[Tex/LaTex] How to add plain text to a titlepage in beamer

Question

I would like to add plain text to a \titlepage in beamer. How can I do this?
Is there a list somewhere with all the possible commands for a \titlepage such as \title, \subtitle, \institute and so on?

Answer 1

Available commands can be found in the Beamer user guide. Look in section 10.1. However, if you want to customize the title page by adding text at some arbitrary location, you should redefine the beamertemplate for your theme.

Depending on which theme you use, the code you should start from will be different.

The titlepage definition is found in the beamerinnertheme file that your theme is using. For example the definition in the default theme (beamerinnerthemedefault.sty) is:

\defbeamertemplate*{title page}{default}[1][]
{
  \vbox{}
  \vfill
  \begingroup
    \centering
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[sep=8pt,center,#1]{title}
      \usebeamerfont{title}\inserttitle\par%
      \ifx\insertsubtitle\@empty%
      \else%
        \vskip0.25em%
        {\usebeamerfont{subtitle}\usebeamercolor[fg]{subtitle}\insertsubtitle\par}%
      \fi%     
    \end{beamercolorbox}%
    \vskip1em\par
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[sep=8pt,center,#1]{author}
      \usebeamerfont{author}\insertauthor
    \end{beamercolorbox}
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[sep=8pt,center,#1]{institute}
      \usebeamerfont{institute}\insertinstitute
    \end{beamercolorbox}
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[sep=8pt,center,#1]{date}
      \usebeamerfont{date}\insertdate
    \end{beamercolorbox}\vskip0.5em
    {\usebeamercolor[fg]{titlegraphic}\inserttitlegraphic\par}
  \endgroup
  \vfill
} 

And if you want to customize this, you should put this in your preamble (after you load the theme):

\makeatletter
\setbeamertemplate{title page}
{
  \vbox{}
  \vfill
  \begingroup
    \centering
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[sep=8pt,center]{title}
      \usebeamerfont{title}\inserttitle\par%
      \ifx\insertsubtitle\@empty%
      \else%
        \vskip0.25em%
        {\usebeamerfont{subtitle}\usebeamercolor[fg]{subtitle}\insertsubtitle\par}%
      \fi%     
    \end{beamercolorbox}%
    \vskip1em\par
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[sep=8pt,center]{author}
      \usebeamerfont{author}\insertauthor
    \end{beamercolorbox}
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[sep=8pt,center]{institute}
      \usebeamerfont{institute}\insertinstitute
    \end{beamercolorbox}
    \begin{beamercolorbox}[sep=8pt,center]{date}
      \usebeamerfont{date}\insertdate \\ Custom text
    \end{beamercolorbox}\vskip0.5em
    {\usebeamercolor[fg]{titlegraphic}\inserttitlegraphic\par}
  \endgroup
  \vfill
} 
\makeatother

Note the change from \defbeamertemplate*{}{}[][]{} to \setbeamertemplate{}{}.

Then do whatever changes you want.

A easier hack might be to for example write \date{\today \\ Custom text} for some appropriate titlepage command. Both ways give the same result: