can use the navigation bars
and symbols to find the slide you are interested in, see 8.2.3.
Concerning the first three kinds of deviations, there are several things you can do to prepare “planned
detours” or “planned short cuts”.
∙You can add “skip buttons.” When such a button is pressed, you jump over a well-defined part of your
talk. Skip button have two advantages over just pressing the forward key is rapid succession: first, you
immediately end up at the correct position and, second, the button’s label can give the audience a visual
feedback of what exactly will be skipped. For example, when you press a skip button labeled “Skip proof”
nobody will start puzzling over what he or she has missed.
∙You can add an appendix to your talk. The appendix is kept “perfectly separated” from the main talk. Only
once you “enter” the appendix part (presumably by hyperjumping into it), does the appendix structure
become visible. You can put all frames that you do not intend to show during the normal course of your
talk, but which you would like to have handy in case someone asks, into this appendix.
∙You can add “goto buttons” and “return buttons” to create detours. Pressing a goto button will jump to
a certain part of the presentation where extra details can be shown. In this part, there is a return button
present on each slide that will jump back to the place where the goto button was pressed.
∙In beamer, you can use the \againframe command to “continue” frames that you previously started
somewhere, but where certain details have been suppressed. You can use the \againframe command at a
much later point, for example only in the appendix to show additional slides there.
∙In beamer, you can use the \framezoom command to create links to zoomed out parts of a complicated
slide.
5.2 Using Graphics
Graphics often convey concepts or ideas much more efficiently than text: A picture can say more than a thousand
words. (Although, sometimes a word can say more than a thousand pictures.)
∙Put (at least) one graphic on each slide, whenever possible. Visualizations help an audience enormously.
∙Usually, place graphics to the left of the text. (Use the columns environment.) In a left-to-right reading
culture, we look at the left first.
∙Graphics should have the same typographic parameters as the text: Use the same fonts (at the same size)
in graphics as in the main text. A small dot in a graphic should have exactly the same size as a small dot
in a text. The line width should be the same as the stroke width used in creating the glyphs of the font.
For example, an 11pt non-bold Computer Modern font has a stroke width of 0.4pt.
∙While bitmap graphics, like photos, can be much more colorful than the rest of the text, vector graphics
should follow the same “color logic” as the main text (like black = normal lines, red = highlighted parts,
green = examples, blue = structure).
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∙Like text, you should explain everything that is shown on a graphic. Unexplained details make the audience
puzzle whether this was something important that they have missed. Be careful when importing graphics
from a paper or some other source. They usually have much more detail than you will be able to explain
and should be radically simplified.
∙Sometimes the complexity of a graphic is intentional and you are willing to spend much time explaining
the graphic in great detail. In this case, you will often run into the problem that fine details of the graphic
are hard to discern for the audience. In this case you should use a command like \framezoom to create
anticipated zoomings of interesting parts of the graphic, see Section 11.3.
5.3 Using Animations and Transitions
∙Use animations to explain the dynamics of systems, algorithms, etc.
∙Do not use animations just to attract the attention of your audience. This often distracts attention away
from the main topic of the slide. No matter how cute a rotating, flying theorem seems to look and no
matter how badly you feel your audience needs some action to keep it happy, most people in the audience
will typically feel you are making fun of them.
∙Do not use distracting special effects like “dissolving” slides unless you have a very good reason for using
them. If you use them, use them sparsely. They can be useful in some situations: For example, you might
show a young boy on a slide and might wish to dissolve this slide into a slide showing a grown man instead.
In this case, the dissolving gives the audience visual feedback that the young boy “slowly becomes” the
man.
5.4 Choosing Appropriate Themes
beamer comes with a number of different themes. When choosing a theme, keep the following in mind:
∙Different themes are appropriate for different occasions. Do not become too attached to a favorite theme;
choose a theme according to occasion.
∙A longer talk is more likely to require navigational hints than a short one. When you give a 90 minute
lecture to students, you should choose a theme that always shows a sidebar with the current topic high-
lighted so that everyone always knows exactly what’s the current “status” of your talk is; when you give
a ten-minute introductory speech, a table of contents is likely to just seem silly.
∙A theme showing the author’s name and affiliation is appropriate in situations where the audience is likely
not to know you (like during a conference). If everyone knows you, having your name on each slide is just
vanity.
∙First choose a presentation theme that has a layout that is appropriate for your talk.
∙Next you might wish to change the colors by installing a different color theme. This can drastically change
the appearance of your presentation. A “colorful” theme like Berkeley will look much less flashy if you
use the color themes seahorse and lily.
∙You might also wish to change the fonts by installing a different font theme.
5.5 Choosing Appropriate Colors
∙Use colors sparsely. The prepared themes are already quite colorful (blue = structure, red = alert, green =
example). If you add more colors for things like code, math text, etc., you should have a very good reason.
∙Be careful when using bright colors on white background, especially when using green. What looks good
on your monitor may look bad during a presentation due to the different ways monitors, beamers, and
printers reproduce colors. Add lots of black to pure colors when you use them on bright backgrounds.
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∙Maximize contrast. Normal text should be black on white or at least something very dark on something
very bright. Never do things like “light green text on not-so-light green background.”
∙Background shadings decrease the legibility without increasing the information content. Do not add a
background shading just because it “somehow looks nicer.”
∙Inverse video (bright text on dark background) can be a problem during presentations in bright environ-
ments since only a small percentage of the presentation area is light up by the beamer. Inverse video is
harder to reproduce on printouts and on transparencies.
5.6 Choosing Appropriate Fonts and Font Attributes
Text and fonts literally surround us constantly. Try to think of the last time when there was no text around you
within ten meters. Likely, this has never happened in your life! (Whenever you wear clothing, even a swim suit,
there is a lot of text right next to your body.) The history of fonts is nearly as long as the history of civilization
itself. There are tens of thousands of fonts available these days, some of which are the product of hundreds of
years of optimization.
Choosing the right fonts for a presentation is by no means trivial and wrong choices will either just “look
bad” or, worse, make the audience have trouble reading your slides. This user’s guide cannot replace a good
book on typography, but in the present section you’ll find several hints that should help you setup fonts for a
beamer presentation that look good. A font has numerous attributes like weight, family, or size. All of these
have an impact on the usability of the font in presentations. In the following, these attributes are described and
advantages and disadvantages of the different choices are sketched.
5.6.1 Font Size
Perhaps the most obvious attribute of a font is its size. Fonts are traditionally measured in “points.” How much
a point is depends on whom you ask. T
E
X thinks a point is the 72.27th part of an inch, which is 2.54 cm. On
the other hand, PostScript and Adobe think a point is the 72th part of an inch (T
E
X calls this a big point).
There are differences between American and European points. Once it is settled how much a point is, claiming
that a text is in “11pt” means that the “height” of the letters in the font are 11pt. However, this “height” stems
from the time when letters where still cast in lead and refers to the vertical size of the lead letters. It thus does
not need to have any correlation with the actual height of, say, the letter x or even the letter M. The letter x of
an 11pt Times from Adobe will have a height that is different from the height of the letter x of an 11pt Times
from UTC and the letter x of an 11pt Helvetica from Adobe will have yet another height.
Summing up, the font size has little to do with the actual size of letters. Rather, these days it is a convention
that 10pt or 11pt is the size a font should be printed for “normal reading.” Fonts are designed so that they can
optimally be read at these sizes.
In a presentation the classical font sizes obviously lose their meaning. Nobody could read a projected text
if it were actually 11pt. Instead, the projected letters need to be several centimetres high. Thus, it does not
really make sense to specify “font sizes” for presentations in the usual way. Instead, you should try to think of
the number of lines that will fit on a slide if you were to fill the whole slide with line-by-line text (you are never
going to do that in practice, though). Depending on how far your audience is removed from the projection and
on how large the projection is, between 10 and 20 lines should fit on each slide. The less lines, the more readable
your text will be.
In beamer, the default sizes of the fonts are chosen in a way that makes it difficult to fit “too much” onto
a slide. Also, it will ensure that your slides are readable even under bad conditions like a large room and only
a small projection area. However, you may wish to enlarge or shrink the fonts a bit if you know this to be more
appropriate in your presentation environment.
Once the size of the normal text is settled, all other sizes are usually defined relative to that size. For this
reason, L
A
T
E
X has commands like \large or \small. The actual size these commands select depends on the size
of normal text.
In a presentation, you will want to use a very small font for text in headlines, footlines, or sidebars since
the text shown there is not vital and is read at the audience’s leisure. Naturally, the text should still be large
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enough that it actually can be read without binoculars. However, in a normal presentation environment the
audience will still be able to read even \tiny text when necessary.
However, using small fonts can be tricky. Many PostScript fonts are just scaled down when used at small
sizes. When a font is used at less than its normal size, the characters should actually be stroked using a slightly
thicker “pen” than the one resulting from just scaling things. For this reason, high quality multiple master fonts
or the Computer Modern fonts use different fonts for small characters and for normal characters. However, when
you use a normal Helvetica or Times font, the characters are just scaled down. A similar problem arises when
you use a light font on a dark background. Even when printed on paper in high resolution, light-on-dark text
tends to be “overflooded” by the dark background. When light-on-dark text is rendered in a presentation this
effect can be much worse, making the text almost impossible to read.
You can counter both negative effects by using a bold version for small text.
In the other direction, you can use larger text for titles. However, using a larger font does not always have
the desired effect. Just because a frame title is printed in large letters does not mean that it is read first. Indeed,
have a look at the cover of your favorite magazine. Most likely, the magazine’s name is the typeset in the largest
font, but your attention will nevertheless first go to the topics advertised on the cover. Likewise, in the table
of contents you are likely to first focus on the entries, not on the words “Table of Contents.” Most likely, you
would not spot a spelling mistake there (a friend of mine actually managed to misspell his own name on the
cover of his master’s thesis and nobody noticed until a year later). In essence, large text at the top of a page
signals “unimportant since I know what to expect.” So, instead of using a very large frame title, also consider
using a normal size frame title that is typeset in bold or in italics.
5.6.2 Font Families
The other central property of any font is its family. Examples of font families are Times or Helvetica or Futura.
As the name suggests, a lot of different fonts can belong to the same family. For example, Times comes in
different sizes, there is a bold version of Times, an italics version, and so on. To confuse matters, font families
like Times are often just called the “font Times.”
There are two large classes of font families: serif fonts and sans-serif fonts. A sans-serif font is a font in
which the letters do not have serifs (from French sans, which means “without”). Serifs are the little hooks at the
ending of the strokes that make up a letter. The font you are currently reading is a serif font. By comparison,
this text is in a sans-serif font. Sans-serif fonts are (generally considered to be) easier to read when used in a
presentation. In low resolution rendering, serifs decrease the legibility of a font. However, on projectors with
very high resolution serif text is just as readable as sans-serif text. A presentation typeset in a serif font creates
a more conservative impression, which might be exactly what you wish to create.
Most likely, you’ll have a lot of different font families preinstalled on your system. The default font used
by T
E
X (and beamer) is the Computer Modern font. It is the original font family designed by Donald Knuth
himself for the T
E
X program. It is a mature font that comes with just about everything you could wish for:
extensive mathematical alphabets, outline PostScript versions, real small caps, real oldstyle numbers, specially
designed small and large letters, and so on.
However, there are reasons for using font families other than Computer Modern:
∙The Computer Modern fonts are a bit boring if you have seen them too often. Using another font (but
not Times!) can give a fresh look.
∙Other fonts, especially Times and Helvetica, are sometime rendered better since they seem to have better
internal hinting.
∙The sans-serif version of Computer Modern is not nearly as well-designed as the serif version. Indeed,
the sans-serif version is, in essence, the serif version with different design parameters, not an independent
design.
∙Computer modern needs much more space than more economic fonts like Times (this explains why Times
is so popular with people who need to squeeze their great paper into just twelve pages). To be fair, Times
was specifically designed to be economic (the newspaper company publishing The Times needed robust,
but space-economic font).
A small selection of alternatives to Computer Modern:
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∙Latin Modern is a Computer Modern derivate that provides more characters, so it’s not considered a real
alternative. It’s recommended over Computer Modern, though.
∙Helvetica is an often used alternative. However, Helvetica also tends to look boring (since we see it
everywhere) and it has a very large x-height (the height of the letter x in comparison to a letter like M).
