[Tex/LaTex] Beamer headline too long

beamerheader-footer

When creating a beamer presentation in LaTeX, I have so many sections and frames, that the headline with the navigation bar is too long for the frame. Also, the table of contents is too long. I know that I can change the fontsize for the TOC, but is there a possibility to arrange the TOC in 2 (or more) columns? And is it possible to arrange the headline in more then 1 (say, 2) lines?

Working example:

\documentclass[ngerman]{beamer}
\usetheme{Frankfurt}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame} \tableofcontents[hideallsubsections] \end{frame}
\section{Abschnitt} \subsection{Abschnitt} \begin{frame} Abschnitt \end{frame}
\section{Abschnitt} \subsection{Abschnitt} \begin{frame} Abschnitt \end{frame}
\section{Abschnitt} \subsection{Abschnitt} \begin{frame} Abschnitt \end{frame}
\section{Abschnitt} \subsection{Abschnitt} \begin{frame} Abschnitt \end{frame}
\section{Abschnitt} \subsection{Abschnitt} \begin{frame} Abschnitt \end{frame}
\section{Abschnitt} \subsection{Abschnitt} \begin{frame} Abschnitt \end{frame}
\section{Abschnitt} \subsection{Abschnitt} \begin{frame} Abschnitt \end{frame}
\section{Abschnitt} \subsection{Abschnitt} \begin{frame} Abschnitt \end{frame}
\section{Abschnitt} \subsection{Abschnitt} \begin{frame} Abschnitt \end{frame}
\section{Abschnitt} \subsection{Abschnitt} \begin{frame} Abschnitt \end{frame}
\section{Abschnitt} \subsection{Abschnitt} \begin{frame} Abschnitt \end{frame}
\section{Abschnitt} \subsection{Abschnitt} \begin{frame} Abschnitt \end{frame}
\section{Abschnitt} \subsection{Abschnitt} \begin{frame} Abschnitt \end{frame}
\end{document}

EDIT: The first question has been solved, thx to samcarter. For the second question the code in the given link does not work for me. Since I am using the theme Frankfurt, I thought I had to exchange \progressbaroptions{headline=sections} by \Frankfurtoptions{headline=sections} but this does not work. If I leave away that line, no headline at all is shown.

Best Answer

Two column ToC:

The two column ToC can be done as I posted in this solution: https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/136082/36296

Multiline navigation bar

you can find some examples about a navigation bar with multiple lines for example in the following questions:

Separate Beamer navigation bar for some portions of presentation

Navigation bar is too long on progressbar theme, can it wrap?

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Customizing Beamer’s Table of Contents

For specific subsections you may modify the behavior before they start: you could change \AtBeginSubsection locally. This means you could change that, for a subsection, but keep this change local by enclosing it within a group. For example, disabling \AtBeginSubsection and thus the subsection TOC:

\begingroup
\AtBeginSubsection{}
\subsection{No TOC}
\begin{frame}
...
\end{frame}
\endgroup
\subsection{Here's a TOC}

After the group ended, the globally by \AtBeginSubsection defined macro returns being active. The following subsections will show the TOC - I tested it.

This works because \AtBeginSubsection uses \def to redefine internal macros, which works local, thus visible only inside a group, in contrary to \gdef.

[Tex/LaTex] Beamer customizing headline

That's right, the beamer package only calculates the height of the headline once, at the beginning of the document. The macro responsible for this task is called \beamer@calculateheadfoot, and is defined in beamerbaseframecomponents.sty (ll. 161-182). If the head of your headline changes in the course of the presentation (which doesn't sound like a terribly good idea to my mind, BTW), you'll have to issue this command manually.

This can be done for example by adding it to the internal macro \beamer@@@@frame: Like this, the head of head- and footlines etc. are recalculated each time a frame is being built:

\usepackage{etoolbox}
\makeatletter
\pretocmd{\beamer@@@@frame}{%
  \addtocounter{framenumber}{1}%
  \beamer@calculateheadfoot%
  \addtocounter{framenumber}{-1}}{}{}
\makeatother

Add this code snippet to your document or your theme file. (The manual change of framenumber is necessary to get the correct headline as beamer hasn't stepped the counter at this point.)

Minimal example:

\documentclass{beamer}

% To make a compilable example, these definitions are necessary - you can replace them by your own
\colorlet{LightBlue}{blue}
\colorlet{DarkGray}{gray}
\setbeamercolor{linemid}{bg=green}
\newlength{\headerheight}
\setlength{\headerheight}{10pt}

\makeatletter
\setbeamertemplate{headline}
{  \ifnum\c@framenumber>1
    \leavevmode%
    \hbox{%
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[wd=\paperwidth,ht=\headerheight,dp=0pt]{}%
       \ifx\insertsection\@empty
       \else
       {
       {\usebeamerfont{headsection}\hspace{1em} \color{LightBlue}\insertsection}
          \ifx\insertsubsection\@empty
          \else
          {\hspace{0.5em}$\vert$ \hspace{0.5em}{\usebeamerfont{headsubsection}\color{DarkGray}\insertsubsection}}%
        \fi
       }
       \fi
    \end{beamercolorbox}%
    } %
  \vskip0pt%
  \else
    \hbox{%
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[wd=\paperwidth,ht=20pt,dp=0pt]{linemid}
    \end{beamercolorbox}%
    }
  \fi
}

% Recalculate the head of head- and footlines for each frame
% (http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/61788/3323)
\usepackage{etoolbox}
\makeatletter
\pretocmd{\beamer@@@@frame}{%
  \addtocounter{framenumber}{1}%
  \beamer@calculateheadfoot%
  \addtocounter{framenumber}{-1}}{}{}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\section{section}
\subsection{subsection}
\frame{Title page with special headline}
\frame{Normal frame}
\frame{Normal frame 2}
\end{document}