A Beamer Quickstart

A Beamer Quickstart

Table of Contents
A Beamer Quickstart..........................................................................................................................................1 Contents...............................................................................................................................................................2 1 Prologue...........................................................................................................................................................4 How to read this Quickstart.....................................................................................................................4 Acknowledgment.....................................................................................................................................4 2 What is new.....................................................................................................................................................6 3 A bare-bones sample.......................................................................................................................................7 4 Compiling into pdf..........................................................................................................................................9 5 A complete presentation...............................................................................................................................10 6 Themes...........................................................................................................................................................12 Standard Beamer themes ........................................................................................................................13 Inner and outer themes, etc....................................................................................................................14 7 Customizing themes......................................................................................................................................15 7.1 The structure color..........................................................................................................................15 7.2 Specifying RGB colors...................................................................................................................16 7.3 Direct use of the structure color......................................................................................................17 7.4 Changing the itemization markers..................................................................................................17 7.5 Rounded boxes and shadows..........................................................................................................18 7.6 Getting rid of the navigation icons ..................................................................................................19 7.7 Adding an informative footline .......................................................................................................20 8 UMBC themes...............................................................................................................................................23 The umbc1 theme ...................................................................................................................................23 The umbc2 theme ...................................................................................................................................23 The umbc3 theme ...................................................................................................................................24 The umbc4 theme ...................................................................................................................................25 Customizing the umbc themes...............................................................................................................25 9 The UMBC footline.......................................................................................................................................27 Redefining the footline..........................................................................................................................28 Dynamic footlines..................................................................................................................................28 10 The UMBC tribullet markers....................................................................................................................29 11 UMBC boxes................................................................................................................................................31 12 The title page...............................................................................................................................................34 Titlepage elements.................................................................................................................................35 About the [plain] qualifier...............................................................................................................36

A Beamer Quickstart

Table of Contents
13 Including graphics......................................................................................................................................37 Converting graphics...............................................................................................................................37 eps to pdf.........................................................................................................................................38 All other conversions .......................................................................................................................38 14 Overlays.......................................................................................................................................................39 15 Navigating with hyperlinks........................................................................................................................41 Returning to the calling page.................................................................................................................42 16 Theorems and such.....................................................................................................................................44 17 Splitting a slide into columns.....................................................................................................................47 Vertical alignment ..................................................................................................................................48 Vertical alignment with images.............................................................................................................49 18 Vertical alignment within slides................................................................................................................53 Vertical alignment in individual slides..................................................................................................53 Vertical alignment for the entire document...........................................................................................55 19 The default font size....................................................................................................................................56 20 The default text color..................................................................................................................................57 21 The structure font and font themes...........................................................................................................58 Font themes............................................................................................................................................61 22 Shrinking to make things fit .......................................................................................................................64 23 Changing margin widths............................................................................................................................65 24 All about colors...........................................................................................................................................66 Named colors from the dvips package...................................................................................................66 Named colors from the SVG package...................................................................................................67 Blending colors......................................................................................................................................69 Defining your own colors......................................................................................................................69 25 Colored text, highlights and boxes............................................................................................................71 26 Setting a slide's background......................................................................................................................73 Setting the background to a solid color ..................................................................................................73 Gradient colors in the background.........................................................................................................74 Grid superimposed on background........................................................................................................74 An image for a background ....................................................................................................................75 27 Acrobat Reader usage .................................................................................................................................78 Acrobat Reader usage under Linux ........................................................................................................78 Acrobat Reader usage on other systems................................................................................................78 ii

A Beamer Quickstart

Table of Contents
28 Xpdf usage...................................................................................................................................................79 Running Xpdf inside a window.............................................................................................................79 Running Xpdf in the full-screen mode ...................................................................................................80 Advanced usage.....................................................................................................................................80 Where to get Xpdf ..................................................................................................................................80 29 Beamer on the Web.....................................................................................................................................82 Beamer's home on the web....................................................................................................................82 Screenshots............................................................................................................................................82 A very brief introduction.......................................................................................................................82 Advanced tutorials.................................................................................................................................82 30 A gallery of Beamer slides..........................................................................................................................83 31 Complete set of Beamer themes.................................................................................................................95 Beamer theme AnnArbor.......................................................................................................................95 Beamer theme Antibes....................................................................................................................95 Beamer theme Bergen.....................................................................................................................96 Beamer theme Berkeley..................................................................................................................96 Beamer theme Berlin.......................................................................................................................96 Beamer theme Boadilla...................................................................................................................96 Beamer theme CambridgeUS..........................................................................................................97 Beamer theme Copenhagen.............................................................................................................97 Beamer theme Darmstadt................................................................................................................97 Beamer theme Dresden...................................................................................................................97 Beamer theme Frankfurt ..................................................................................................................98 Beamer theme Goettingen...............................................................................................................98 Beamer theme Hannover.................................................................................................................98 Beamer theme Ilmenau ....................................................................................................................98 Beamer theme JuanLesPins.............................................................................................................99 Beamer theme Luebeck...................................................................................................................99 Beamer theme Madrid.....................................................................................................................99 Beamer theme Malmoe...................................................................................................................99 Beamer theme Marburg.................................................................................................................100 Beamer theme Montpellier............................................................................................................100 Beamer theme PaloAlto .................................................................................................................100 Beamer theme Pittsburgh..............................................................................................................100 Beamer theme Rochester...............................................................................................................101 Beamer theme Singapore ...............................................................................................................101 Beamer theme Szeged...................................................................................................................101 Beamer theme Warsaw ..................................................................................................................101 Beamer theme boxes.....................................................................................................................102 Beamer theme default ....................................................................................................................102 Index.................................................................................................................................................................103

iii

A Beamer Quickstart
Rouben Rostamian December 2004

A Beamer Quickstart

Contents
Prologue 1 Prologue 2 What is new Getting started 3 A bare-bones sample 4 Compiling into pdf 5 A complete presentation Themes 6 Themes 7 Customizing themes 7.1 The structure color 7.2 Specifying RGB colors 7.3 Direct use of the structure color 7.4 Changing the itemization markers 7.5 Rounded boxes and shadows 7.6 Getting rid of the navigation icons 7.7 Adding an informative footline 8 UMBC themes 9 The UMBC footline 10 The UMBC tribullet markers 11 UMBC boxes Bits and Pieces 12 The title page 13 Including graphics 14 Overlays 15 Navigating with hyperlinks 16 Theorems and such 17 Splitting a slide into columns 18 Vertical alignment within slides 19 The default font size 20 The default text color 21 The structure font and font themes 22 Shrinking to make things fit 23 Changing margin widths 24 All about colors 25 Colored text, highlights and boxes 26 Setting a slide's background Epilogue 27 Acrobat Reader usage 28 Xpdf usage 29 Beamer on the Web Gallery 30 A gallery of Beamer slides 31 Complete set of Beamer themes [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Contents

A Beamer Quickstart Last modified: Sat, May 5, 2007, 6:20 PM EDT HTML conversion by TeX2page 2004-09-11

[contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Contents

1 Prologue
Beamer is a LaTeX documentclass for producing slides. The default output is a pdf file which is suitable for on-screen viewing. The aim of this document is to get you started quickly with Beamer. It gives you enough of the basics to let you begin using Beamer in a productive way. I have avoided calling this a "Tutorial" because a tutorial implies a certain thoroughness which this limited presentation lacks. Beamer's manual is over 200 printed pages. When you feel the need to go beyond the basics, you should consider reading the manual. There is more to Beamer than what appears here. These pages were created in December 2004. The information herein is based on version 3.01 of Beamer. See Beamer on the Web for references and web resources. The Gallery page shows a sampler of slides produced by Beamer. I have written this Quickstart primarily for the use of graduate students in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at UMBC. I have assumed throughout, without elaboration, that the underlying operating system is Linux or something unix-like, because that's what we have in the department. I have also assumed throughout that you know the ins and outs of LaTeX; this is certainly not a LaTeX tutorial. LaTeX and Beamer are platform-independent, therefore examples and advice given here should carry over to other platforms, in principle. The specifics of compilation and execution may vary; you will have to consult with your local TeXnician if you need help with these.

How to read this Quickstart

If you are completely new to Beamer, I suggest that you begin at the beginning, that is, at A bare-bones sample. Examine the file small.tex presented there to get a feel about Beamer's syntax. Then read the subsequent section where you are told how to compile a Beamer source file into pdf. Then download small.tex and compile and view the result. Verify that what you see corresponds to what I have shown in A bare-bones sample. Then begin experimenting with small.tex to see if you can create slides the way you want them. If there are things that you feel you should be able to do but you don't know how, then look through the Table of Contents or the Index. Chances are that you will find there what you are looking for.

Acknowledgment
The document you are reading was written in LaTeX then converted to HTML using Dorai Sitaram's TeX2page utility.