A large x-height is usually considered good for languages (like English) that use uppercase letters seldom
and not-so-good for languages (like German) that use uppercase letters a lot. (We have never been quite
convinced by the argument for this, though.) Be warned: the x-height of Helvetica is so different from the
x-height of Times that mixing the two in a single line looks strange. The packages for loading Times and
Helvetica provide options for fixing this, though.
∙Futura is, in our opinion, a beautiful font that is very well-suited for presentations. Its thick letters make
it robust against scaling, inversion, and low contrast. Unfortunately, while it is most likely installed on
your system somewhere in some form, getting T
E
X to work with it is a complicated process. However, it
has been made a lot simpler with modern typesetting engines such as luatex and xetex.
∙Times is a possible alternative to Computer Modern. Its main disadvantage is that it is a serif font, which
requires a high-resolution projector. Naturally, it also used very often, so we all know it very well.
∙DejaVu, a derivate of Bitstream Vera is also a very good and free alternative. TrueType version that comes
with OpenOffice.org is complicated to get to work with T
E
X, but arev L
A
T
E
X package provides an easy
way to use Type 1 version named Bera. It has both sans-serif and serif versions; arev provides both.
Families that you should not use for normal text include:
∙All monospaced fonts (like Courier).
∙Script fonts (which look like handwriting). Their stroke width is way too small for a presentation.
∙More delicate serif fonts like Stempel and possibly even Garamond (though Garamond is really a beautiful
font for books).
∙Gothic fonts. Only a small fraction of your audience will be able to read them fluently.
There is one popular font that is a bit special: Microsoft’s Comic Sans. On the one hand, there is a website
lobbying for banning the use of this font. Indeed, the main trouble with the font is that it is not particularly
well-readable and that math typeset partly using this font looks terrible. On the other hand, this font does
create the impression of a slide “written by hand,” which gives the presentation a natural look. Think twice
before using this font, but do not let yourself be intimidated.
One of the most important rules of typography is that you should use as little fonts as possible in a text. In
particular, typographic wisdom dictates that you should not use more than two different families on one page.
However, when typesetting mathematical text, it is often necessary and useful to use different font families. For
example, it used to be common practice to use Gothic letters to denote vectors. Also, program texts are often
typeset in monospace fonts. If your audience is used to a certain font family for a certain type of text, use that
family, regardless of what typographic wisdom says.
A common practice in typography is to use a sans-serif fonts for titles and serif fonts for normal text (check
your favorite magazine). You can also use two different sans-serif fonts or two different serif fonts, but you then
have to make sure that the fonts look “sufficiently different.” If they look only slightly different, the page will look
“somehow strange,” but the audience will not be able to tell why. For example, do not mix Arial and Helvetica
(they are almost identical) or Computer Modern and Baskerville (they are quite similar). A combination of Gills
Sans and Helvetica is dangerous but perhaps possible. A combination like Futura and Optima is certainly OK,
at least with respect to the fonts being very different.
5.6.3 Font Shapes: Italics and Small Capitals
L
A
T
E
X introduces the concept of the shape of a font. The only really important ones are italic and small caps.
An italic font is a font in which the text is slightly slanted to the right like this. Things to know about italics:
40
∙Italics are commonly used in novels to express emphasis. However, especially with sans-serif fonts, italics
are typically not “strong enough” and the emphasis gets lost in a presentation. Using a different color or
bold text seems better suited for presentations to create emphasis.
∙If you look closely, you will notice that italic text is not only slanted but that different letters are actually
used (compare a and a, for example). However, this is only true for serif text, not for sans-serif text. Text
that is only slanted without using different characters is called “slanted” instead of “italic.” Sometimes,
the word “oblique” is also used for slanted, but it sometimes also used for italics, so it is perhaps best to
avoid it. Using slanted serif text is very much frowned upon by typographers and is considered “cheap
computer typography.” However, people who use slanted text in their books include Donald Knuth.
In a presentation, if you go to the trouble of using a serif font for some part of it, you should also use
italics, not slanted text.
∙The different characters used for serif italics have changed much less from the original handwritten letters
they are based on than normal serif text. For this reason, serif italics creates the impression of handwritten
text, which may be desirable to give a presentation a more “personal touch” (although you can’t get very
personal using Times italics, which everyone has seen a thousand times). However, it is harder to read
than normal text, so do not use it for text more than a line long.
The second font shape supported by T
E
X are small capital letters. Using them can create a conservative,
even formal impression, but some words of caution:
∙Small capitals are different from all-uppercase text. A small caps text leaves normal uppercase letters
unchanged and uses smaller versions of the uppercase letters for normal typesetting lowercase letters.
Thus the word “German” is typeset as German using small caps, but as GERMAN using all uppercase
letters.
∙Small caps either come as “faked” small caps or as “real” small caps. Faked small caps are created by
just scaling down normal uppercase letters. This leads to letters the look too thin. Real small caps are
specially designed smaller versions of the uppercase letters that have the same stroke width as normal text.
∙Computer Modern fonts and expert version of PostScript fonts come with real small caps (though the small
caps of Computer Modern are one point size too large for some unfathomable reason—but your audience
is going to pardon this since it will not be noticed anyway). “Simple” PostScript fonts like out-of-the-box
Helvetica or Times only come with faked small caps.
∙Text typeset in small caps is harder to read than normal text. The reason is that we read by seeing the
“shape” of words. For example, the word “shape” is mainly recognized by seing one normal letter, one
ascending letter, a normal letter, one descending letter, and a normal letter. One has much more trouble
spotting a misspelling like “shepe” than “spape”. Small caps destroy the shape of words since shape,
shepe and spape all have the same shape, thus making it much harder to tell them apart. Your audience
will read small caps more slowly than normal text. This is, by the way, why legal disclaimers are often
written in uppercase letters: not to make them appear more important to you, but to make them much
harder to actually read.
5.6.4 Font Weight
The “weight” of a font refers to the thickness of the letters. Usually, fonts come as regular or as bold fonts.
There often also exist semibold, ultrabold (or black), thin, or ultrathin (or hair) versions.
In typography, using a bold font to create emphasis, especially within normal text, is frowned upon (bold
words in the middle of a normal text are referred to as “dirt”). For presentations this rule of not using bold
text does not really apply. On a presentation slide there is usually very little text and there are numerous
elements that try to attract the viewer’s attention. Using the traditional italics to create emphasis will often be
overlooked. So, using bold text, seems a good alternative in a presentation. However, an even better alternative
is using a bright color like red to attract attention.
As pointed out earlier, you should use bold text for small text unless you use an especially robust font like
Futura or DejaVu.
41
6 Solution Templates
In the subdirectories of the directory beamer/solutions you will find solution templates in different languages.
A solution template is a T
E
X-text that “solves” a specific problem. Such a problem might be “I need to create
a 20 minute talk for a conference” or “I want to create a slide that introduces the next speaker” or “I want to
create a table that is uncovered piecewise.” For such a problem, a solution template consists of a mixture of a
template and an example that can be used to solve this particular problem. Just copy the solution template file
(or parts of it) and freely adjust them to your needs.
The collecting of beamer solution templates has only begun and currently there are only very few of them.
We hope that in the future more solutions will become available and we would like to encourage users of the
beamer class to send us solutions they develop. We would also like to encourage users to help in translating
solutions to languages other than English and German. If you have written a solution or a translation, please
feel free to send it to us (make sure however, that it contains about the same amount of explanations and
justifications as do the existing solutions).
The following list of solution templates is sorted by the length of the talks for which they provide a template.
As always, the solutions can be found in the directory beamer/solutions.
Solution Template short-talks/speaker_introduction-ornate-2min
∙Introducing another speaker.
∙Talk length is about 2min.
∙Ornate style.
presen-
tation T
E
X-version available in languages de,en, and fr.
Solution Template generic-talks/generic-ornate-15min-45min
∙Generic solution template for talks on any subject.
∙Talk length is between 15min and 45min.
∙Ornate style.
presen-
tation T
E
X-version available in languages de,en, and fr.
Solution Template conference-talks/conference-ornate-20min
∙Talk at a conference/colloquium.
∙Talk length is about 20 minutes.
∙Ornate style.
presen-
tation T
E
X-version available in languages de,en, and fr.
42
7 Licenses and Copyright
7.1 Which License Applies?
Different parts of the beamer package are distributed under different licenses:
1. The code of the package is dual-license. This means that you can decide which license you wish to use
when using the beamer package. The two options are:
(a) You can use the gnu General Public License, Version 2 or any later version published by the Free
Software Foundation.
(b) You can use the L
A
T
E
X Project Public License, version 1.3c or (at your option) any later version.
2. The documentation of the package is also dual-license. Again, you can choose between two options:
(a) You can use the gnu Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the
Free Software Foundation.
(b) You can use the L
A
T
E
X Project Public License, version 1.3c or (at your option) any later version.
The “documentation of the package” refers to all files in the subdirectory doc of the beamer pack-
age. A detailed listing can be found in the file doc/licenses/manifest-documentation.txt. All files
in other directories are part of the “code of the package.” A detailed listing can be found in the file
doc/licenses/manifest-code.txt.
In the rest of this section, the licenses are presented. The following text is copyrighted, see the plain text
versions of these licenses in the directory doc/licenses for details.
7.2 The GNU General Public License, Version 2
7.2.1 Preamble
The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast,
the gnu General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software—to
make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
Foundation’s software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software
Foundation software is covered by the gnu Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your
programs, too.
When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are
designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service
if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use
pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you
to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of
the software, or if you modify it.
For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the
recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code.
And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.
We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives
you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.
Also, for each author’s protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there
is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its
recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not
reflect on the original authors’ reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that
redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary.
To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone’s free use or not licensed
at all.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.
43
7.2.2 Terms and Conditions For Copying, Distribution and Modification
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder
saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The “Program”, below,
refers to any such program or work, and a “work based on the Program” means either the Program or
any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation
is included without limitation in the term “modification”.) Each licensee is addressed as “you”.
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are
outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is
covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by
running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program’s source code as you receive it, in any medium,
provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice
and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any
warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty
protection in exchange for a fee.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the
Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided
that you also meet all of these conditions:
(a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and
the date of any change.
(b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived
from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under
the terms of this License.
(c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when
started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement
including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that
you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and
telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive
but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required
to print an announcement.)
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not
derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves,
then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works.
But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the
distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend
to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by
you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works
based on the Program.
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a
work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other
work under the scope of this License.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or
executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
(a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be dis-
tributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software
interchange; or,
44
(b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge
no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable
copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above
on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
(c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source
code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the
program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsubsection b above.)
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For
an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the
executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is
normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and
so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies
the executable.
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place,
then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the
source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this
License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will
automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or
rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain
in full compliance.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants
you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited
by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any
work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and
conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically
receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these
terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients’ exercise of the rights
granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not
limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise)
that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License.
If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other
pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a
patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies
directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be
to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circumstance, the balance
of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.
It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other property right claims
or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of
the free software distribution system, which is implemented by public license practices. Many people have
made generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance
on consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing to
distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice.
This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of this
License.
45
8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by
copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add
an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted
only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if
written in the body of this License.
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from
time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
address new problems or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of
this License which applies to it and “any later version”, you have the option of following the terms and
conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the
Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by
the Free Software Foundation.
10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are
different, write to the author to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software
Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision
will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of
promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
7.2.3 No Warranty
10. Because the program is licensed free of charge, there is no warranty for the program, to the extent permitted
by applicable law. Except when otherwise stated in writing the copyright holders and/or other parties
provide the program “as is” without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not
limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk
as to the quality and performance of the program is with you. Should the program prove defective, you
assume the cost of all necessary servicing, repair or correction.
11. In no event unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing will any copyright holder, or any other
party who may modify and/or redistribute the program as permitted above, be liable to you for damages,
including any general, special, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use or inability to
use the program (including but not limited to loss of data or data being rendered inaccurate or losses
sustained by you or third parties or a failure of the program to operate with any other programs), even if
such holder or other party has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
7.3 The GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3, 3 November 2008
Copyright c
○2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
http://fsf.org/
Everyone is allowed to distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but modification of it is
not allowed.
7.3.1 Preamble
The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or other functional and useful document “free” in the
sense of freedom: to assure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it, with or without modifying
it, either commercially or noncommercially. Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a
way to get credit for their work, while not being considered responsible for modifications made by others.
This License is a kind of “copyleft”, which means that derivative works of the document must themselves be
free in the same sense. It complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft license designed for
free software.
We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for free software, because free software needs
free documentation: a free program should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that the software
46
does. But this License is not limited to software manuals; it can be used for any textual work, regardless of
subject matter or whether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this License principally for works
whose purpose is instruction or reference.
7.3.2 Applicability and definitions
This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyright
holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice grants a world-wide, royalty-
free license, unlimited in duration, to use that work under the conditions stated herein. The “Document”,
below, refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is a licensee, and is addressed as “you”.
You accept the license if you copy, modify or distribute the work in a way requiring permission under copyright
law.
A“Modified Version” of the Document means any work containing the Document or a portion of it, either
copied verbatim, or with modifications and/or translated into another language.
A“Secondary Section” is a named appendix or a front-matter section of the Document that deals ex-
clusively with the relationship of the publishers or authors of the Document to the Document’s overall subject
(or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directly within that overall subject. (Thus, if the
Document is in part a textbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain any mathematics.) The
relationship could be a matter of historical connection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal,
commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regarding them.
The “Invariant Sections” are certain Secondary Sections whose titles are designated, as being those of
Invariant Sections, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. If a section does
not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is not allowed to be designated as Invariant. The Document
may contain zero Invariant Sections. If the Document does not identify any Invariant Sections then there are
none.
The “Cover Texts” are certain short passages of text that are listed, as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover
Texts, in the notice that says that the Document is released under this License. A Front-Cover Text may be at
most 5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may be at most 25 words.
A“Transparent” copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy, represented in a format whose
specification is available to the general public, that is suitable for revising the document straightforwardly with
generic text editors or (for images composed of pixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely
available drawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters or for automatic translation to a variety
of formats suitable for input to text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent file format whose
markup, or absence of markup, has been arranged to thwart or discourage subsequent modification by readers
is not Transparent. An image format is not Transparent if used for any substantial amount of text. A copy that
is not “Transparent” is called “Opaque”.
Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plain ASCII without markup, Texinfo input
format, LaTeX input format, SGML or XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming simple
HTML, PostScript or PDF designed for human modification. Examples of transparent image formats include
PNG, XCF and JPG. Opaque formats include proprietary formats that can be read and edited only by propri-
etary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/or processing tools are not generally available,
and the machine-generated HTML, PostScript or PDF produced by some word processors for output purposes
only.
The “Title Page” means, for a printed book, the title page itself, plus such following pages as are needed
to hold, legibly, the material this License requires to appear in the title page. For works in formats which do
not have any title page as such, “Title Page” means the text near the most prominent appearance of the work’s
title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text.
The “publisher” means any person or entity that distributes copies of the Document to the public.
A section “Entitled XYZ” means a named subunit of the Document whose title either is precisely XYZ or
contains XYZ in parentheses following text that translates XYZ in another language. (Here XYZ stands for a
specific section name mentioned below, such as “Acknowledgements”,“Dedications”,“Endorsements”,
or “History”.) To “Preserve the Title” of such a section when you modify the Document means that it
remains a section “Entitled XYZ” according to this definition.
The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice which states that this License applies
47
to the Document. These Warranty Disclaimers are considered to be included by reference in this License, but
only as regards disclaiming warranties: any other implication that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is void
and has no effect on the meaning of this License.
7.3.3 Verbatim Copying
You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, either commercially or noncommercially, provided
that this License, the copyright notices, and the license notice saying this License applies to the Document are
reproduced in all copies, and that you add no other conditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not
use technical measures to obstruct or control the reading or further copying of the copies you make or distribute.
However, you may accept compensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enough number of copies
you must also follow the conditions in section 3.
You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, and you may publicly display copies.
7.3.4 Copying in Quantity
If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly have printed covers) of the Document, numbering
more than 100, and the Document’s license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose the copies in covers
that carry, clearly and legibly, all these Cover Texts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover
Texts on the back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identify you as the publisher of these copies.
The front cover must present the full title with all words of the title equally prominent and visible. You may add
other material on the covers in addition. Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preserve
the title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treated as verbatim copying in other respects.
If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fit legibly, you should put the first ones listed (as
many as fit reasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacent pages.
If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numbering more than 100, you must either
include a machine-readable Transparent copy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque
copy a computer-network location from which the general network-using public has access to download using
public-standard network protocols a complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material. If you
use the latter option, you must take reasonably prudent steps, when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in
quantity, to ensure that this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the stated location until at least
one year after the last time you distribute an Opaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of that
edition to the public.
It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of the Document well before redistributing
any large number of copies, to give them a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document.
7.3.5 Modifications
You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3
above, provided that you release the Modified Version under precisely this License, with the Modified Version
filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distribution and modification of the Modified Version to whoever
possesses a copy of it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:
A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from those
of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document).
You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.
B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the
modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document
(all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement.
C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.
D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.
E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.
48
F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the
Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.
G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in the
Document’s license notice.
H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.
I. Preserve the section Entitled “History”, Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the
title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no
section Entitled “History” in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of
the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in
the previous sentence.
J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy of the
Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous versions it was based
on. These may be placed in the “History” section. You may omit a network location for a work that was
published at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version it refers
to gives permission.
K. For any section Entitled “Acknowledgements” or “Dedications”, Preserve the Title of the section, and
preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements and/or
dedications given therein.
L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section
numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.
M. Delete any section Entitled “Endorsements”. Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version.
N. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled “Endorsements” or to conflict in title with any Invariant
Section.
O. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers.
If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections or appendices that qualify as Secondary Sections
and contain no material copied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or all of these
sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to the list of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version’s license
notice. These titles must be distinct from any other section titles.
You may add a section Entitled “Endorsements”, provided it contains nothing but endorsements of your
Modified Version by various parties–for example, statements of peer review or that the text has been approved
by an organization as the authoritative definition of a standard.
You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and a passage of up to 25 words as a
Back-Cover Text, to the end of the list of Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage of Front-Cover
Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (or through arrangements made by) any one entity. If the
Document already includes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you or by arrangement made
by the same entity you are acting on behalf of, you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on
explicit permission from the previous publisher that added the old one.
The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this License give permission to use their names
for publicity for or to assert or imply endorsement of any Modified Version.
7.3.6 Combining Documents
You may combine the Document with other documents released under this License, under the terms defined in
section 4 above for modified versions, provided that you include in the combination all of the Invariant Sections
of all of the original documents, unmodified, and list them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in
its license notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers.
The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, and multiple identical Invariant Sections
may be replaced with a single copy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name but different
49
contents, make the title of each such section unique by adding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the
original author or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number. Make the same adjustment to
the section titles in the list of Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work.
In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled “History” in the various original documents,
forming one section Entitled “History”; likewise combine any sections Entitled “Acknowledgements”, and any
sections Entitled “Dedications”. You must delete all sections Entitled “Endorsements”.
7.3.7 Collection of Documents
You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documents released under this License, and
replace the individual copies of this License in the various documents with a single copy that is included in the
collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License for verbatim copying of each of the documents in
all other respects.
You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distribute it individually under this License,
provided you insert a copy of this License into the extracted document, and follow this License in all other
respects regarding verbatim copying of that document.
7.3.8 Aggregating with Independent Works
A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works, in
or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an “aggregate” if the copyright resulting from the
compilation is not used to limit the legal rights of the compilation’s users beyond what the individual works
permit. When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does not apply to the other works in the
aggregate which are not themselves derivative works of the Document.
If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to these copies of the Document, then if the Document
is less than one half of the entire aggregate, the Document’s Cover Texts may be placed on covers that bracket
the Document within the aggregate, or the electronic equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form.
Otherwise they must appear on printed covers that bracket the whole aggregate.
7.3.9 Translation
Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may distribute translations of the Document under
the terms of section 4. Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires special permission from their
copyright holders, but you may include translations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to the original
versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include a translation of this License, and all the license notices
in the Document, and any Warranty Disclaimers, provided that you also include the original English version of
this License and the original versions of those notices and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement between the
translation and the original version of this License or a notice or disclaimer, the original version will prevail.
If a section in the Document is Entitled “Acknowledgements”, “Dedications”, or “History”, the requirement
(section 4) to Preserve its Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actual title.
7.3.10 Termination
You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document except as expressly provided under this
License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute it is void, and will automatically
terminate your rights under this License.
However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular copyright holder is
reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your license,
and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior
to 60 days after the cessation.
Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder
notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice of violation
of this License (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your
receipt of the notice.
50
Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate the licenses of parties who have received
copise or rights from you under this License. If your rights have been terminated and not permanently reinstated,
receipt of a copy of some or all of the same material does not give you any rights to use it.
7.3.11 Future Revisions of this License
The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versions of the GNU Free Documentation License from
time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address
new problems or concerns. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/.
Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number. If the Document specifies that a
particular numbered version of this License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of following
the terms and conditions either of that specified version or of any later version that has been published (not as
a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a version number of this License,
you may choose any version ever published (not as a draft) by the Free Software Foundation. If the Document
specifies that a proxy can decide which future versions of this License can be used, that proxy’s public statement
of acceptance of a version permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Document.
7.3.12 Relicensing
“Massive Multiauthor Collaboration Site” (or “MMC Site”) means any World Wide Web server that publishes
copyrightable works and also provides prominent facilities for anybody to edit those works. A public wiki that
anybody can edit is an example of such a server. A “Massive Multiauthor Collaboration” (or “MMC”) contained
in the site means any set of copyrightable works thus published on the MMC site.
“CC-BY-SA” means the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license published by Creative Com-
mons Corporation, a not-for-profit corporation with a principal place of business in San Francisco, California,
as well as future copyleft versions of that license published by that same organization.
“Incorporate” means to publish or republish a Document, in whole or in part, as part of another Document.
An MMC is “eligible for relicensing” if it is licensed under this License, and if all works that were first
published under this License somewhere other than this MMC, and subsequently incorporated in whole or
in part into the MMC, (1) had no cover texts or invariant sections, and (2) were thus incorporated prior to
November 1, 2008.
The operator of an MMC Site may republish an MMC contained in the site under CC-BY-SA on the same
site at any time before August 1, 2009, provided the MMC is eligible for relicensing.
7.3.13 Addendum: How to use this License for your documents
To use this License in a document you have written, include a copy of the License in the document and put the
following copyright and license notices just after the title page:
Copyright c
○year your name.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU
Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foun-
dation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the
license is included in the section entitled “GNU Free Documentation License”.
If you have Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts and Back-Cover Texts, replace the “with . . . Texts.” line
with this:
with the Invariant Sections being list their titles, with the Front-Cover Texts being list, and
with the Back-Cover Texts being list.
51
If you have Invariant Sections without Cover Texts, or some other combination of the three, merge those two
alternatives to suit the situation.
If your document contains nontrivial examples of program code, we recommend releasing these examples in
parallel under your choice of free software license, such as the GNU General Public License, to permit their use
in free software.
7.4 The L
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T
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X Project Public License
LPPL Version 1.3c 2008-05-04
Copyright 1999, 2002–2008 L
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T
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X3 Project
Everyone is allowed to distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but modification of it
is not allowed.
7.4.1 Preamble
The L
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T
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X Project Public License (lppl) is the primary license under which the L
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T
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X kernel and the base L
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X
packages are distributed.
You may use this license for any work of which you hold the copyright and which you wish to distribute.
This license may be particularly suitable if your work is T
E
X-related (such as a L
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X package), but it is written
in such a way that you can use it even if your work is unrelated to T
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X.
The section ‘WHETHER AND HOW TO DISTRIBUTE WORKS UNDER THIS LICENSE’, below, gives
instructions, examples, and recommendations for authors who are considering distributing their works under
this license.
This license gives conditions under which a work may be distributed and modified, as well as conditions
under which modified versions of that work may be distributed.
