[Tex/LaTex] How to set a small default font size with beamer

beamerfontsize

I use beamer class with newcent package for the font. I set

\documentclass[8pt]{beamer}

at the top of my tex file. But I think the font is still too large.

In my beamer theme, I tried to set :

\setbeamerfont{normal text}{size=\small}

But it does not work and I think that it is not the correct way to do that.

How can I globally reduce the font size ?

Thanks

Best Answer

According to section 18.2.1 of the beamer manual, a default font size of 8pt is already "way too small". beamer uses the extsizes packages for non-standard font sizes, and extsizes doesn't offer anything smaller than 8pt. If you really must fit more text on each frame, I suggest to enlarge beamer's paper size from 128mm*96mm to, say, 140mm*105mm.

\documentclass[8pt]{beamer}

\geometry{paperwidth=140mm,paperheight=105mm}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\lipsum[1]
\end{frame}

\end{document}

enter image description here

EDIT: Another option is to load the scrextend package (part of KOMA-Script) which allows to choose arbitrary font sizes like 7.5pt -- be sure to use a vector font like Latin Modern.

\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage{lmodern}

\usepackage{scrextend}
\changefontsizes{7.5pt}

\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\lipsum[1]
\end{frame}

\end{document}

enter image description here

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