1 Prologue

A Beamer Quickstart I have modified TeX2page in certain places to suit my needs. My apologies to Dorai Sitaram for having abused/misused his program.

Rouben Rostamian Department of Mathematics and Statistics University of Maryland, Baltimore County Baltimore, MD 21250, USA [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Acknowledgment

2 What is new
In this section I will attempt to maintain a history of changes to this website. 2005-03-06 Added new theme, umbc3. Inserted samples in UMBC themes and Gallery. Updated beamer-umbc.tgz accordingly. 2005-11-03 Added reference to Norm Matloff's site in Beamer on the Web. 2006-05-13 Changed "background" to "background canvas" in section An image for a background. 2007-05-05 Added section Complete set of Beamer themes.

[contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

2 What is new

3 A bare-bones sample
The basic structure of a Beamer input file is pretty simple. Consider the file small.tex, the content of which is shown below:
% small.tex \documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{default} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{A sample slide} A displayed formula: \[ \int_{-\infty}^\infty e^{-x^2} \, dx = \sqrt{\pi} \] An itemized list: \begin{itemize} \item itemized item 1 \item itemized item 2 \item itemized item 3 \end{itemize} \begin{theorem} In a right triangle, the square of hypotenuse equals the sum of squares of two other sides. \end{theorem} \end{frame} \end{document}

The input file above produces the following slide:

3 A bare-bones sample

A Beamer Quickstart

Remark: In Beamer, a frame is what you would normally call a "slide". The image shown above is the realization of a single "frame". In what follows, I use the terms "frame" and "slide" interchangeably.1 The \begin{frame}...\end{frame} block may be repeated any number of times to produce a sequence of slides. Remark: The \frametitle{...} command puts a title on the slide. Although its use is optional, it is only in very rare cases where omitting a slide title would make sense.

In Beamer, a "slide" and a "frame" are technical terms with distinct meanings. However it is of no profit to the casual user to fret over the distinction. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

3 A bare-bones sample

4 Compiling into pdf

To compile the previous section's LaTeX source file, small.tex, into a pdf file for on-screen viewing, do:
pdflatex small.tex

This will run the source file small.tex through pdflatex and, if all's well, produce a file named small.pdf. The resulting file may be viewed with a pdf viewer. The most common pdf viewer is Adobe's Acrobat Reader which is available for free for use on essentially any computer platform. An alternative is Glyph & Cog, LLC's Xpdf which runs under the X Window System on unix, vms, and os/2. See Acrobat Reader usage and Xpdf usage pages for usage tips for these viewers. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

4 Compiling into pdf

5 A complete presentation
The file hfc.tgz contains the source of slides for an hour-long talk that I gave in the department some time ago. You may find it useful as an example of a real-life Beamer presentation. Download the compressed archive hfc.tgz and unpack it. On unix-like systems you will probably unpack the archive by executing the command:
tar xfz hfc.tgz

This will expand the archive into a directory named hfc.2 That directory will contain about 20 files, most being images, and one Beamer source file named hfc.tex. To compile, change to the hfc directory, then do:
pdflatex hfc.tex pdflatex hfc.tex

This will create the presentation file hfc.pdf. Two passes of pdflatex are needed to let LaTeX determine the presentation's total page count, otherwise page numbers in footlines may be wrong.

After expanding the archive, the file hfc.tgz is no more needed. You may remove it, rm hfc.tgz, to save disk space.

5 A complete presentation

10

A Beamer Quickstart [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

5 A complete presentation

11

6 Themes
The overall appearance of a Beamer slide may be altered drastically by applying a Beamer theme to the slide. To illustrate the effects of various themes, I will use the file sample.tex which is a slightly modified version of the previous small.tex. Here is what the preamble of sample.tex and the resulting slide look like:
\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{default}

The line \usetheme{default} loads Beamer's default theme. If we replace that line with: \usetheme{Boadilla}, we will obtain the Boadilla theme which looks like this:
\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Boadilla}

6 Themes

12

A Beamer Quickstart

Compare this with the previous slide and note the drastic changes, including the added frame around the theorem, the 3D rounded markers for itemized and enumerated lists, and the footline that includes date and slide number, among other things.

Standard Beamer themes

Beamer comes with a large selection of themes. Themes are named after various cities, such as Boadilla, Madrid, Copenhagen, and Singapore, where Beamer's author and his collaborators have given Beamer presentations. In UMBC's Department of Mathematics and Statistics computer network, the Beamer themes are located in the directory:
/usr/local/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/themes/theme/

In my opinion, the following themes are more interesting than others. I have provided sample images in the Gallery. You can find a complete set of images of all Beamer themes in Jason Gorski's page referenced in Beamer on the Web. default Boadilla Madrid Pittsburgh Rochester Copenhagen Warsaw Singapore Malmoe

[ works best as \usetheme[height=7mm]{Rochester} ]

Experiment to see which one is more to your liking. Standard Beamer themes 13

A Beamer Quickstart

Inner and outer themes, etc.

Beamer themes which are named after cities, such as Boadilla and Pittsburgh, are complete themes in the sense that they control just about every aspect of a slide's appearance. Think of this as major themes. These themes are invoked with the \usetheme command, as in \usetheme{Pittsburgh}. Beamer also provides what may be thought of as minor themes. These control somewhat narrowly defined aspects of a slide's appearance. You may invoke one or more of these minor themes in conjunction with a major theme to alter/modify the major theme's characteristics. Beamer's "minor themes" fall into 4 categories: outer themes control a slide's decorations, such as text and graphics that appear in a slide's header and footer sections. For example, \useoutertheme{shadow} adds a 3-D shadow to some header elements. See Adding an informative footline and The UMBC footline for examples of \useoutertheme. inner themes control a slide's inner area, such as markers/bullets for itemization lists and boxes placed around theorems. For example, \useinnertheme{rounded} gives a rounded and 3-D look to theorem-containing boxes and itemization markers. See The UMBC tribullet markers and UMBC boxes for examples of \useinnertheme. font themes control font shapes and sizes of various elements of a slide show. For example, \usefonttheme{serif} changes the document's fonts to serif. (The default is sans-serif.) See The structure font and font themes for examples of \usefonttheme. color themes control the colors of title, frametitle, itemization bullets, and many other elements of a slide show. For example, \usecolorheme{albatross} changes the Beamer's default colors in quite a drastic way. See The structure color and Specifying RGB colors for examples of \usecolorheme. On department's machines, you will find the style files corresponding to Beamer's themes in the directories:
/usr/local/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/themes/theme/ /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/themes/inner/ /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/themes/outer/ /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/themes/color/ /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/latex/beamer/themes/font/ % % % % % the major themes inner themes outer themes color themes font themes

[contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Inner and outer themes, etc.

14

7 Customizing themes
There are a great number of ways in which you can fine-tune the general appearance of a Beamer theme. Here I will describe a few ideas which you may find useful. Throughout this section, I use the Beamer theme Rochester. You may apply these ideas to any other Beamer theme. I will start with the plain Rochester theme, and gradually add various options to show their cumulative effect. You don't have to use all the options at once. Pick the ones that suit your needs.

Remark: The option [height=7mm] (see samples below) specifies the thickness of the horizontal stripe that runs along a Rochester slide's top edge. Please note that this option is specific to Rochester. It does not apply to other themes.

7.1 The structure color

Most colored parts of a Beamer slide are drawn in an abstract color named the structure. You can change the overall color of a Beamer presentation by changing the structure. The default structure in the Rochester theme corresponds to a certain shade of blue as you can see here:
\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme[height=7mm]{Rochester}

Let's change Rochester's structure to Brown: 7 Customizing themes 15

A Beamer Quickstart
\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames]{beamer} \usecolortheme[named=Brown]{structure} \usetheme[height=7mm]{Rochester}

The slide changes to:

Remark: Note how the structure affects many items, including bullets and navigation icons.

Remark: The color "Brown" is one of a large number of color names defined in the file:
/usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/graphics/dvipsnam.def

The xcolor=dvipsnames option to \documentclass brings these color names into Beamer. See All about colors for details. Experiment with various colors to find one that fits best with your style.

7.2 Specifying RGB colors

Should you find the set of colors defined in dvipsnam.def too limited, you may define your own colors by specifying their RGB components. Each RGB component should be in the 0-255 range. For instance, with RGB={205,173,0} we get a dark shade of gold:
\documentclass{beamer} \usecolortheme[RGB={205,173,0}]{structure} \usetheme[height=7mm]{Rochester}

7.1 The structure color

16

A Beamer Quickstart

Remark: On the Department of Mathematics and Statistics machines, the command xcolorsel brings up a very nice tool that shows you a large number of color patches and their RGB components.

Remark: RGB components may be given either as integers in the 0-255 range or as fractional numbers in the 0.00-1.00 range. To specify the latter, use the lowercase version of the rgb option, as in: rgb={0.2264,0.1561,0.0000}.

7.3 Direct use of the structure color

The command \textcolor{red}{a colored text} produces a colored text. Here, the text's color, red, is hard-coded into our LaTeX source therefore the color is always red -- it's static. A more interesting dynamic effect is achieved by using the command \structure{a colored text}. The given text will be colored according to the structure color. When you change the structure color, say from blue to gold, the text's color will change accordingly. See the section A complete presentation for a sample presentation in which I use the \structure{...} command to produce colored text in several places.

7.4 Changing the itemization markers

The Rochester theme uses square markers for itemized and enumerated lists. The command \setbeamertemplate{items}[ball] changes the markers to simulated 3-dimensional balls, as shown the the following code and the corresponding output: 7.2 Specifying RGB colors 17

A Beamer Quickstart
\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames]{beamer} \usecolortheme[named=Plum]{structure} \usetheme[height=7mm]{Rochester} \setbeamertemplate{items}[ball]

Possible options to \setbeamertemplate{items} are: ball: 3-dimensional balls circle: 2-dimensional (flat) circles rectangle: rectangles default: triangles

7.5 Rounded boxes and shadows

To add rounded corners and a shadow to the box that surrounds the theorem in the sample slides shown above, do:
\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames]{beamer} \usecolortheme[named=OliveGreen]{structure} \usetheme[height=7mm]{Rochester} \setbeamertemplate{items}[ball] \setbeamertemplate{blocks}[rounded][shadow=true]

7.4 Changing the itemization markers

18

A Beamer Quickstart

To get rounded corners but no shadows, set [shadow=false].

7.6 Getting rid of the navigation icons

Most Beamer themes put a row of navigation icons on slides. (See the little marks along the bottom edge of the slide shown above.) I consider these pretty useless and distracting. To disable the drawing of navigation icons, add the command: \setbeamertemplate{navigation symbols}{} to your document, as in:
\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames]{beamer} \usecolortheme[named=Apricot]{structure} \usetheme[height=7mm]{Rochester} \setbeamertemplate{items}[ball] \setbeamertemplate{blocks}[rounded][shadow=true] \setbeamertemplate{navigation symbols}{}

7.5 Rounded boxes and shadows

19

A Beamer Quickstart

OK, good, they are gone!

7.7 Adding an informative footline

A footline is a narrow strip along the bottom edge of a slide that shows the name of the author, the title of the presentation, slide number, and other useful information. Beamer themes Boadilla and Madrid provide such a footline by default. Other themes don't. However it is possible to add a footline to any theme by using the \useoutertheme{infolines} command, as in:
\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames]{beamer} \usecolortheme[named=Apricot]{structure} \useoutertheme{infolines} \usetheme[height=7mm]{Rochester} \setbeamertemplate{items}[ball] \setbeamertemplate{blocks}[rounded][shadow=true] \setbeamertemplate{navigation symbols}{} \author{Rouben Rostamian} \title{Beamer tutorial} \institute{UMBC}

7.6 Getting rid of the navigation icons

20

A Beamer Quickstart

Remark: It is a Beamer idiosyncrasy (a polite way of saying a bug) that \useoutertheme{infolines} must come before \usetheme[height=7mm]{Rochester}. If you reverse the order, the slide's title will be cut off. Remark: Most of the footline information is culled from the data provided in the preable, such as \author, \title, etc.

I have written an alternative footline theme called umbcfootline. You will find the details of umbcfootline in The UMBC footline. Here is what it looks like:
\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames]{beamer} \usecolortheme[named=Apricot]{structure} \usetheme[height=7mm]{Rochester} \setbeamertemplate{items}[ball] \setbeamertemplate{blocks}[rounded][shadow=true] %\setbeamertemplate{navigation symbols}{} % see Remark below \useoutertheme{umbcfootline} \author{Rouben Rostamian} \title{Beamer tutorial} \institute{UMBC}

7.7 Adding an informative footline

21

A Beamer Quickstart

Remark: The umbcfootline theme disables the navigation symbols, therefore the \setbeamertemplate{navigation symbols}{} is no more needed. That's why I have commented it out in the shown code fragment. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

7.7 Adding an informative footline

22

8 UMBC themes
I have created four themes which you may use just like any other Beamer theme.3 These are named: umbc1, umbc2, umbc3 and umbc4.

The umbc1 theme

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{umbc1}

The umbc2 theme

This is a slight variation on Beamer 3.01's Singapore theme or Beamer 2.21's Classic theme.
\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{umbc2}

8 UMBC themes

23

A Beamer Quickstart

The umbc3 theme

This is inspired by a PowerPoint theme.
\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{umbc3}

The umbc2 theme

24

A Beamer Quickstart

The umbc4 theme

This is inspired by a well-known PowerPoint theme.
\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{umbc4}

Customizing the umbc themes

Beamer customization options described in Customizing themes apply to UMBC themes as well. For instance, here is what umbc2 looks like in the RawSienna color and centered title in italics:
\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames]{beamer} \usetheme{umbc2} \usecolortheme[named=RawSienna]{structure} \setbeamerfont{frametitle}{family=\rmfamily,shape=\itshape} \setbeamertemplate{frametitle}[default][center]

The umbc4 theme

25

A Beamer Quickstart

Remark: If you have a department account, you don't need to do anything special to use the UMBC themes -they are already installed. If you don't have a department account, you may download the UMBC theme collection beamer-umbc.tgz and install alongside Beamer's own theme files. Here is the beamer-umbc.readme file from that collection.

UMBC themes do not provide navigation bars. I haven't mentioned navigation bars in these notes because I don't like them. In my opinion, navigation bars are distracting and unnecessary. Sectioning commands are ignored in UMBC themes but \tableofcontents still works. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Customizing the umbc themes

26

9 The UMBC footline

The Beamer outer theme umbcfootline puts footer information along the bottom edges of slides. The default footline looks like this:

where n is the sequence number of this frame and N is the total number of frames. The fields Author, Institute, Title and Subtitle are filled with the data supplied by the \author, \institute, \title and \subtitle commands. Short versions of these entries are used, if provided, otherwise long versions are used. See Titlepage elements for the meanings of "long" and "short" fields. You invoke the umbcfootline theme by putting the following in your document's preamble:
\useoutertheme{umbcfootline}

In the following example, I have added a umbcfootline to Beamer's default theme:

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{default} \useoutertheme{umbcfootline} \author{Rouben Rostamian} \title{Beamer tutorial} \institute{UMBC}

UMBC themes umbc1, umbc2 and umbc4 include umbcfootline by default, therefore there is no need to invoke umbcfootline explicitly with these themes.

9 The UMBC footline

27

A Beamer Quickstart

Redefining the footline

You may override the default contents of a umbcfootline with the \setfootline command. For instance, to change the footline to:

put the following in the preamble:

\useoutertheme{umbcfootline} \setfootline{\insertshortinstitute, \insertshortdate \hfill slide \insertframenumber/\inserttotalframenumber}

Items that you can \insert... in a footline, are: \insertshortauthor \insertshortinstitute \insertshorttitle \insertshortsubtitle \insertshortdate \insertframenumber \inserttotalframenumber If you use \insertshortauthor and if "short author" is not provided, then "long author" is substituted for it. Same applies to the other \insertshort... fields. See Titlepage elements for the meanings of "long" and "short" fields. If you really want to insert the long versions of the requested field, use \insertauthor, \inserttitle, etc.

Dynamic footlines
To change the footline of an individual slide, put a \setfootline{...} command just before the slide's \begin{frame}. This will change the footline of this and all subsequent slides. To limit the change only to one slide, limit the scope of the \setfootline by enclosing it in braces, as in:
{ % brace limits \setfootline's scope \setfootline{...} \begin{frame} ... \end{frame} } % brace limits \setfootline's scope

[contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Redefining the footline

28

10 The UMBC tribullet markers

The umbctribulets package provides attractive triangular markers for itemized lists. To set itemization bullets to UMBC tribullets, put the command \useinnertheme{umbctribullets} in the preamble. This works with not only with UMBC themes but all other Beamer themes as well. In the following example we use umbctribulets with Beamer's default theme:
% umbctribullets-demo.tex \documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{default} \useinnertheme{umbctribullets} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{UMBC tribulet markers} \begin{itemize} \item item 1 \begin{itemize} \item item 1 \begin{itemize} \item item 1 \item item 2 \item item 3 \end{itemize} \item item 2 \item item 3 \item item 4 \end{itemize} \item item 2 \item item 3 \item item 4 \end{itemize} \end{frame} \end{document}

10 The UMBC tribullet markers

29

A Beamer Quickstart

The default colors may be changed using the command \umbctribulletscolors command which takes three arguments, corresponding to nesting level of the markers. (Tribullet markers are not available beyond three nesting levels.) As an example:
\umbctribulletscolors{purple}{violet}{brown}

The default tribullet colors are defined as:

\umbctribulletscolors{red}{blue}{orange!40!yellow}

For the meaning of orange!40!yellow see Blending Colors. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

10 The UMBC tribullet markers

30

11 UMBC boxes
The package umbcboxes helps you display text and equations in fancy boxes with rounded corners and shadows like those shown in the following samples.