We, the L
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X3 Project, believe that the conditions below give you the freedom to make and distribute
modified versions of your work that conform with whatever technical specifications you wish while maintaining
the availability, integrity, and reliability of that work. If you do not see how to achieve your goal while meeting
these conditions, then read the document ‘cfgguide.tex’ and ‘modguide.tex’ in the base L
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X distribution
for suggestions.
7.4.2 Definitions
In this license document the following terms are used:
Work Any work being distributed under this License.
Derived Work Any work that under any applicable law is derived from the Work.
Modification Any procedure that produces a Derived Work under any applicable law – for example, the
production of a file containing an original file associated with the Work or a significant portion of such a
file, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language.
Modify To apply any procedure that produces a Derived Work under any applicable law.
Distribution Making copies of the Work available from one person to another, in whole or in part. Distribution
includes (but is not limited to) making any electronic components of the Work accessible by file transfer
protocols such as ftp or http or by shared file systems such as Sun’s Network File System (nfs).
Compiled Work A version of the Work that has been processed into a form where it is directly usable on a
computer system. This processing may include using installation facilities provided by the Work, trans-
formations of the Work, copying of components of the Work, or other activities. Note that modification
of any installation facilities provided by the Work constitutes modification of the Work.
Current Maintainer A person or persons nominated as such within the Work. If there is no such explicit
nomination then it is the ‘Copyright Holder’ under any applicable law.
52
Base Interpreter A program or process that is normally needed for running or interpreting a part or the whole
of the Work.
A Base Interpreter may depend on external components but these are not considered part of the Base
Interpreter provided that each external component clearly identifies itself whenever it is used interactively.
Unless explicitly specified when applying the license to the Work, the only applicable Base Interpreter is
a ‘L
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X-Format’ or in the case of files belonging to the ‘L
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T
E
X-format’ a program implementing the ‘T
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X
language’.
7.4.3 Conditions on Distribution and Modification
1. Activities other than distribution and/or modification of the Work are not covered by this license; they
are outside its scope. In particular, the act of running the Work is not restricted and no requirements are
made concerning any offers of support for the Work.
2. You may distribute a complete, unmodified copy of the Work as you received it. Distribution of only part
of the Work is considered modification of the Work, and no right to distribute such a Derived Work may
be assumed under the terms of this clause.
3. You may distribute a Compiled Work that has been generated from a complete, unmodified copy of the
Work as distributed under Clause 2 above, as long as that Compiled Work is distributed in such a way
that the recipients may install the Compiled Work on their system exactly as it would have been installed
if they generated a Compiled Work directly from the Work.
4. If you are the Current Maintainer of the Work, you may, without restriction, modify the Work, thus creating
a Derived Work. You may also distribute the Derived Work without restriction, including Compiled Works
generated from the Derived Work. Derived Works distributed in this manner by the Current Maintainer
are considered to be updated versions of the Work.
5. If you are not the Current Maintainer of the Work, you may modify your copy of the Work, thus creating
a Derived Work based on the Work, and compile this Derived Work, thus creating a Compiled Work based
on the Derived Work.
6. If you are not the Current Maintainer of the Work, you may distribute a Derived Work provided the
following conditions are met for every component of the Work unless that component clearly states in the
copyright notice that it is exempt from that condition. Only the Current Maintainer is allowed to add
such statements of exemption to a component of the Work.
(a) If a component of this Derived Work can be a direct replacement for a component of the Work when
that component is used with the Base Interpreter, then, wherever this component of the Work identi-
fies itself to the user when used interactively with that Base Interpreter, the replacement component of
this Derived Work clearly and unambiguously identifies itself as a modified version of this component
to the user when used interactively with that Base Interpreter.
(b) Every component of the Derived Work contains prominent notices detailing the nature of the changes
to that component, or a prominent reference to another file that is distributed as part of the Derived
Work and that contains a complete and accurate log of the changes.
(c) No information in the Derived Work implies that any persons, including (but not limited to) the
authors of the original version of the Work, provide any support, including (but not limited to) the
reporting and handling of errors, to recipients of the Derived Work unless those persons have stated
explicitly that they do provide such support for the Derived Work.
(d) You distribute at least one of the following with the Derived Work:
i. A complete, unmodified copy of the Work; if your distribution of a modified component is made by
offering access to copy the modified component from a designated place, then offering equivalent
access to copy the Work from the same or some similar place meets this condition, even though
third parties are not compelled to copy the Work along with the modified component;
ii. Information that is sufficient to obtain a complete, unmodified copy of the Work.
53
7. If you are not the Current Maintainer of the Work, you may distribute a Compiled Work generated from
a Derived Work, as long as the Derived Work is distributed to all recipients of the Compiled Work, and
as long as the conditions of Clause 6, above, are met with regard to the Derived Work.
8. The conditions above are not intended to prohibit, and hence do not apply to, the modification, by any
method, of any component so that it becomes identical to an updated version of that component of the
Work as it is distributed by the Current Maintainer under Clause 4, above.
9. Distribution of the Work or any Derived Work in an alternative format, where the Work or that Derived
Work (in whole or in part) is then produced by applying some process to that format, does not relax or
nullify any sections of this license as they pertain to the results of applying that process.
10. (a) A Derived Work may be distributed under a different license provided that license itself honors the
conditions listed in Clause 6 above, in regard to the Work, though it does not have to honor the rest
of the conditions in this license.
(b) If a Derived Work is distributed under a different license, that Derived Work must provide sufficient
documentation as part of itself to allow each recipient of that Derived Work to honor the restrictions
in Clause 6 above, concerning changes from the Work.
11. This license places no restrictions on works that are unrelated to the Work, nor does this license place any
restrictions on aggregating such works with the Work by any means.
12. Nothing in this license is intended to, or may be used to, prevent complete compliance by all parties with
all applicable laws.
7.4.4 No Warranty
There is no warranty for the Work. Except when otherwise stated in writing, the Copyright Holder provides
the Work ‘as is’, without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the
implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. The entire risk as to the quality and
performance of the Work is with you. Should the Work prove defective, you assume the cost of all necessary
servicing, repair, or correction.
In no event unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing will The Copyright Holder, or any
author named in the components of the Work, or any other party who may distribute and/or modify the Work
as permitted above, be liable to you for damages, including any general, special, incidental or consequential
damages arising out of any use of the Work or out of inability to use the Work (including, but not limited to,
loss of data, data being rendered inaccurate, or losses sustained by anyone as a result of any failure of the Work
to operate with any other programs), even if the Copyright Holder or said author or said other party has been
advised of the possibility of such damages.
7.4.5 Maintenance of The Work
The Work has the status ‘author-maintained’ if the Copyright Holder explicitly and prominently states near the
primary copyright notice in the Work that the Work can only be maintained by the Copyright Holder or simply
that it is ‘author-maintained’.
The Work has the status ‘maintained’ if there is a Current Maintainer who has indicated in the Work that
they are willing to receive error reports for the Work (for example, by supplying a valid e-mail address). It is
not required for the Current Maintainer to acknowledge or act upon these error reports.
The Work changes from status ‘maintained’ to ‘unmaintained’ if there is no Current Maintainer, or the person
stated to be Current Maintainer of the work cannot be reached through the indicated means of communication
for a period of six months, and there are no other significant signs of active maintenance.
You can become the Current Maintainer of the Work by agreement with any existing Current Maintainer to
take over this role.
If the Work is unmaintained, you can become the Current Maintainer of the Work through the following
steps:
54
1. Make a reasonable attempt to trace the Current Maintainer (and the Copyright Holder, if the two differ)
through the means of an Internet or similar search.
2. If this search is successful, then enquire whether the Work is still maintained.
(a) If it is being maintained, then ask the Current Maintainer to update their communication data within
one month.
(b) If the search is unsuccessful or no action to resume active maintenance is taken by the Current
Maintainer, then announce within the pertinent community your intention to take over maintenance.
(If the Work is a L
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X work, this could be done, for example, by posting to comp.text.tex.)
3. (a) If the Current Maintainer is reachable and agrees to pass maintenance of the Work to you, then this
takes effect immediately upon announcement.
(b) If the Current Maintainer is not reachable and the Copyright Holder agrees that maintenance of the
Work be passed to you, then this takes effect immediately upon announcement.
4. If you make an ‘intention announcement’ as described in 2b above and after three months your intention
is challenged neither by the Current Maintainer nor by the Copyright Holder nor by other people, then
you may arrange for the Work to be changed so as to name you as the (new) Current Maintainer.
5. If the previously unreachable Current Maintainer becomes reachable once more within three months of a
change completed under the terms of 3b or 4, then that Current Maintainer must become or remain the
Current Maintainer upon request provided they then update their communication data within one month.
A change in the Current Maintainer does not, of itself, alter the fact that the Work is distributed under the
lppl license.
If you become the Current Maintainer of the Work, you should immediately provide, within the Work, a
prominent and unambiguous statement of your status as Current Maintainer. You should also announce your
new status to the same pertinent community as in 2b above.
7.4.6 Whether and How to Distribute Works under This License
This section contains important instructions, examples, and recommendations for authors who are considering
distributing their works under this license. These authors are addressed as ‘you’ in this section.
7.4.7 Choosing This License or Another License
If for any part of your work you want or need to use distribution conditions that differ significantly from those
in this license, then do not refer to this license anywhere in your work but, instead, distribute your work under
a different license. You may use the text of this license as a model for your own license, but your license should
not refer to the lppl or otherwise give the impression that your work is distributed under the lppl.
The document ‘modguide.tex’ in the base L
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X distribution explains the motivation behind the conditions
of this license. It explains, for example, why distributing L
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T
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X under the gnu General Public License (gpl)
was considered inappropriate. Even if your work is unrelated to L
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T
E
X, the discussion in ‘modguide.tex’ may
still be relevant, and authors intending to distribute their works under any license are encouraged to read it.
7.4.8 A Recommendation on Modification Without Distribution
It is wise never to modify a component of the Work, even for your own personal use, without also meeting the
above conditions for distributing the modified component. While you might intend that such modifications will
never be distributed, often this will happen by accident – you may forget that you have modified that component;
or it may not occur to you when allowing others to access the modified version that you are thus distributing it
and violating the conditions of this license in ways that could have legal implications and, worse, cause problems
for the community. It is therefore usually in your best interest to keep your copy of the Work identical with the
public one. Many works provide ways to control the behavior of that work without altering any of its licensed
components.
55
7.4.9 How to Use This License
To use this license, place in each of the components of your work both an explicit copyright notice including
your name and the year the work was authored and/or last substantially modified. Include also a statement
that the distribution and/or modification of that component is constrained by the conditions in this license.
Here is an example of such a notice and statement:
%% pig.dtx
%% Copyright 2005 M. Y. Name
%
% This work may be distributed and/or modified under the
% conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3
% of this license or (at your option) any later version.
% The latest version of this license is in
% http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt
% and version 1.3 or later is part of all distributions of LaTeX
% version 2005/12/01 or later.
%
% This work has the LPPL maintenance status ‘maintained’.
%
% The Current Maintainer of this work is M. Y. Name.
%
% This work consists of the files pig.dtx and pig.ins
% and the derived file pig.sty.
Given such a notice and statement in a file, the conditions given in this license document would apply,
with the ‘Work’ referring to the three files ‘pig.dtx’, ‘pig.ins’, and ‘pig.sty’ (the last being generated from
‘pig.dtx’ using ‘pig.ins’), the ‘Base Interpreter’ referring to any ‘L
A
T
E
X-Format’, and both ‘Copyright Holder’
and ‘Current Maintainer’ referring to the person ‘M. Y. Name’.
If you do not want the Maintenance section of lppl to apply to your Work, change ‘maintained’ above into
‘author-maintained’. However, we recommend that you use ‘maintained’ as the Maintenance section was added
in order to ensure that your Work remains useful to the community even when you can no longer maintain and
support it yourself.
7.4.10 Derived Works That Are Not Replacements
Several clauses of the lppl specify means to provide reliability and stability for the user community. They
therefore concern themselves with the case that a Derived Work is intended to be used as a (compatible or
incompatible) replacement of the original Work. If this is not the case (e.g., if a few lines of code are reused for
a completely different task), then clauses 6b and 6d shall not apply.