The package umbcboxes defines two environments: displaybox and onlinebox.

11 UMBC boxes

31

A Beamer Quickstart The displaybox environments is meant to be used with displayed math, however anything else can be boxed with it as well, as the examples below illustrate. The onlinebox is meant to be used within the running text. These environment don't attempt to guess the widths of the desired boxes -- you are expected to specify their widths, typically after some trial and error. This is not such a bad thing; finding an aesthetically pleasing box size is not a job for a computer. You can get a flavor of the usage of these environments from these fragments. Displayed math:
\begin{displaybox}{5cm} % width of the box is 5cm \[ \cos^2 x + \sin^2 x = 1 \] \end{displaybox}

Online material:
The important formula, \begin{inlinebox}{3cm} $\cos^2 x + \sin^2 x = 1$ \end{inlinebox} occurs very frequently in mathematics.

In specifying box widths, it is useful to have in mind that the overall size of a Beamer slide is 128mm x 96mm. The background color of the boxes is set to structure!15!bg by default. (See The structure color and All about colors for the meaning of this.) The default color may not be particularly exciting in general, therefore it is likely that you will want to change it to something more interesting. The \setbeamercolor command in the illustration below shows how. Here is the complete code that produced the two slides shown at the top of this page.
% umbcboxes-demos.tex \documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{umbc4} \useinnertheme{umbcboxes} \setbeamercolor{umbcboxes}{bg=violet!15,fg=black} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{Fancy boxes} The \textsl{displaybox} envrionment is suitable for boxing displayed mathematics: \begin{displaybox}{4cm} \[ \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{n^2} = \frac{\pi^2}{6} \] \end{displaybox} \bigskip The body of the environment can be anything. \begin{displaybox}{5cm} For example:

% redefine box color!

11 UMBC boxes

32

A Beamer Quickstart
This is a test. \end{displaybox} \bigskip Centered text may look better: \begin{displaybox}{5cm} \centerline{This is a test.} \end{displaybox} \end{frame} \begin{frame} \frametitle{Fancy boxes (continued)} The \textsl{onlinebox} environment is similar to \textsl{displaybox}, but it puts the boxed material within the current line \begin{onlinebox}{2cm} like this.\end{onlinebox} Box contents are automatically centered. \bigskip The body of an \textsl{onlinebox} may contain mathematics. \begin{onlinebox}{3cm} $\sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{n^2} = \frac{\pi^2}{6}$ \end{onlinebox} example. \bigskip As in this

To get display-style mathematics \begin{onlinebox}{3cm} $\displaystyle \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{n^2} = \frac{\pi^2}{6}$ \end{onlinebox} add the \textsl{$\backslash$displaystyle} command to your formula. \end{frame} \end{document}

[contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

11 UMBC boxes

33

12 The title page

Beamer provides an easy way to make a title page for your presentation. The following source code defines a titlepage and a regular slide.
% titlepage-demo.tex \documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{umbc4} % items enclosed in square brackets are optional; explanation below \title[A short proof]{A short proof of Fermat's Last Theorem} \subtitle[Errors]{Estimation of numerical errors} \author[R. Rostamian]{Rouben Rostamian} \institute[UMBC]{ Department of Mathematics and Statistics\\ University of Maryland, Baltimore County\\ Baltimore, Maryland 21250\\[1ex] \texttt{[email protected]} } \date[November 2004]{November 26, 2004} \begin{document} %--- the titlepage frame -------------------------% \begin{frame}[plain] \titlepage \end{frame} %--- the presentation begin here -----------------% \begin{frame} \frametitle{Overview} Overview of the material. \end{frame} \end{document}

Here are the results:

12 The title page

34

A Beamer Quickstart

Observe that some of the information provided on titlepage, such title, author, etc., also appears in the footline of the subsequent slide.

Titlepage elements
Titlepage elements are specified through the commands \title, \subtitle, \author, \institute, \date. The data given to these commands appears not only in the title page, but also in the footline section of the Titlepage elements 35

A Beamer Quickstart subsequent slides (see the image above.) Each titlepage element can be specified using a single argument, as in:
\title{University of Maryland, Baltimore County}

or using two arguments, as in:

\title[UMBC]{University of Maryland, Baltimore County}.

The optional argument, UMBC (in square brackets) is the short form of the institute's name. The long forms of titlepage elements are used on the title page. The short forms of titlepage elements are used in the footers of the subsequent slides. Please note that if a short form is not provided, then the long form will be used in the footers. If long forms are too long, then footers may get garbled.

About the [plain] qualifier

In the sample source code shown above, note the [plain] qualifier in the line
\begin{frame}[plain]

that generates the titlepage. Without that qualifier, the title page would have been drawn with header and footer decorations, like all other slides. The [plain] qualifier suppresses the drawing of these decorations. Compare the two images shown on top of this page. Judge for yourself if showing such decorations is appropriate for a title page. In general, the [plain] qualifier may be used on any frame to suppress the drawing of frame decorations on that frame. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

About the [plain] qualifier

36

13 Including graphics
Beamer recognizes images in any of the pdf, png and jpg formats. (Note that PostScript is not among these.) The following sample we include three pictures side-by-side in a slide.
% graphics.tex \documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Copenhagen} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{Graphics} Here we include three images, one each of PDF, PNG, and JPG types. \begin{center} \includegraphics[width=0.3\textwidth]{image1.pdf} \includegraphics[width=0.3\textwidth]{image2.png} \includegraphics[width=0.3\textwidth]{image3.jpg} \end{center} \end{frame} \end{document}

Here is the result:

Converting graphics

13 Including graphics

37

A Beamer Quickstart When you create an image with the intention of including it in a Beamer document, it is best if you save it in one of the pdf, png or jpg formats that are recognizable by Beamer.4 This is sometimes not possible. For instance, you may have downloaded the image from somewhere and it is in the gif format. The department's computer facilities provide a large number of utilities for converting and modifying graphical images.

eps to pdf
To convert an Encapsulated PostScript image to pdf, do:
epstopdf filename.eps

This will produce a file named filename.pdf.5

All other conversions

The general-purpose convert6 command converts from any graphics format to any other graphics format. For instance, to convert a gif file to the png format, do:
convert filename.gif filename.png

Similarly, to convert a tiff file to jpg, do:

convert filename.tiff filename.jpg

In fact, we can have convert take over the job of epstopdf as well, as in:
convert filename.eps filename.pdf

however in my experience epstopdf produces better results.

The png format works best for line drawings, such as graphs of functions in 2D. The jpg format works best with gradually varying shades, such as the photograph of a person's face.
5

The epstopdf utility is a perl script that calls ghostscript to do the actual conversion. In many Linux distributions it is bundled with the main TeX/LaTeX package.
6

The convert utility is a part of ImageMagick suite of graphics manipulation utilities. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Converting graphics

38

14 Overlays
Probably the most interesting effect achieved by Beamer is overlays, which gives the appearance of incremental exposure of a given slide. Achieving the overlay effect in Beamer is quite simple -- just insert a \pause command anywhere you want to pause the display. For instance, to expose an itemized list one-item-at-a-time, do:
\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{default} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{Outline of the talk} \begin{itemize} \item Introduction \pause \item Statement of the main theorem \pause \item Technical lemmata \pause \item Proof of the main theorem \pause \item Conclusions \end{itemize} \end{frame} \end{document}

When this file is compiled into the pdf format and displayed with a pdf viewer, such as the Acrobat Reader, the items are exposed one-at-a-time as you page forward through the document in the usual way. The use of the \pause command is not restricted to itemized lists; you may use it anywhere in a slide. For example:
\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Malmoe} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{Fermat's Last Theorem} In this talk I will give a very elementary proof of the theorem. I am surprised that no one else has thought of this before. \medskip \pause Fermat's Last Theorem says that the equation \[ x^2 + y^2 = z^2 \]

14 Overlays

39

A Beamer Quickstart
has no solution in the set of natural numbers. \medskip \pause This is not true. After a lengthy calculation on the department's Linux machines, I have verified that within the numerical accuracy of the Pentium-4 processor, we have: \[ 5000^2 + 12000^2 = 13000^2 \] \end{frame} \end{document}

A pdf viewer will expose the resulting file one paragraph at a time. The fully exposed slide looks like this:

[contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

14 Overlays

40

15 Navigating with hyperlinks

During a live slide presentation, it is sometimes necessary to jump several slides back to remind the audience of a formula or a picture. You don't want to page through 17 slides to go to that particular slide and back through 17 slides to return to where you were. Hyperlinks in a pdf file enable you to jump from one slide to any other slide with one mouse click. The following input file defines two slides. You should imagine that these are among a large number of slides which are not shown here to save space. One slide is identified by the label=intro tag on its \begin{frame} command. This is our target slide. The other slide contains the code \hyperlink{intro}{here}. The word "here" will appear in red in the pdf viewer. When you click on "here", the viewer will jump to the frame labeled intro. Remark: Actually, what I wrote above is not exactly true. By default, hyperlinks are shown in the normal text color thus are not distinguishable from surrounding text. The red color of hyperlinks is prescribed in the hypersetup command as shown in the sample code below. Alternatively, a hyperlink may be drawn as a "beamer button". For instance, to make a button with the text "here" on it, we do: \hyperlink{intro}{\beamerbutton{here}}. Four different button styles are available:

These buttons were made using:

\beamerbutton{here} \beamergotobutton{here} \beamerskipbutton{here} \beamerreturnbutton{here}

They only look different; they all do the same thing. Use the one that fits your need. OK, here a complete LaTeX file that illustrates these concepts:
% hyperlinks.tex \documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{default} \hypersetup{colorlinks=true,linkcolor=red} \begin{document} %--- frame --------------------------------------------------% \begin{frame}[label=intro] \frametitle{Introduction} The contents of the slide here \end{frame}

15 Navigating with hyperlinks

41

A Beamer Quickstart
%--- frame --------------------------------------------------% \begin{frame} \frametitle{Some other slide} If you press \hyperlink{intro}{here}, you will jump to the frame labeled "intro". Similarly, pressing \hyperlink{intro}{\beamerbutton{here}} will take you to that same frame. \end{frame} \end{document}

The second of the two frames defined above is shown in the figure below. If in the pdf browser you click on the red word "here" or on the blue button, the browser will jump to the first slide labeled intro. It is difficult to illustrate the dynamic action of hyperlinks with words. I suggest that you cut and paste the code above into a file, compile, and try it yourself.

Returning to the calling page

Now you know how to jump from page N1 to page N2. But how to you return to page N1? Well, you can page through all the intervening pages to get there, but that's not very professional. To jump to the page where you came from in a single step, do: if using the Acrobat Reader: press Control-Left Arrow (that is, hold down the Control key and press the Left Arrow key.) if using Xpdf: press the b key.

Returning to the calling page

42

A Beamer Quickstart Remark: Yet another way to return to the calling page would be by adding another hyperlink that works in the opposite way. Thus you put a hyperlink in page N1 that takes you to page N2, and put a hyperlink in page N2 that takes you to page N1. This trick is somewhat difficult to use in practice. Suppose that you have an important formula on page N1. You want to put links in pages N2 and N3 and N4, each of which takes you to page N1. But once in page N1, it could be confusing as to which of the pages N2 or N3 or N4 you are supposed to return to. The pdf viewer methods described above do not have this problem. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Returning to the calling page

43

16 Theorems and such

In Beamer the following LaTeX environments are predefined: theorem corollary definition example proof The Beamer theme controls how this environments are rendered. Here is an example:
% theorems-demo-1.tex \documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Singapore} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{Theorems and such} \begin{definition} A triangle that has a right angle is called a \emph{right triangle}. \end{definition} \begin{theorem} In a right triangle, the square of hypotenuse equals the sum of squares of two other sides. \end{theorem} \begin{proof} We leave the proof as an exercise to our astute reader. We also suggest that the reader generalize the proof to non-Euclidean geometries. \end{proof} \end{frame} \end{document}

16 Theorems and such

44

A Beamer Quickstart

If we change the theme to \usetheme{Boadilla}, the slide changes to:

These environments are actually defined in the amsmath package which is loaded automatically into Beamer. Therefore the extensive amsmath facilities are available for customizing them. See the documentation in amsthdoc.dvi that comes with the AMS LaTeX extension packages.7

16 Theorems and such

45

A Beamer Quickstart The standard LaTeX \newtheorem command may be used to extend the available theorem-like environments. For instance, if you put:
\newtheorem{proposition}{Proposition}

in the preamble, then you can say:

\begin{proposition} ... \end{proposition}

On the department's machine, this file is located in the directory: /usr/share/texmf/doc/latex/amscls/

You can view the file using the command: xdvi /usr/share/texmf/doc/latex/amscls/amsthdoc.dvi & [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

16 Theorems and such

46

17 Splitting a slide into columns

Beamer's columns environment provides an easy way to split a slide vertically into columns. This is particularly useful in positioning figures in a slide or creating multi-column itemized lists. The following example shows how.
% columns-demo1.tex \documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Singapore} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{Splitting a slide into columns} The line you are reading goes all the way across the slide. From the left margin to the right margin. Now we are going the split the slide into two columns. \bigskip \begin{columns} \begin{column}{0.5\textwidth} Here is the first column. We put an itemized list in it. \begin{itemize} \item This is an item \item This is another item \item Yet another item \end{itemize} \end{column} \begin{column}{0.3\textwidth} Here is the second column. We will put a picture in it. \centerline{\includegraphics[width=0.7\textwidth]{image2.png}} \end{column} \end{columns} \bigskip The line you are reading goes all the way across the slide. From the left margin to the right margin. \end{frame} \end{document}

The input file above produces the following slide:

17 Splitting a slide into columns

47

A Beamer Quickstart

Remark: To split a slide into three or more columns, add any number of \begin{column}...\end{column} as needed. Just make sure that the sum of their widths does not exceed the slide width, that is \textwidth. Remark: Within each column, the variable \textwidth is redefined to refer to that column's width. For instance, in the sample shown above, the width of image is set to 0.7\textwidth which means 0.7 times the width of the column containing the image.

Remark: I find it easier giving widths of columns in terms of fractions of \textwidth. If you wish, however, you may specify absolute widths, such as: \begin{column}{30mm}. For this, you should know that the overall size of a Beamer slide is 128mm x 96mm.

Vertical alignment
Observe that in the sample slide shown above, the vertical mid-points of the two columns are horizontally aligned. We say the columns are center-aligned, for short. The option [t] to the columns environment, as in to the \begin{columns}[t], causes the columns to be top-aligned. Other options are [b] for bottom-alignment and [c] for center-alignment (which is the default). In the following example the columns are top-aligned:
% columns-demo2.tex \documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Singapore} \begin{document} \begin{frame}

Vertical alignment

48

A Beamer Quickstart
\frametitle{Splitting a slide into columns} The line you are reading goes all the way across the slide. From the left margin to the right margin. Now we are going the split the slide into two columns. \bigskip \begin{columns}[t] \begin{column}{0.5\textwidth} Here is the first column. We put an itemized list in it. \begin{itemize} \item This is an item \item This is another item \item Yet another item \end{itemize} \end{column} \begin{column}{0.3\textwidth} Here is the second column. We will put a picture in it. \centerline{\includegraphics[width=0.7\textwidth]{image2.png}} \end{column} \end{columns} \bigskip The line you are reading goes all the way across the slide. From the left margin to the right margin. \end{frame} \end{document}

Vertical alignment with images

Sometimes you may find out that the option [t] for top-alignment gives unexpected results. The following example shows one such case. The only difference between this and the previous example is that I have Vertical alignment with images 49

A Beamer Quickstart interchanged the image and text in the second column.
% columns-demo3.tex \documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Singapore} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{Splitting a slide into columns} The line you are reading goes all the way across the slide. From the left margin to the right margin. Now we are going the split the slide into two columns. \bigskip \begin{columns}[t] \begin{column}{0.5\textwidth} Here is the first column. We put an itemized list in it. \begin{itemize} \item This is an item \item This is another item \item Yet another item \end{itemize} \end{column} \begin{column}{0.3\textwidth} \centerline{\includegraphics[width=0.7\textwidth]{image2.png}} Here is the second column. We will put a picture in it. \end{column} \end{columns} \bigskip The line you are reading goes all the way across the slide. From the left margin to the right margin. \end{frame} \end{document}

Vertical alignment with images

50

A Beamer Quickstart

As you see, the columns are not top-aligned at all! What is happening here is that the bottom of the image is being taken as the image's reference point. Therefore the bottom of the image is being aligned with the top of the first column. This is not what we want! We want the top of the image to be taken as the reference point, so that the top of the image is aligned with the top of the first column. To achieve this, Beamer provides the [T] alignment option. The following example shows the result.
% columns-demo4.tex \documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Singapore} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{Splitting a slide into columns} The line you are reading goes all the way across the slide. From the left margin to the right margin. Now we are going the split the slide into two columns. \bigskip \begin{columns}[T] \begin{column}{0.5\textwidth} Here is the first column. We put an itemized list in it. \begin{itemize} \item This is an item \item This is another item \item Yet another item \end{itemize} \end{column} \begin{column}{0.3\textwidth} \centerline{\includegraphics[width=0.7\textwidth]{image2.png}} Here is the second column. We will put a picture in it. \end{column}