7.4.11 Important Recommendations
Defining What Constitutes the Work The lppl requires that distributions of the Work contain all the
files of the Work. It is therefore important that you provide a way for the licensee to determine which files
constitute the Work. This could, for example, be achieved by explicitly listing all the files of the Work near the
copyright notice of each file or by using a line such as:
% This work consists of all files listed in manifest.txt.
in that place. In the absence of an unequivocal list it might be impossible for the licensee to determine what is
considered by you to comprise the Work and, in such a case, the licensee would be entitled to make reasonable
conjectures as to which files comprise the Work.
56
Part II
Building a Presentation
This part contains an explanation of all the commands that are used to create presentations. It starts with a
section treating the commands and environments used to create frames, the basic building blocks of presentations.
Next, the creation of overlays is explained.
The following three sections concern commands and methods of structuring a presentation. In order, the
static global structure, the interactive global structure, and the local structure are treated.
Two further sections treat graphics and animations. Much of the material in these sections applies to other
packages as well, not just to beamer.
57
8 Creating Frames
8.1 The Frame Environment
A presentation consists of a series of frames. Each frame consists of a series of slides. You create a frame using
the command \frame or the environment frame, which do the same. The command takes one parameter, namely
the contents of the frame. All of the text that is not tagged by overlay specifications is shown on all slides of
the frame. (Overlay specifications are explained in more detail in later sections. For the moment, let’s just say
that an overlay specification is a list of numbers or number ranges in pointed brackets that is put after certain
commands as in \uncover<1,2>{Text}.) If a frame contains commands that have an overlay specification, the
frame will contain multiple slides; otherwise it contains only one slide.
\begin{frame}<⟨overlay specification⟩>[<⟨default overlay specification⟩>][⟨options⟩]{⟨title⟩}{⟨subtitle⟩}
⟨environment contents⟩
\end{frame}
The ⟨overlay specification⟩dictates which slides of a frame are to be shown. If left out, the number is
calculated automatically. The ⟨environment contents⟩can be normal L
A
T
E
X text, but may not contain
\verb commands or verbatim environments or any environment that changes the character codes, unless
the fragile option is given.
The optional ⟨title⟩is detected by an opening brace, that is, if the first thing in the frame is an opening
brace then it is assumed that a frame title follows. Likewise, the optional ⟨subtitle⟩is detected the same
way, that is, by an opening brace following the ⟨title⟩. The title and subtitle can also be given using the
\frametitle and \framesubtitle commands.
The normal L
A
T
E
X command \frame is available inside frames with its usual meaning. Both outside and
inside frames it is always available as \framelatex.
Example:
\begin{frame}{A title}
Some content.
\end{frame}
% Same effect:
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{A title}
Some content.
\end{frame}
Example:
\begin{frame}<beamer>{Outline} % frame is only shown in beamer mode
\tabelofcontent[current]
\end{frame}
Normally, the complete ⟨environment contents⟩is put on a slide. If the text does not fit on a slide, being too
high, it will be squeezed as much as possible, a warning will be issued, and the text just extends unpleasantly
over the bottom. You can use the option allowframebreaks to cause the ⟨frame text⟩to be split among
several slides, though you cannot use overlays then. See the explanation of the allowframebreaks option
for details.
The ⟨default overlay specification⟩is an optional argument that is “detected” according to the following rule:
If the first optional argument in square brackets starts with a <, then this argument is a ⟨default overlay
specification⟩, otherwise it is a normal ⟨options⟩argument. Thus \begin{frame}[<+->][plain] would be
legal, but also \begin{frame}[plain].
The effect of the ⟨default overlay specification⟩is the following: Every command or environment inside
the frame that accepts an action specification, see Section 9.6.3, (this includes the \item command, the
actionenv environment, \action, and all block environments) and that is not followed by an overlay specifi-
cation gets the ⟨default overlay specification⟩as its specification. By providing an incremental specification
like <+->, see Section 9.6.4, this will essentially cause all blocks and all enumerations to be uncovered
piece-wise (blocks internally employ action specifications).
58
Example: In this frame, the theorem is shown from the first slide on, the proof from the second slide on,
with the first two itemize points shown one after the other; the last itemize point is shown together with
the first one. In total, this frame will contain four slides.
\begin{frame}[<+->]
\begin{theorem}
$A = B$.
\end{theorem}
\begin{proof}
\begin{itemize}
\item Clearly, $A = C$.
\item As shown earlier, $C = B$.
\item<3-> Thus $A = B$.
\end{itemize}
\end{proof}
\end{frame}
The following ⟨options⟩may be given:
∙allowdisplaybreaks=⟨break desirability⟩causes the AMST
E
X command \allowdisplaybreaks[⟨break
desirability⟩]to be issued for the current frame. The ⟨break desirability⟩can be a value between 0
(meaning formulas may never be broken) and 4 (the default, meaning that formulas can be broken
anywhere without any penalty). The option is just a convenience and makes sense only together with
the allowsframebreaks option.
∙allowframebreaks=⟨fraction⟩. When this option is given, the frame will be automatically broken up
into several frames if the text does not fit on a single slide. In detail, when this option is given, the
following things happen:
1. Overlays are not supported.
2. Any notes for the frame created using the \note command will be inserted after the first page of
the frame.
3. Any footnotes for the frame will be inserted on the last page of the frame.
4. If there is a frame title, each of the pages will have this frame title, with a special note added
indicating which page of the frame that page is. By default, this special note is a Roman number.
However, this can be changed using the following template.
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font frametitle continuation
The text of this template is inserted at the end of every title of a frame with the
allowframebreaks option set.
The following template options are predefined:
–[default]Installs a Roman number as the template. The number indicates the current
page of the frame.
–[roman]Alias for the default.
–[from second][⟨text⟩]Installs a template that inserts ⟨text⟩from the second page of a
frame on. By default, the text inserted is \insertcontinuationtext, which in turn is
(cont.) by default.
The following inserts are available:
–\insertcontinuationcount inserts the current page of the frame as an arabic number.
–\insertcontinuationcountroman inserts the current page of the frame as an (uppercase)
Roman number.
–\insertcontinuationtext just inserts the text (cont.) or, possibly, a translation thereof
(like (Forts.) in German).
If a frame needs to be broken into several pages, the material on all but the last page fills only 95%
of each page by default. Thus, there will be some space left at the top and/or bottom, depending
on the vertical placement option for the frame. This yields a better visual result than a 100% filling,
which typically looks crowded. However, you can change this percentage using the optional argument
59
⟨fraction⟩, where 1 means 100% and 0.5 means 50%. This percentage includes the frame title. Thus,
in order to split a frame “roughly in half,” you should give 0.6 as ⟨fraction⟩.
Most of the fine details of normal T
E
X page breaking also apply to this option. For example, when
you wish equations to be broken automatically, be sure to use the \allowdisplaybreaks command.
You can insert \break,\nobreak, and \penalty commands to control where breaks should occur.
The commands \pagebreak and \nopagebreak also work, including their options. Since you typically
do not want page breaks for the frame to apply also to the article mode, you can add a mode
specification like <presentation> to make these commands apply only to the presentation modes.
The command \framebreak is a shorthand for \pagebreak<presentation> and \noframebreak is a
shorthand for \nopagebreak<presentation>.
The use of this option is evil. In a (good) presentation you prepare each slide carefully and think
twice before putting something on a certain slide rather than on some different slide. Using the
allowframebreaks option invites the creation of horrible, endless presentations that resemble more a
“paper projected on the wall” than a presentation. Nevertheless, the option does have its uses. Most
noticeably, it can be convenient for automatically splitting bibliographies or long equations.
Example:
\begin{frame}[allowframebreaks]{References}
\begin{thebibliography}{XX}
\bibitem...
\bibitem...
...
\bibitem...
\end{thebibliography}
\end{frame}
Example:
\begin{frame}[allowframebreaks,allowdisplaybreaks]{A Long Equation}
\begin{align}
\zeta(2) &= 1 + 1/4 + 1/9 + \cdots \\
&= ... \\
...
&= \pi^2/6.
\end{align}
\end{frame}
∙b,c,twill cause the frame to be vertically aligned at the bottom/center/top. This overrides the global
placement policy, which is governed by the class options tand c.
∙fragile=singleslide tells beamer that the frame contents is “fragile.” This means that the frame
contains text that is not “interpreted as usual.” For example, this applies to verbatim text, which is,
obviously, interpreted somewhat differently from normal text.
If a frame contains fragile text, different internal mechanisms are used to typeset the frame to ensure
that inside the frame the character codes can be reset. The price of switching to another internal
mechanism is that either you cannot use overlays or an external file needs to be written and read back
(which is not always desirable).
In detail, the following happens when this option is given for normal (pdf)L
A
T
E
X: The contents of
the frame is scanned and then written to a special file named ⟨jobname⟩.vrb or, if a label has been
assigned to the frame, ⟨jobname⟩.⟨current frame number⟩.vrb. Then, the frame is started anew and
the content of this file is read back. Since, upon reading of a file, the character codes can be modified,
this allows you to use both verbatim text and overlays.
To determine the end of the frame, the following rule is used: The first occurence of a single line
containing exactly \end{⟨frame environment name⟩}ends the frame. The ⟨environment name⟩is
normally frame, but it can be changed using the environment option. This special rule is needed since
the frame contents is, after all, not interpreted when it is gathered.
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You can also add the optional information =singleslide. This tells beamer that the frame contains
only a single slide. In this case, the frame contents is not written to a special file, but interpreted
directly, which is “faster and cleaner.”
∙environment=⟨frame environment name⟩. This option is useful only in conjunction with the fragile
option (but it is not used for fragile=singleslide, only for the plain fragile). The ⟨frame
environment name⟩is used to determine the end of the scanning when gathering the frame con-
tents. Normally, the frame ends when a line reading \end{frame} is reached. However, if you use
\begin{frame} inside another environment, you need to use this option:
Example:
\newenvironment{slide}[1]
{\begin{frame}[fragile,environment=slide]
\frametitle{#1}}
{\end{frame}}
\begin{slide}{My title}
Text.
\end{slide}
If you did not specify the option environment=slide in the above example, T
E
X would “miss” the
end of the slide since it does not interpret text while gathering the frame contents.
∙label=⟨name⟩causes the frame’s contents to be stored under the name ⟨name⟩for later resumption
using the command \againframe. Furthermore, on each slide of the frame a label with the name
⟨name⟩<⟨slide number⟩>is created. On the first slide, furthermore, a label with the name ⟨name⟩is
created (so the labels ⟨name⟩and ⟨name⟩<1> point to the same slide). Note that labels in general,
and these labels in particular, can be used as targets for hyperlinks.
You can use this option together with fragile.
∙plain causes the headlines, footlines, and sidebars to be suppressed. This is useful for creating single
frames with different head- and footlines or for creating frames showing big pictures that completely
fill the frame.
Example: A frame with a picture completely filling the frame:
\begin{frame}[plain]
\begin{centering}%
\pgfimage[height=\paperheight]{somebigimagefile}%
\par%
\end{centering}%
\end{frame}
Example: A title page, in which the head- and footlines are replaced by two graphics.
\setbeamertemplate{title page}
{
\pgfuseimage{toptitle}
\vskip0pt plus 1filll
\begin{centering}
{\usebeamerfont{title}\usebeamercolor[fg]{title}\inserttitle}
\insertdate
\end{centering}
\vskip0pt plus 1filll
\pgfuseimage{bottomtitle}
}
\begin{frame}[plain]
\titlepage
\end{frame}
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∙shrink=⟨minimum shrink percentage⟩. This option will cause the text of the frame to be shrunk if it
is too large to fit on the frame. beamer will first normally typeset the whole frame. Then it has a
look at vertical size of the frame text (excluding the frame title). If this vertical size is larger than
the text height minus the frame title height, beamer computes a shrink factor and scales down the
frame text by this factor such that the frame text then fills the frame completely. Using this option
will automatically cause the squeeze option to be used, also.
Since the shrinking takes place only after everything has been typeset, shrunk frame text will not fill
the frame completely horizontally. For this reason, you can specify a ⟨minimum shrink percentage⟩like
20. If this percentage is specified, the frame will be shrunk at least by this percentage. Since beamer
knows this, it can increase the horizontal width proportionally such that the shrunk text once more
fills the entire frame. If, however, the percentage is not enough, the text will be shrunk as needed and
you will be punished with a warning message.