Vertical alignment with images

51

A Beamer Quickstart
\end{columns} \bigskip The line you are reading goes all the way across the slide. From the left margin to the right margin. \end{frame} \end{document}

[contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Vertical alignment with images

52

18 Vertical alignment within slides

Vertical alignment in individual slides
The contents of Beamer slides are vertically centered within slides. This is particularly noticeable if there is very little material in the slide. The options t, c or b to \begin{frame} cause the contents of the slide to be aligned with the top, center or bottom of the slide, respectively. The default option is c. The following example illustrate this:
\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Singapore} \begin{document} \begin{frame}[t] \frametitle{Top alingment} This is the contents of the slide. \end{frame} \end{document}

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Singapore} \begin{document} \begin{frame}[c] % [c] is the default \frametitle{Center alingment (default)}

18 Vertical alignment within slides

53

A Beamer Quickstart
This is the contents of the slide. \end{frame} \end{document}

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Singapore} \begin{document} \begin{frame}[b] \frametitle{Bottom alingment} This is the contents of the slide. \end{frame} \end{document}

Vertical alignment in individual slides

54

A Beamer Quickstart

Vertical alignment for the entire document

You may set the vertical alignment policy for the entire doucment by giving one of the options t or b to the \documentclass. For instance:
\documentclass[t]{beamer}

will cause the contents of all slides to be top-aligned. You can override this for individual slides by using the c or b options with \begin{frame}. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Vertical alignment for the entire document

55

19 The default font size

Beamer's default font size is 11 points. It is possible to set the default font size to any of 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 20 on the \documentclass line. For instance, to set the default font to 14 points, do:
\documentclass[14pt]{beamer}

[contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

19 The default font size

56

20 The default text color

Beamer's normal text is black on white background. The following command in the preamble changes all normal text to purple:
\setbeamercolor{normal text}{fg=purple}

The fg in command above sets normal text's foreground color. It is also possible to set the normal text's background color. The background color of a slide is inherited from the normal text's background, therefore changing the normal text's background color amounts to changing the slide's background color. See Setting the background to a solid color for an illustration. Remark: Normal text is the text in the main body of a slide. A slide's header and footer are not normal text. The colors of those elements are controlled by the structure color. For instance, the following command changes slide titles (and several other things) to purple:
\setbeamercolor{structure}{fg=purple}

See the sections An image for a background and The structure color for illustrations. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

20 The default text color

57

21 The structure font and font themes

Beamer's structure font determines the font for rendering a presentation's structural elements such as headers and footers and some titlepage entries. The default structure font for most themes is a medium-weight, upright, sans-serif font. Here is the theme umbc2 rendered with Beamer's default structure font:
\documentclass[14pt]{beamer} \usetheme{umbc2}

Let's change the structure font to italics. Note the changes in the titlepage and headers and footers of the slides.
\documentclass[14pt]{beamer} \setbeamerfont{structure}{family=\rmfamily,shape=\itshape} \usetheme{umbc2}

21 The structure font and font themes

58

A Beamer Quickstart Here are a few more examples. Slanted structure font:
\documentclass[14pt]{beamer} \setbeamerfont{structure}{shape=\itshape} \usetheme{umbc2}

Bold structure font:

\documentclass[14pt]{beamer} \setbeamerfont{structure}{series=\bfseries} \usetheme{umbc2}

21 The structure font and font themes

59

A Beamer Quickstart

Bold and italic structure font:

\documentclass[14pt]{beamer} \setbeamerfont{structure}{family=\rmfamily,series=\bfseries,shape=\itshape} \usetheme{umbc2}

21 The structure font and font themes

60

A Beamer Quickstart

Font themes
Beamer offers a predefined set of font options which affect not only the structural elements, but the normal text and mathematics. I will give only a few illustrations here. For a complete description of Beamer font themes you should read Beamer's documentation. The font theme serif changes all document fonts to serif. This includes structure elements as well as normal text and (most of) mathematics.
\documentclass[14pt]{beamer} \usefonttheme{serif} \usetheme{umbc2}

As you see, \sin and \cos are still set in sans-serif. This appears to be a Beamer bug.

The option stillsansseriftext exempts the normal text from changing to serif:
\documentclass[14pt]{beamer} \usefonttheme[stillsansseriftext]{serif} \usetheme{umbc2}

Font themes

61

A Beamer Quickstart

The option stillsansserifmath exempts mathematics from changing to serif:

\documentclass[14pt]{beamer} \usefonttheme[stillsansseriftext,stillsansserifmath]{serif} \usetheme{umbc2}

The font theme structuresmallcapsserif changes many document elements to the smallcap font:
\documentclass[14pt]{beamer}

Font themes

62

A Beamer Quickstart
\usefonttheme{structuresmallcapsserif} \usetheme{umbc2}

[contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Font themes

63

22 Shrinking to make things fit

To squeeze a little extra material into a Beamer slide, you may specify a shrink-factor for that slide, as in:
\begin{frame}[shrink=5] ... \end{frame}

This will scale down the contents of the slide by at least 5 percent, and more if needed, so that the contents fit completely within the slide. For best results, you should specify a shrink factor as close to the needed amount as possible. If your specified value is inadequate, Beamer will issue a warning to let you know. Adjust the shrink factor so that the warning goes away. Otherwise the slide's horizontal spacing will not be optimal. You should not abuse this feature -- a small amount of shrinkage may go unnoticed, but too much shrinkage can be visually unpleasant. Instead of shrinking a slide, consider rewriting its contents or perhaps splitting it into two slides. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

22 Shrinking to make things fit

64

23 Changing margin widths

The size of a Beamer slide is 128mm by 96mm. These dimensions are fixed and should not be changed. It is permissible, however, to change the widths of the left and right margins. These are set to 1cm by default. In the example below, we change the widths of the left and right margins to 6mm and 2mm, respectively.
\setbeamersize{text margin left=6mm} \setbeamersize{text margin right=2mm}

It is possible to combine the two command into one:

\setbeamersize{text margin left=6mm, text margin right=2mm}

[contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

23 Changing margin widths

65

24 All about colors

Beamer handles colors with the help of an external facility called xcolor8. Beamer loads xcolor by default; you don't need to load it explicitly. This makes the following named colors available:

Named colors from the dvips package

Xcolor can read an extended set of color names from the file /usr/share/texmf/tex/latex/graphics/dvipsnam.def To make this extended set available to Beamer, invoke Beamer as:
\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames]{beamer}

Here is what the extended color set looks like:

24 All about colors

66

A Beamer Quickstart

Named colors from the SVG package

Xcolor can read an even a larger set of color names from the file9 /usr/local/share/texmf/tex/latex/xcolor/svgnam.def To make this extended set available to Beamer, invoke Beamer as:
\documentclass[xcolor=svgnames]{beamer}

Here is what the SVG color set looks like:

Named colors from the dvips package

67

A Beamer Quickstart

Named colors from the SVG package

68

A Beamer Quickstart A few of the SVG names are duplicates: Aqua = Cyan, Fuchsia = Magenta, Gray = Grey, DarkGray = DarkGrey, LightGray = LightGrey, SlateGray = SlateGrey, DarkSlateGray = DarkSlateGrey, LightSlateGray = LightSlateGrey, DimGray = DimGrey.

Blending colors
The xcolor package provides a means to mix any set of colors in desired proportions, just as you would mix colors in a paint store. We specify a mix consisting of n percent from color A and (100-n) percent from color B as A!n!B. The expression A!n!B may be used wherever a color name is expected in Beamer. The expression A!n is a shorthand for A!n!white. Here are a few samples. (Read each row from left to right.)

See the xcolor documentation for more details.10

Defining your own colors

In addition to the mechanisms described in the previous sections, you may define colors using the \definecolor command, as documented in the LaTeX manual and made available by loading the color package.11 You specify a color by giving its RGB (Red Green Blue) components as decimal fractions in the interval 0 to 1 to \definecolor, as in:
\definecolor{mygold}{rgb}{0.85, 0.60, 0.00}

Then "mygold" may be used as any other color in LaTeX or Beamer. For instance: This sentence is printed in "mygold". This sentence is printed in "green!15!mygold". See Colored text, highlights and boxes on how to use colors in your Beamer documents.

Xcolor's author is Uwe Kern. See http://www.ukern.de/tex/xcolor.html.