The best way to use this option is to identify frames that are overly full, but in which all text absolutely
has to be fit on a single frame. Then start specifying first shrink=5, then shrink=10, and so on, until
no warning is issued any more (or just ignore the warning when things look satisfactory).
Using this option is very evil. It will result in changes of the font size from slide to slide, which is
a typographic nightmare. Its usage can always be avoided by restructuring and simplifying frames,
which will result in a better presentation.
Example:
\begin{frame}[shrink=5]
Some evil endless slide that is 5\% too large.
\end{frame}
∙squeeze causes all vertical spaces in the text to be squeezed together as much as possible. Currently,
this just causes the vertical space in enumerations or itemizations to be reduced to zero.
Using this option is not good, but also not evil.
article In article mode, the frame environment does not create any visual reference to the original frame (no
frame is drawn). Rather, the frame text is inserted into the normal text. To change this, you can modify
the templates frame begin and frame end, see below. To suppress a frame in article mode, you can, for
example, specify <presentation> as overlay specification.
Beamer-Template frame begin
The text of this template is inserted at the beginning of each frame in article mode (and only there).
You can use it, say, to start a minipage environment at the beginning of a frame or to insert a horizontal
bar or whatever.
Beamer-Template frame end
The text of this template is inserted at the end of each frame in article mode.
You can use the frame environment inside other environments like this
\newenvironment{slide}{\begin{frame}}{\end{frame}}
or like this
\newenvironment{myframe}[1]
{\begin{frame}[fragile,environment=myframe]\frametitle{#1}}
{\end{frame}}
However, the actual mechanics are somewhat sensitive since the “collecting” of the frame contents is not
easy, so do not attempt anything too fancy. As a rule, the beginning of the environment can be pretty arbitrary,
but the ending must end with \end{frame} and should not contain any \end{xxx}. Anything really complex
is likely to fail. If you need some \end{xxx} there, define a new command that contains this stuff as in the
following example:
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\newenvironment{itemizeframe}
{\begin{frame}\startitemizeframe}
{\stopitemizeframe\end{frame}}
\newcommand\startitemizeframe{\begin{bfseries}\begin{itemize}}
\newcommand\stopitemizeframe{\end{itemize}\end{bfseries}}
\begin{itemizeframe}
\item First item
\end{itemizeframe}
8.2 Components of a Frame
Each frame consists of several components:
1. a headline and a footline,
2. a left and a right sidebar,
3. navigation bars,
4. navigation symbols,
5. a logo,
6. a frame title,
7. a background, and
8. some frame contents.
A frame need not have all of these components. Usually, the first three components are automatically setup
by the theme you are using.
8.2.1 The Headline and Footline
The headline of a frame is the area at the top of the frame. If it is not empty, it should show some information
that helps the audience orientate itself during your talk. Likewise, the footline is the area at the bottom of the
frame.
beamer does not use the standard L
A
T
E
X mechanisms for typesetting the headline and the footline. Instead,
the special headline and footline templates are used to typeset them.
The size of the headline and the footline is determined as follows: Their width is always the paper width. Their
height is determined by tentatively typesetting the headline and the footline right after the \begin{document}
command. The head of the headline and the footline at that point is “frozen” and will be used throughout the
whole document, even if the headline and footline vary in height later on (which they should not).
The appearance of the headline and footline is determined by the following templates:
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font headline
This template is used to typeset the headline. The beamer-color and -font headline are installed at the
beginning. The background of the beamer-color is not used by default, that is, no background rectangle is
drawn behind the headline and footline (this may change in the future with the introduction of a headline
and a footline canvas).
The width of the headline is the whole paper width. The height is determined automatically as described
above. The headline is typeset in vertical mode with interline skip turned off and the paragraph skip set to
zero.
Inside this template, the \\ command is changed such that it inserts a comma instead.
Example:
\setbeamertemplate{headline}
{%
\begin{beamercolorbox}{section in head/foot}
\vskip2pt\insertnavigation{\paperwidth}\vskip2pt
\end{beamercolorbox}%
}
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The following template options are predefined:
∙[default]The default is just an empty headline. To get the default headline of earlier versions of the
beamer class, use the compatibility theme.
∙[infolines theme]This option becomes available (and is used) if the infolines outer theme is
loaded. The headline shows current section and subsection.
∙[miniframes theme]This option becomes available (and is used) if the miniframes outer theme is
loaded. The headline shows the sections with small clickable mini frames below them.
∙[sidebar theme]This option becomes available (and is used) if the sidebar outer theme is loaded
and if the head height (and option of the sidebar theme) is not zero. In this case, the headline is an
empty bar of the background color frametitle with the logo to the left or right of this bar.
∙[smoothtree theme]This option becomes available (and is used) if the smoothtree outer theme is
loaded. A “smoothed” navigation tree is shown in the headline.
∙[smoothbars theme]This option becomes available (and is used) if the smoothbars outer theme is
loaded. A “smoothed” version of the miniframes headline is shown.
∙[tree]This option becomes available (and is used) if the tree outer theme is loaded. A navigational
tree is shown in the headline.
∙[split theme]This option becomes available (and is used) if the split outer theme is loaded. The
headline is split into a left part showing the sections and a right part showing the subsections.
∙[text line]{⟨text⟩}The headline is typeset more or less as if it were a normal text line with the
⟨text⟩as contents. The left and right margin are setup such that they are the same as the margins of
normal text. The ⟨text⟩is typeset inside an \hbox, while the headline is normally typeset in vertical
mode.
Inside the template numerous inserts can be used:
∙\insertnavigation{⟨width ⟩}Inserts a horizontal navigation bar of the given ⟨width⟩into a template.
The bar lists the sections and below them mini frames for each frame in that section.
∙\insertpagenumber Inserts the current page number into a template.
∙\insertsection Inserts the current section into a template.
∙\insertsectionnavigation{⟨width⟩}Inserts a vertical navigation bar containing all sections, with
the current section highlighted.
∙\insertsectionnavigationhorizontal{⟨width⟩}{⟨left insert⟩}{⟨right insert⟩}Inserts a horizontal
navigation bar containing all sections, with the current section highlighted. The ⟨left insert⟩will be
inserted to the left of the sections, the {⟨right insert⟩}to the right. By inserting a triple fill (a filll)
you can flush the bar to the left or right.
Example:
\insertsectionnavigationhorizontal{.5\textwidth}{\hskip0pt plus1filll}{}
∙\insertshortauthor[⟨options⟩]Inserts the short version of the author into a template. The text
will be printed in one long line, line breaks introduced using the \\ command are suppressed. The
following ⟨options⟩may be given:
–width=⟨width⟩causes the text to be put into a multi-line minipage of the given size. Line breaks
are still suppressed by default.
–center centers the text inside the minipage created using the width option, rather than having it
left aligned.
–respectlinebreaks causes line breaks introduced by the \\ command to be honored.
Example: \insertauthor[width={3cm},center,respectlinebreaks]
∙\insertshortdate[⟨options⟩]Inserts the short version of the date into a template. The same options
as for \insertshortauthor may be given.
64
∙\insertshortinstitute[⟨options⟩]Inserts the short version of the institute into a template. The
same options as for \insertshortauthor may be given.
∙\insertshortpart[⟨options⟩]Inserts the short version of the part name into a template. The same
options as for \insertshortauthor may be given.
∙\insertshorttitle[⟨options⟩]Inserts the short version of the document title into a template. Same
options as for \insertshortauthor may be given.
∙\insertshortsubtitle[⟨options⟩]Inserts the short version of the document subtitle. Same options
as for \insertshortauthor may be given.
∙\insertsubsection Inserts the current subsection into a template.
∙\insertsubsubsection Inserts the current subsection into a template.
∙\insertsubsectionnavigation{⟨width⟩}Inserts a vertical navigation bar containing all subsections
of the current section, with the current subsection highlighted.
∙\insertsubsectionnavigationhorizontal{⟨width⟩}{⟨left insert⟩}{⟨right insert⟩}See \insertsectionnavigationhorizontal.
∙\insertverticalnavigation{⟨width⟩}Inserts a vertical navigation bar of the given ⟨width⟩into a
template. The bar shows a little table of contents. The individual lines are typeset using the templates
section in head/foot and subsection in head/foot.
∙\insertframenumber Inserts the number of the current frame (not slide) into a template.
∙\inserttotalframenumber Inserts the total number of the frames (not slides) into a template. The
number is only correct on the second run of T
E
X on your document.
∙\insertframestartpage Inserts the page number of the first page of the current frame.
∙\insertframeendpage Inserts the page number of the last page of the current frame.
∙\insertsubsectionstartpage Inserts the page number of the first page of the current subsection.
∙\insertsubsectionendpage Inserts the page number of the last page of the current subsection.
∙\insertsectionstartpage Inserts the page number of the first page of the current section.
∙\insertsectionendpage Inserts the page number of the last page of the current section.
∙\insertpartstartpage Inserts the page number of the first page of the current part.
∙\insertpartendpage Inserts the page number of the last page of the current part.
∙\insertpresentationstartpage Inserts the page number of the first page of the presentation.
∙\insertpresentationendpage Inserts the page number of the last page of the presentation (excluding
the appendix).
∙\insertappendixstartpage Inserts the page number of the first page of the appendix. If there is no
appendix, this number is the last page of the document.
∙\insertappendixendpage Inserts the page number of the last page of the appendix. If there is no
appendix, this number is the last page of the document.
∙\insertdocumentstartpage Inserts 1.
∙\insertdocumentendpage Inserts the page number of the last page of the document (including the
appendix).
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font footline
This template behaves exactly the same way as the headline. Note that, sometimes quite annoyingly,
beamer currently adds a space of 4pt between the bottom of the frame’s text and the top of the footline.
The following template options are predefined:
∙[default]The default is an empty footline. Note that the navigational symbols are not part of the
footline by default. Rather, they are part of an (invisible) right sidebar.
∙[infolines theme]This option becomes available (and is used) if the infolines outer theme is
loaded. The footline shows things like the author’s name and the title of the talk.
65
∙[miniframes theme]This option becomes available (and is used) if the miniframes outer theme is
loaded. Depending on the exact options that are used when the miniframes theme is loaded, different
things can be shown in the footline.
∙[page number]Shows the current page number in the footline.
∙[frame number]Shows the current frame number in the footline.
∙[split]This option becomes available (and is used) if the split outer theme is loaded. The footline
(just like the headline) is split into a left part showing the author’s name and a right part showing the
talk’s title.
∙[text line]{⟨text⟩}The footline is typeset more or less as if it were a normal text line with the ⟨text⟩
as contents. The left and right margin are setup such that they are the same as the margins of normal
text. The ⟨text⟩is typeset inside an \hbox, while the headline is normally typeset in vertical mode.
Using the \strut command somewhere in such a line might be a good idea.
The same inserts as for headlines can be used.
Beamer-Color/-Font page number in head/foot
These beamer-color and -font are used to typeset the page number or frame number in the footline.
8.2.2 The Sidebars
Sidebars are vertical areas that stretch from the lower end of the headline to the top of the footline. There can
be a sidebar at the left and another one at the right (or even both). Sidebars can show a table of contents, but
they could also be added for purely aesthetic reasons.
When you install a sidebar template, you must explicitly specify the horizontal size of the sidebar using the
command \setbeamersize with the option sidebar left width or sidebar right width. The vertical size
is determined automatically. Each sidebar has its own background canvas, which can be setup using the sidebar
canvas templates.
Adding a sidebar of a certain size, say 1 cm, will make the main text 1 cm narrower. The distance between
the inner side of a side bar and the outer side of the text, as specified by the command \setbeamersize with the
option text margin left and its counterpart for the right margin, is not changed when a sidebar is installed.
Internally, the sidebars are typeset by showing them as part of the headline. The beamer class keeps track
of six dimensions, three for each side: the variables \beamer@leftsidebar and \beamer@rightsidebar store
the (horizontal) sizes of the side bars, the variables \beamer@leftmargin and \beamer@rightmargin store the
distance between sidebar and text, and the macros \Gm@lmargin and \Gm@rmargin store the distance from the
edge of the paper to the edge of the text. Thus the sum \beamer@leftsidebar and \beamer@leftmargin
is exactly \Gm@lmargin. Thus, if you wish to put some text right next to the left sidebar, you might write
\hskip-\beamer@leftmargin to get there.
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font sidebar left
Color/font parents: sidebar
The template is used to typeset the left sidebar. As mentioned above, the size of the left sidebar is set using
the command
\setbeamersize{sidebar width left=2cm}
beamer will not clip sidebars automatically if they are too large.
When the sidebar is typeset, it is put inside a \vbox. You should currently setup things like the \hsize or
the \parskip yourself.
The following template options are predefined:
∙[default]installs an empty template.
∙[sidebar theme]This option is available if the outer theme sidebar is loaded with the left option.
In this case, this options is selected automatically. It shows a mini table of contents in the sidebar.
66
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font sidebar right
Color/font parents: sidebar
This template works the same way as the template for the left.
The following template options are predefined:
∙[default]The default right sidebar has zero width. Nevertheless, it shows navigational symbols and,
if installed, a logo at the bottom of the sidebar, protruding to the left into the text.
∙[sidebar theme]This option is available, if the outer theme sidebar is loaded with the right option.
In this case, this option is selected automatically. It shows a mini table of contents in the sidebar.
Beamer-Template sidebar canvas left
Like the overall background canvas, this canvas is drawn behind the actual text of the sidebar. This template
should normally insert a rectangle of the size of the sidebar, though a too large height will not lead to an
error or warning. When this template is called, the beamer-color sidebar left will have been installed.
The following template options are predefined:
∙[default]uses a large rectangle colored with sidebar.bg as the sidebar canvas. However, if the
background of sidebar is empty, nothing is drawn and the canvas is “transparent.”
∙[vertical shading][⟨color options⟩]installs a vertically shaded background. The following ⟨color
options⟩may be given:
–top=⟨color⟩specifies the color at the top of the sidebar. By default, 25% of the foreground of the
beamer-color palette primary is used.
–bottom=⟨color⟩specifies the color at the bottom of the sidebar (more precisely, at a distance of
the page height below the top of the sidebar). By default, the background of normal text at the
moment of invocation of this command is used.
–middle=⟨color⟩specifies the color for the middle of the sidebar. Thus, if this option is given, the
shading changes from the bottom color to this color and then to the top color.
–midpoint=⟨factor⟩specifies at which point of the page the middle color is used. A factor of 0is
the bottom of the page, a factor of 1is the top. The default, which is 0.5, is in the middle.
Note that you must give “real” L
A
T
E
X colors here. This often makes it necessary to invoke the command
\usebeamercolor before this command can be used.
Also note, that the width of the sidebar should be setup before this option is used.
Example: A stylish, but not very useful shading:
{\usebeamercolor{palette primary}}
\setbeamertemplate{sidebar canvas}[vertical shading]
[top=palette primary.bg,middle=white,bottom=palette primary.bg]
∙[horizontal shading][⟨color options⟩]installs a horizontally shaded background. The following
⟨color options⟩may be given:
–left=⟨color⟩specifies the color at the left of the sidebar.
–right=⟨color⟩specifies the color at the right of the sidebar.
–middle=⟨color⟩specifies the color in the middle of the sidebar.
–midpoint=⟨factor⟩specifies at which point of the sidebar the middle color is used. A factor of 0
is the left of the sidebar, a factor of 1is the right. The default, which is 0.5, is in the middle.
Example: Adds two “pillars”
\setbeamersize{sidebar width left=0.5cm,sidebar width right=0.5cm}
{\usebeamercolor{sidebar}}
\setbeamertemplate{sidebar canvas left}[horizontal shading]
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[left=white,middle=sidebar.bg,right=white]
\setbeamertemplate{sidebar canvas right}[horizontal shading]
[left=white,middle=sidebar.bg,right=white]
Beamer-Template sidebar canvas right
Works exactly as for the left side.
8.2.3 Navigation Bars
Many themes install a headline or a sidebar that shows a navigation bar. Although these navigation bars take
up quite a bit of space, they are often useful for two reasons:
∙They provide the audience with a visual feedback of how much of your talk you have covered and what is
yet to come. Without such feedback, an audience will often puzzle whether something you are currently
introducing will be explained in more detail later on or not.
∙You can click on all parts of the navigation bar. This will directly “jump” you to the part you have clicked
on. This is particularly useful to skip certain parts of your talk and during a “question session,” when you
wish to jump back to a particular frame someone has asked about.
Some navigation bars can be “compressed” using the following option:
\documentclass[compress]{beamer}
Tries to make all navigation bars as small as possible. For example, all small frame representations in
the navigation bars for a single section are shown alongside each other. Normally, the representations
for different subsections are shown in different lines. Furthermore, section and subsection navigations are
compressed into one line.
Some themes use the \insertnavigation to insert a navigation bar into the headline. Inside this bar, small
icons are shown (called “mini frames”) that represent the frames of a presentation. When you click on such an
icon, the following happens:
∙If you click on (the icon of) any frame other than the current frame, the presentation will jump to the first
slide of the frame you clicked on.
∙If you click on the current frame and you are not on the last slide of this frame, you will jump to the last
slide of the frame.
∙If you click on the current frame and you are on the last slide, you will jump to the first slide of the frame.
By the above rules you can:
∙Jump to the beginning of a frame from somewhere else by clicking on it once.
∙Jump to the end of a frame from somewhere else by clicking on it twice.
∙Skip the rest of the current frame by clicking on it once.
We also tried making a jump to an already-visited frame jump automatically to the last slide of this frame.
However, this turned out to be more confusing than helpful. With the current implementation a double-click
always brings you to the end of a slide, regardless from where you “come” from.
Parent Beamer-Template mini frames
This parent template has the children mini frame and mini frame in current subsection.
Example: \setbeamertemplate{mini frames}[box]
The following template options are predefined:
∙[default]shows small circles as mini frames.
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∙[box]shows small rectangles as mini frames.
∙[tick]shows small vertical bars as mini frames.
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font mini frame
The template is used to render the mini frame of the current frame in a navigation bar.
The width of the template is ignored. Instead, when multiple mini frames are shown, their position
is calculated based on the beamer-sizes mini frame size and mini frame offset. See the command
\setbeamersize for a description of how to change them.
Beamer-Template mini frame in current subsection
This template is used to render the mini frame of frames in the current subsection that are not the current
frame. The beamer-color/-font mini frame installed prior to the usage of this template is invoked.
Beamer-Template mini frame in other subsection
This template is used to render mini frames of frames from subsections other than the current one.
The following template options are predefined:
∙[default][⟨percentage⟩]By default, this template shows mini frame in current subsection, ex-
cept that the color is first changed to fg!⟨percentage⟩!bg. The default ⟨percentage⟩is 50%.
Example: To get an extremely “shaded” rendering of the frames outside the current subsection you
can use the following:
\setbeamertemplate{mini frame in other subsection}[default][20]
Example: To render all mini frames other than the current one in the same way, use
\setbeamertemplate{mini frame in other subsection}[default][100]
Some themes show sections and/or subsections in the navigation bars. By clicking on a section or subsection
in the navigation bar, you will jump to that section. Clicking on a section is particularly useful if the section
starts with a \tableofcontents[currentsection], since you can use it to jump to the different subsections.
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font section in head/foot
This template is used to render a section entry if it occurs in the headline or the footline. The background of
the beamer-color is typically used as the background of the whole “area” where section entries are shown in
the headline. You cannot usually use this template yourself since the insert \insertsectionhead is setup
correctly only when a list of sections is being typeset in the headline.
The default template just inserts the section name. The following inserts are useful for this template:
∙\insertsectionhead inserts the name of the section that is to be typeset in a navigation bar.
∙\insertsectionheadnumber inserts the number of the section that is to be typeset in a navigation
bar.
∙\insertpartheadnumber inserts the number of the part of the current section or subsection that is to
be typeset in a navigation bar.
Beamer-Template section in head/foot shaded
This template is used instead of section in head/foot for typesetting sections that are currently shaded.
Such shading is usually applied to all sections but the current one.
Note that this template does not have its own color and font. When this template is called, the beamer-
font and color section in head/foot will have been setup. Then, at the start of the template, you will
typically change the current color or start a colormixin environment.
The following template options are predefined:
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∙[default][⟨percentage⟩]The default template changes the current color to fg!⟨percentage⟩!bg. This
causes the current color to become “washed out” or “shaded.” The default percentage is 50.
Example: You can use the following command to make the shaded entries very “light”:
\setbeamertemplate{section in head/foot shaded}[default][20]
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font section in sidebar
This template is used to render a section entry if it occurs in the sidebar, typically as part of a mini
table of contents shown there. The background of the beamer-color is used as background for the entry.
Just like section in head/foot, you cannot usually use this template yourself and you should also use
\insertsectionhead to insert the name of the section that is to be typeset.
For once, no default is installed for this template.
The following template options are predefined:
∙[sidebar theme]This template, which is only available if the sidebar outer theme is loaded, inserts
a bar with the beamer-color’s foreground and background that shows the section name. The width
of the bar is the same as the width of the whole sidebar.
The same inserts as for section in head/foot can be used.
Beamer-Template/-Color section in sidebar shaded
This template is used instead of section in sidebar for typesetting sections that are currently shaded.
Such shading is usually applied to all sections but the current one.
Differently from section in head/foot shaded, this template has its own beamer-color.
The following template options are predefined:
∙[sidebar theme]Does the same as for the nonshaded version, except that a different beamer-color
is used.
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font subsection in head/foot
This template behaves exactly like section in head/foot, only for subsections.
∙\insertsubsectionhead works like \insertsectionhead.
∙\insertsubsectionheadnumber works like \insertsectionheadnumber.
Beamer-Template subsection in head/foot shaded
This template behaves exactly like section in head/foot shaded, only for subsections.
The following template options are predefined:
∙[default][⟨percentage⟩]works like the corresponding option for sections.
Example:
\setbeamertemplate{section in head/foot shaded}[default][20]
\setbeamertemplate{subsection in head/foot shaded}[default][20]
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font subsection in sidebar
This template behaves exactly like section in sidebar, only for subsections.
Beamer-Template subsection in sidebar shaded
This template behaves exactly like section in sidebar shaded, only for subsections.
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font subsubsection in head/foot
This template behaves exactly like section in head/foot, only for subsubsections. Currently, it is not
used by the default themes.
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∙\insertsubsubsectionhead works like \insertsectionhead.
∙\insertsubsubsectionheadnumber works like \insertsectionheadnumber.
Beamer-Template subsubsection in head/foot shaded
This template behaves exactly like section in head/foot shaded, only for subsubsections.
The following template options are predefined:
∙[default][⟨percentage⟩]works like the corresponding option for sections.
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font subsubsection in sidebar
This template behaves exactly like section in sidebar, only for subsubsections.
Beamer-Template subsubsection in sidebar shaded
This template behaves exactly like section in sidebar shaded, only for subsubsections.
By clicking on the document title in a navigation bar (not all themes show it), you will jump to the first
slide of your presentation (usually the title page) except if you are already at the first slide. On the first slide,
clicking on the document title will jump to the end of the presentation, if there is one. Thus by double clicking
the document title in a navigation bar, you can jump to the end.
8.2.4 The Navigation Symbols
Navigation symbols are small icons that are shown on every slide by default. The following symbols are shown:
1. A slide icon, which is depicted as a single rectangle. To the left and right of this symbol, a left and right
arrow are shown.
2. A frame icon, which is depicted as three slide icons “stacked on top of each other”. This symbol is framed
by arrows.
3. A subsection icon, which is depicted as a highlighted subsection entry in a table of contents. This symbol
is framed by arrows.
4. A section icon, which is depicted as a highlighted section entry (together with all subsections) in a table
of contents. This symbol is framed by arrows.
5. A presentation icon, which is depicted as a completely highlighted table of contents.
6. An appendix icon, which is depicted as a completely highlighted table of contents consisting of only one
section. (This icon is only shown if there is an appendix.)
7. Back and forward icons, depicted as circular arrows.
8. A “search” or “find” icon, depicted as a detective’s magnifying glass.
Clicking on the left arrow next to an icon always jumps to (the last slide of) the previous slide, frame,
subsection, or section. Clicking on the right arrow next to an icon always jumps to (the first slide of) the next
slide, frame, subsection, or section.