Blending colors

69

A Beamer Quickstart
9

The file svgnam.def is distributed with xcolor. On the department's machine you may view the documentation by doing: gv /usr/local/share/texmf/doc/latex/xcolor/xcolor.PS &

10

11

The color package is loaded by Beamer by default. You don't need to load it separately. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Defining your own colors

70

25 Colored text, highlights and boxes

Colored text in Beamer is produced using the standard LaTeX \textcolor command, as in:
\textcolor{blue}{This text is in blue}

Remark: The command \structure{This is a colored text} may be used to draw the specified text in the presentation's structure color. See Direct use of the structure color for details. Text background color is set using the \colorbox command:
\colorbox{yellow}{This text is highlighted in yellow}

You may combine various color and font elements to achieve interesting results. For example:
\colorbox{yellow}{ \textcolor{red}{ \textbf{ Bold text in red, highlighted in yellow } } }

To enclose text in a bordered box:

\fcolorbox{red}{yellow}{A yellow box with red border}

The border's thickness is controled by the LaTeX variable \fboxrule. Let's set the border's thickness to 4 points:
\setlength{\fboxrule}{4pt} \fcolorbox{red}{white}{A white box with a red border of thickness 4 points}

The separation between the border and the enclosed object is controled by the LaTeX variable \fboxsep. Let's set the separation to zero:
\setlength{\fboxrule}{4pt} \setlength{\fboxsep}{0pt}

25 Colored text, highlights and boxes

71

A Beamer Quickstart
\fcolorbox{red}{white}{A white box with a red border and separation of 0 points}

Also see UMBC boxes for fancier boxes that may contain text or math. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

25 Colored text, highlights and boxes

72

26 Setting a slide's background

The background color of a Beamer slide is white by default. In the following example I will describe a few ways to change the default background.

Setting the background to a solid color

This example shows how to set the background to a light shade of pink:
% backgrounds-demo1.tex \documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{default} \setbeamercolor{normal text}{bg=red!12} \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{Setting the background color} \[ \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{n^2} = \frac{\pi^2}{6} \] \end{frame} \end{document}

See the section Blending Colors for the meaning of the color specification red!12.

26 Setting a slide's background

73

A Beamer Quickstart

Gradient colors in the background

Gradually shaded backgrounds are possible as well. In the following example, the background varies from light red at the bottom to light yellow at the top.
% backgrounds-demo2.tex \documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{default} \setbeamertemplate{background canvas}[vertical shading][bottom=red!20,top=yellow!30] \begin{document} \begin{frame} \frametitle{Setting the background color} \[ \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{n^2} = \frac{\pi^2}{6} \] \end{frame} \end{document}

Grid superimposed on background

An interesting effect may be achieved by superimposing a grid on the background:
% backgrounds-demo3.tex \documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{default} \setbeamertemplate{background canvas}[vertical shading][bottom=red!20,top=yellow!30] \setbeamertemplate{background}[grid][step=5mm,color=blue] \begin{document} \begin{frame}

Gradient colors in the background

74

A Beamer Quickstart
\frametitle{Setting the background color} \[ \sum_{n=1}^\infty \frac{1}{n^2} = \frac{\pi^2}{6} \] \end{frame} \end{document}

An image for a background

The following example shows how to fill the background of a Beamer slide with the scaled version of an image using the command:12
\setbeamertemplate{background canvas}{...}

Note how I have changed the structure color and the default font color to achieve a reasonable contrast between text and background.
% backgrounds-demo4.tex \documentclass[12pt]{beamer} \usetheme{default} \setbeamercolor{structure}{fg=green!30} \setbeamercolor{normal text}{fg=green!30} \setbeamertemplate{background canvas}{\includegraphics [width=\paperwidth,height=\paperheight]{alps.jpg}} \begin{document} \begin{frame}[t] \frametitle{Skiing in the Alps} \begin{itemize}

Grid superimposed on background

75

A Beamer Quickstart
\item Check equipment \item Wear warm clothes \item Pack first-aid kit \item Good luck! \end{itemize} \end{frame} \end{document}

Remark: The image file alps.jpg is not a part of Beamer; you need to supply an image of your own. Remark: The aspect ratio of a Beamerslide is 4:3 therefore it's best if your background image has the same aspect ratio. Otherwise your image will be distorted when it's stretched to cover the slide from edge to edge. Remark: To limit the background setting to a single slide, enclose the \setbeamertemplate{background canvas}{...} command in braces, as in:
{ % brace to limit the scope of \setbeamertemplate \setbeamertemplate{navigation symbols}{} % optionally hide naviation buttons \setbeamertemplate{background canvas}{\includegraphics [width=\paperwidth,height=\paperheight]{alps.jpg}} \begin{frame}[plain] ... \end{frame} } % closing brace

The [plain] option to \begin{frame} suppresses the drawing of any decorations that may be associated with the current theme. Remark: Fancy background colors, shading and pictures may make your slides look pretty but they may also be distracting. Use your judgement to see if such devices are appropriate for your presentation.

An image for a background

76

A Beamer Quickstart

12

I am indebted to Syed Irfan for correcting an earlier version of this document where I had "background" instead of "background canvas" in several places in this section. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

An image for a background

77

27 Acrobat Reader usage

Acrobat Reader usage under Linux
To use the Acrobat Reader to display the pdf file small.pdf on on your computer screen, do:
acroread small.pdf

On startup, the Acrobat Reader probably will display your slides in a small window for previewing. To expand the slide to fill the entire screen, press Control-L. To get out of the full-screen mode, press Control-L again. Once in the full-screen mode, navigate among your slides using the following key bindings: Next slide Right Arrow Previous slide Left Arrow Last slide Control-Shift-PageDown First slide Control-Shift-PageUp Previous viewed slide Control-Left Arrow Quit Control-Q The "Previous viewed slide" requires some explanation. Suppose that you jump to the last slide by Control-Shift-PageDown. Then Control-Left Arrow will return you to the slide from which you jumped, because that is the "Previous viewed slide". Additionally, in Navigating with hyperlinks we will see how to make out-of-sequence jumps from one slide to another, using hyperlinks. There, too, the Control-Left Arrow will be used to return to the "Previous viewed slide". Remark: A very readable documentation of Acrobat Reader's features is available in its on-line help, accessible through the Help button on Acrobat Reader's menu bar.

Acrobat Reader usage on other systems

Acrobat Reader's key bindings may vary, depending on the operating systems. I have not much experience with anything other than Linux therefore I cannot provide useful advice for other systems. Nevertheless, I have been told that under Windows the key for "Previous viewed slide" is Alt-Left Arrow. You may want to make note of that. [contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

27 Acrobat Reader usage

78

28 Xpdf usage
Xpdf is a pretty good alternative to Adobe's Acrobat Reader. It has at least two advantages over Acrobat Reader: It is particularly lightweight -- it starts up noticeably faster -- therefore repeated invocations are pretty painless. It can re-load the current document. This is very useful during the development of Beamer slides. You can start up Xpdf on your document and put it in the background. Then as you edit your source file and update the resulting pdf file, you can update the display by typing "r" key in the Xpdf window. No need to exit and restart. Xpdf's disadvantages are: It is limited to platforms with the X Window System, It is does not run on Microsoft Windows. Therefore it is not as widely available as Adobe's Acrobat Reader. You just can't expect to walk up to a computer in a conference and expect to find Xpdf installed on it. It is not possible to toggle between window mode and the full-screen mode in Xpdf. For full-screen mode, you need to start Xpdf with the -fullscreen option. See below for details. There are some rough edges, literally, in certain elements displayed by Xpdf. Generally Adobe's Acrobat Reader produces a nicer looking output. For these reasons, I use Xpdf while building a presentation and use the Acrobat Reader for presenting my slides to an audience.

Running Xpdf inside a window

To display the file small.pdf, do:
xpdf small.pdf

Navigate among your slides using the following key bindings: Next slide Previous slide Last slide First slide Previous viewed slide Re-load file Quit n or SpaceBar or PageDown p or BackSpace or PageUp Control-End Control-Home b r q

Remark: The "Previous viewed slide" was explained in the Acrobat Reader usage. Remark: To get a complete list of Xpdf's key binding, click the question-mark button that appears along Xpdf window's bottom edge. 28 Xpdf usage 79

A Beamer Quickstart

Running Xpdf in the full-screen mode

To display the file small.pdf in the full-screen mode, do:
xpdf -fullscreen small.pdf

Navigate among the slides with the same key binding that were described in the previous paragraph.

Advanced usage
Start up Xpdf with a command like "xpdf small.pdf" then resize the window using whatever hooks your window manager provides. You will find out that the contents of the window remain at the original size -- they do not resize along with the window. To tell Xpdf to resize the contents along with the window, invoke it as:
xpdf -z page small.pdf

This is pretty handy while you are developing your slides: you can use your window manager's "maximize" function to toggle between normal and maximized states to get a better view of the slides. I see no reason for not using the -z page flag all of the time. Therefore I have aliased xpdf to "xpdf -z page" and I recommend that you do it too. How you define an alias depends on the unix shell that you use. At UMBC's Department of Mathematics and Statistics we use tcsh. Therefore edit the file .cshrc in your home directory and add the following line to it:
alias xpdf xpdf -z page

While you are editing your .cshrc, you might as well add the following lines:
alias xpdff xpdf -fullscreen complete xpdff 'n/*/f:*.{pdf,PDF}/'

The first of these lines sets xpdff to be a an alias for "pdf -fullscreen", therefore you can now start a full-screen presentation by typing "xpdff small.pdf". The second line tells tcsh that the newly created xpdff command expects files names ending in pdf or PDF. This is used when you hit the TAB key to complete a file name on the command line.

Where to get Xpdf

Xpdf is bundled with most Linux distributions. If for some reason you need to download, compile and install the package yourself, you can get the source from: http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/. [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Running Xpdf in the full-screen mode

80

A Beamer Quickstart [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Where to get Xpdf

81

29 Beamer on the Web

Beamer's home on the web
Beamer's author is Till Tantau. Beamer's home page on the Web is at: http://latex-beamer.sourceforge.net/ where you can find several substantive examples plus downloading and installation instructions.

Screenshots
Jason Gorski has created a very nice set of Beamer screenshots in: http://www.csd.uwo.ca/gradstudents/jgorski/personal/beamerthemes/ It shows the complete set of Beamer themes, without customization.

A very brief introduction

Norm Matloff at UC Davis has produced a very brief introduction to Beamer. This may be useful if you want to get started in a hurry. http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/ matloff/beamer.html

Advanced tutorials
Ki-Joo Kim has created two very nice tutorials that demonstrate many advanced features of Beamer. You can find these tutorials, named beamer_guide.pdf and beamer_pstricks.pdf in: http://www.geocities.com/kijoo2000/beamer.html

[contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

29 Beamer on the Web

82

30 A gallery of Beamer slides

In this page I have included samples of slides produced by Beamer. The contents of these slides are identical to that of the file sample.tex. Only the controlling commands in the preamble are changed. Above each slide I have shown the complete preamble material that has gone into making that slide.

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{default}

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{default} \useoutertheme{umbcfootline} \useinnertheme{umbctribullets}

30 A gallery of Beamer slides

83

A Beamer Quickstart
\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{default} \useoutertheme{umbcfootline} \setbeamertemplate{background canvas}[vertical shading][bottom=red!20,top=yellow!30]

\documentclass[xcolor=svgnames]{beamer} \setbeamercolor{normal text}{bg=MediumSlateBlue,fg=white} \usecolortheme[named=white]{structure} \usetheme{default} \useoutertheme{umbcfootline} \useinnertheme{umbctribullets} \umbctribulletscolors{orange}{green}{yellow}

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{default} \setbeamertemplate{background canvas}[vertical shading][bottom=red!20,top=yellow!30] \setbeamertemplate{background}[grid][step=5mm,color=blue]

30 A gallery of Beamer slides

84

A Beamer Quickstart

\documentclass[12pt]{beamer} \usetheme{default} \setbeamercolor{structure}{fg=cyan!70} \setbeamercolor{normal text}{fg=cyan!70} % Note: sunset.jpg is not a part of beamer; you need t \setbeamertemplate{background}{\includegraphics[width=\paperwidth]{sunset.jpg}}

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Boadilla}

30 A gallery of Beamer slides

85

A Beamer Quickstart

\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames]{beamer} \usecolortheme[named=Maroon]{structure} \usetheme{Boadilla}

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Madrid}

30 A gallery of Beamer slides

86

A Beamer Quickstart

\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames]{beamer} \setbeamercolor{structure}{fg=OliveGreen!50!black} \usetheme{Madrid}

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Pittsburgh}

30 A gallery of Beamer slides

87

A Beamer Quickstart

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme[height=7mm]{Rochester}

\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames]{beamer} \usecolortheme[named=OliveGreen]{structure} \usetheme[height=7mm]{Rochester} \setbeamertemplate{items}[ball] \setbeamertemplate{blocks}[rounded][shadow=true] \useoutertheme{umbcfootline}

30 A gallery of Beamer slides

88

A Beamer Quickstart

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Copenhagen}

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Warsaw}

30 A gallery of Beamer slides

89

A Beamer Quickstart

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Singapore}

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{Malmoe}

30 A gallery of Beamer slides

90

A Beamer Quickstart

\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames]{beamer} \usecolortheme[named=Brown]{structure} \usetheme{Malmoe}

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{umbc1}

30 A gallery of Beamer slides

91

A Beamer Quickstart

\documentclass[xcolor=dvipsnames]{beamer} \usecolortheme[named=Sepia]{structure} \usetheme{umbc1}

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{umbc2}

30 A gallery of Beamer slides

92

A Beamer Quickstart

\documentclass{beamer} \usecolortheme[named=violet]{structure} \usetheme{umbc2}

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{umbc3}

30 A gallery of Beamer slides

93

A Beamer Quickstart

\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{umbc4}

[contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

30 A gallery of Beamer slides

94

31 Complete set of Beamer themes

This page contains samples corresponding to every theme distributed with version 3.06 of Beamer. Each theme is represented as a pair of imagesone titlepage and one ordinary slide. The idea of such a web page came from an old website of Jason Gorski. That website no more exists, hence this replacement. The samples were generated according to the following template:
\documentclass{beamer} \usetheme{@THEME} % name of theme substututed here \begin{document} \title{Beamer Sample for @THEME} \subtitle{Based on Beamer version 3.06} \author{Rouben Rostamian} \institute[UMBC]{Department of Mathematics and Statistics\UMBC} \date{\today} \begin{frame}[plain] \titlepage\end{frame} \begin{frame} \frametitle{Introduction} ... \end{frame} \end{document}

Click on any image to see a larger version of it.

Beamer theme AnnArbor

Beamer theme Antibes

31 Complete set of Beamer themes

95

A Beamer Quickstart

Beamer theme Bergen

Beamer theme Berkeley

Beamer theme Berlin

Beamer theme Boadilla

Beamer theme Bergen

96

A Beamer Quickstart

Beamer theme CambridgeUS

Beamer theme Copenhagen

Beamer theme Darmstadt

Beamer theme Dresden

Beamer theme CambridgeUS

97

A Beamer Quickstart

Beamer theme Frankfurt

Beamer theme Goettingen

Beamer theme Hannover

Beamer theme Ilmenau

Beamer theme Frankfurt

98

A Beamer Quickstart

Beamer theme JuanLesPins

Beamer theme Luebeck

Beamer theme Madrid

Beamer theme Malmoe

Beamer theme JuanLesPins

99

A Beamer Quickstart

Beamer theme Marburg

Beamer theme Montpellier

Beamer theme PaloAlto

Beamer theme Pittsburgh

Beamer theme Marburg

100

A Beamer Quickstart

Beamer theme Rochester

Beamer theme Singapore

Beamer theme Szeged

Beamer theme Warsaw

Beamer theme Rochester

101

A Beamer Quickstart

Beamer theme boxes

Beamer theme default

[contents] [index] [previous] [next] [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Beamer theme boxes

102

Index
Adobe's Acrobat Reader key bindings

background color, gradual shading, grid pattern, image bare-bones example, small.tex beamer on the web boxed text bug in fonttheme bug in infolines bullets: ball, circle, rectangle, triangle

color selector tool: xcolorsel color, normal text \colorbox colored text colors blending defining with RGB components named colors: beamer's defaults extended set from the dvips package extended set from the svg package the xcolor package columns environment compiling into pdf convert

dimensions of a beamer slide displaybox environment, see UMBC add-ons to Beamer downloaing hfc.tgz

epstopdf

\fboxrule \fboxsep \fcolorbox fonts sizes themes footline, see UMBC add-ons to Beamer the infolines theme Index 103

A Beamer Quickstart umbc footline frame, same as slide

gallery demos standard themes graphics format conversion including images in slides

height option in the Rochester theme hfc.tgz highlighted text hyperlinks buttons returning to calling page

ImageMagick, see convert \includegraphics itemization markers: ball, circle, rectangle, triangle

long example

margins, customizing widths

navigating with hyperlinks navigation icons, getting rid of

onlinebox environment, see UMBC add-ons to Beamer overlays

pause pdflatex

rounded boxes and shadows

shrink to make things fit slide, same as frame small.tex structure color coloring text with the \structure command Index 104

A Beamer Quickstart specifying RGB colors specifying rgb colors

tar command tex2page text color \textcolor themes customizing directory inner, outer more interesting theorems and related environemnts: definition, corollary, theorem, example, proof title page author, title, subtitle, institute, date short author, short title, etc. the plain option

UMBC add-ons to Beamer downloading tribullets, an inner theme for triangular itemization markers umbc1, umbc2, umbc3, umbc4: basic beamer themes umbc1, umbc2, umbc4: basic beamer themes customizing umbcboxes, an inner theme for boxed text/math umbcfootline, an outer theme for slide footlines changing per slide customizing unpacking a tar archive

vertical alignment within slides

xcolor package xcolorsel xpdf aliases for unix full-screen mode key bindings [contents] [index] [previous] [next]

Index

105