Clicking on any of these icons has different effects:
1. If supported by the viewer application, clicking on a slide icon pops up a window that allows you to enter
a slide number to which you wish to jump.
2. Clicking on the left side of a frame icon will jump to the first slide of the frame, clicking on the right side
will jump to the last slide of the frame (this can be useful for skipping overlays).
3. Clicking on the left side of a subsection icon will jump to the first slide of the subsection, clicking on the
right side will jump to the last slide of the subsection.
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4. Clicking on the left side of a section icon will jump to the first slide of the section, clicking on the right
side will jump to the last slide of the section.
5. Clicking on the left side of the presentation icon will jump to the first slide, clicking on the right side will
jump to the last slide of the presentation. However, this does not include the appendix.
6. Clicking on the left side of the appendix icon will jump to the first slide of the appendix, clicking on the
right side will jump to the last slide of the appendix.
7. If supported by the viewer application, clicking on the back and forward symbols jumps to the previously
visited slides.
8. If supported by the viewer application, clicking on the search icon pops up a window that allows you to
enter a search string. If found, the viewer application will jump to this string.
You can reduce the number of icons that are shown or their layout by adjusting the navigation symbols
template.
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font navigation symbols
This template is invoked in “three-star-mode” by themes at the place where the navigation symbols should
be shown. “Three-star-mode” means that the command \usebeamertemplate*** is used.
Note that, although it may look like the symbols are part of the footline, they are more often part of an
invisible right sidebar.
The following template options are predefined:
∙[default]Organizes the navigation symbols horizontally.
∙[horizontal]This is an alias for the default.
∙[vertical]Organizes the navigation symbols vertically.
∙[only frame symbol]Shows only the navigational symbol for navigating frames.
Example: The following command suppresses all navigation symbols:
\setbeamertemplate{navigation symbols}{}
Inside this template, the following inserts are useful:
∙\insertslidenavigationsymbol Inserts the slide navigation symbols, that is, the slide symbols (a
rectangle) together with arrows to the left and right that are hyperlinked.
∙\insertframenavigationsymbol Inserts the frame navigation symbol.
∙\insertsubsectionnavigationsymbol Inserts the subsection navigation symbol.
∙\insertsectionnavigationsymbol Inserts the section navigation symbol.
∙\insertdocnavigationsymbol Inserts the presentation navigation symbol and (if necessary) the ap-
pendix navigation symbol.
∙\insertbackfindforwardnavigationsymbol Inserts a back, a find, and a forward navigation symbol.
8.2.5 The Logo
To install a logo, use the following command:
\logo{⟨logo text⟩}
The ⟨logo text⟩is usually a command for including a graphic, but it can be any text. The position where
the logo is inserted is determined by the current theme; you cannot (currently) specify this position directly.
Example:
\pgfdeclareimage[height=0.5cm]{logo}{tu-logo}
\logo{\pgfuseimage{logo}}
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Example:
\logo{\includegraphics[height=0.5cm]{logo.pdf}}
Currently, the effect of this command is just to setup the logo template. However, a more sophisticated
effect might be implemented in the future.
article This command has no effect.
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font logo
This template is used to render the logo.
The following insert can be used to insert a logo somewhere:
∙\insertlogo inserts the logo at the current position. This command has the same effect as
\usebeamertemplate*{logo}.
8.2.6 The Frame Title
The frame title is shown prominently at the top of the frame and can be specified with the following command:
\frametitle<⟨overlay specification⟩>[⟨short frame title⟩]{⟨frame title text⟩}
You should end the ⟨frame title text⟩with a period, if the title is a proper sentence. Otherwise, there
should not be a period. The ⟨short frame title⟩is normally not shown, but it’s available via the
\insertshortframetitle command. The ⟨overlay specification⟩is mostly useful for suppressing the frame
title in article mode.
Example:
\begin{frame}
\frametitle{A Frame Title is Important.}
\framesubtitle{Subtitles are not so important.}
Frame contents.
\end{frame}
If you are using the allowframebreaks option with the current frame, a continuation text (like “(cont.)” or
something similar, depending on the template frametitle continuation) is automatically added to the
⟨frame title text⟩at the end, separated with a space.
presen-
tation The frame title is not typeset immediately when the command \frametitle is encountered. Rather, the
argument of the command is stored internally and the frame title is only typeset when the complete frame
has been read. This gives you access to both the ⟨frame title text⟩and to the ⟨subframe title text⟩that is
possibly introduced using the \framesubtitle command.
article By default, this command creates a new paragraph in article mode, entitled ⟨frame title text⟩. Using
the ⟨overlay specification⟩makes it easy to suppress a frame title once in a while. If you generally wish to
suppress all frame titles in article mode, say \setbeamertemplate<article>{frametitle}{}.
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font frametitle
Color/font parents: titlelike
When the frame title and subtitle are to be typeset, this template is invoked with the beamer-
color and -font frametitle set. This template is not invoked when the commands \frametitle
or \framesubtitle are called. Rather, it is invoked when the whole frame has been completely read.
Till then, the frame title and frame subtitle text are stored in a special place. This way, when the
template is invoked, both inserts are setup correctly. The resulting T
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X-box is then magically put back
to the top of the frame.
The following template options are predefined:
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∙[default][⟨alignment⟩]The frame is typeset using the beamer-color frametitle and the
beamer-font frametitle. The subtitle is put below using the color and font framesubtitle.
If the color frametitle has a background, a background bar stretching the whole frame width is
put behind the title. A background color of the subtitle is ignored. The ⟨alignment⟩is passed on
to the beamercolorbox environment. In particular, useful options are left,center, and right.
As a special case, the right option causes the left border of the frame title to be somewhat larger
than normal so that the frame title is more in the middle of the frame.
∙[shadow theme]This option is available if the outer theme shadow is loaded. It draws the
frame title on top of a horizontal shading between the background colors of frametitle and
frametitle right. A subtitle is, if present, also put on this bar. Below the bar, a “shadow” is
drawn.
∙[sidebar theme]This option is available if the outer theme sidebar is loaded and if the headline
height is not set to 0pt (which can be done using an option of the sidebar theme). With this
option, the frame title is put inside a rectangular area that is part of the headline (some “negative
space” is used to raise the frame title into this area). The background of the color frametitle is
not used, this is the job of the headline template in this case.
∙[smoothbars theme]This option is available if the outer theme smoothbars is loaded. It typesets
the frame title on a colored bar with the background color of frametitle. The top and bottom of
the bar smoothly blend over to backgrounds above and below.
∙[smoothtree theme]Like smoothbars theme, only for the smoothtree theme.
The following commands are useful for this template:
∙\insertframetitle yields the frame title.
∙\insertframesubtitle yields the frame subtitle.
\framesubtitle<⟨overlay specification⟩>{⟨frame subtitle text⟩}
If present, a subtitle will be shown in a smaller font below the main title. Like the \frametitle command,
this command can be given anywhere in the frame, since the frame title is actually typeset only when
everything else has already been typeset.
Example:
\begin{frame}
\frametitle<presentation>{Frame Title Should Be in Uppercase.}
\framesubtitle{Subtitles can be in lowercase if they are full sentences.}
Frame contents.
\end{frame}
article By default, the subtitle is not shown in any way in article mode.
Beamer-Color/-Font framesubtitle
Color/font parents: frametitle
This element provides a color and a font for the subtitle, but no template. It is the job of the frametitle
template to also typeset the subtitle.
Be default, all material for a slide is vertically centered. You can change this using the following class options:
\documentclass[t]{beamer}
Place text of slides at the (vertical) top of the slides. This corresponds to a vertical “flush.” You can override
this for individual frames using the cor boption.
\documentclass[c]{beamer}
Place text of slides at the (vertical) center of the slides. This is the default. You can override this for
individual frames using the tor boption.
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8.2.7 The Background
Each frame has a background, which—as the name suggests—is “behind everything.” The background is a
surprisingly complex object: in beamer, it consists of a background canvas and the main background.
The background canvas can be imagined as a large area on which everything (the main background and
everything else) is painted on. By default, this canvas is a big rectangle filling the whole frame whose color is the
background of the beamer-color background canvas. Since this color inherits from normal text, by changing
the background color of the normal text, you can change this color of the canvas.
Example: The following command changes the background color to a light red.
\setbeamercolor{normal text}{bg=red!20}
The canvas need not be monochrome. Instead, you can install a shading or even make it transparent. Making
it transparent is a good idea if you wish to include your slides in some other document.
Example: The following command makes the background canvas transparent:
\setbeamercolor{background canvas}{bg=}
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font background canvas
Color parents: normal text
The template is inserted “behind everything.” The template should typically be some T
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produce a rectangle of height \paperheight and width \paperwidth.
The following template options are predefined:
∙[default]installs a large rectangle with the background color. If the background is empty, the
canvas is “transparent.” Since background canvas inherits from normal text, you can change the
background of the beamer-color normal text to change the color of the default canvas. However, to
make the canvas transparent, only set the background of the canvas empty; leave the background of
normal text white.
∙[vertical shading][⟨color options⟩]installs a vertically shaded background. Use with care: Back-
ground shadings are often distracting! The following ⟨color options⟩may be given:
–top=⟨color⟩specifies the color at the top of the page. By default, 25% of the foreground of the
beamer-color palette primary is used.
–bottom=⟨color⟩specifies the color at the bottom of the page. By default, the background of
normal text at the moment of invocation of this command is used.
–middle=⟨color⟩specifies the color for the middle of the page. Thus, if this option is given, the
shading changes from the bottom color to this color and then to the top color.
–midpoint=⟨factor⟩specifies at which point of the page the middle color is used. A factor of 0is
the bottom of the page, a factor of 1is the top. The default, which is 0.5 is in the middle.
The main background is drawn on top of the background canvas. It can be used to add, say, a grid to every
frame or a big background picture or whatever. If you plan to use a PNG image as a background image, use
one with an alpha channel to avoid potential problems with transparency in some PDF viewers.
Beamer-Template/-Color/-Font background
Color parents: background canvas
The template is inserted “behind everything, but on top of the background canvas.” Use it for pictures or
grids or anything that does not necessarily fill the whole background. When this template is typeset, the
beamer-color and -font background will be setup.
The following template options are predefined:
∙[default]is empty.
∙[grid][⟨grid options⟩]places a grid on the background. The following ⟨grid options⟩may be given:
–step=⟨dimension⟩specifies the distance between grid lines. The default is 0.5cm.
–color=⟨color⟩specifies the color of the grid lines. The default is 10% foreground.
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8.3 Frame and Margin Sizes
The size of a frame is actually the “paper size” of a beamer presentation, and it is variable. By default, it
amounts to 128mm by 96mm. The aspect ratio of this size is 4:3, which is exactly what most beamers offer these
days. It is the job of the presentation program (like acroread,xpdf,okular or evince) to display the slides
at full screen size. The main advantage of using a small “paper size” is that you can use all your normal fonts
at their natural sizes. In particular, inserting a graphic with 11pt labels will result in reasonably sized labels
during the presentation.
To change “paper size” and aspect ratio, you can use the following class options:
\documentclass[aspectratio=1610]{beamer}
Sets aspect ratio to 16:10, and frame size to 160mm by 100mm.
\documentclass[aspectratio=169]{beamer}
Sets aspect ratio to 16:9, and frame size to 160mm by 90mm.
\documentclass[aspectratio=149]{beamer}
Sets aspect ratio to 14:9, and frame size to 140mm by 90mm.
\documentclass[aspectratio=141]{beamer}
Sets aspect ratio to 1.41:1, and frame size to 148.5mm by 105mm.
\documentclass[aspectratio=54]{beamer}
Sets aspect ratio to 5:4, and frame size to 125mm by 100mm.
\documentclass[aspectratio=43]{beamer}
The default aspect ratio and frame size. You need not specify this option.
\documentclass[aspectratio=32]{beamer}
Sets aspect ratio to 3:2, and frame size to 135mm by 90mm.
Aside from using these options, you should refrain from changing the “paper size.” However, you can change
the size of the left and right margins, which default to 1cm. To change them, you should use the following
command:
\setbeamersize{⟨options⟩}
The following ⟨options⟩can be given:
∙text margin left=⟨T
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