beamerheader-footer
I want to place a line of text at the top of a frame (above the frame title and default frame headline} such as:
\begin{frame}
My top of frame text
\frametitle{My title}
My frame body
\end{frame}
but beamer automatically reformats. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks.
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.)
\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}
Title style is defined with beamercolor and beamerfont templates. Use them inside a beamercolorbox with correct dimensions or just fix them before writing the title.
If you want also horizontally centre ordered or unordered lists, use varwidth package.
Next is a modification of Christof's example. Adjust it to your stylish needs.
\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{Rochester}
\usecolortheme{beaver}
\setbeamercolor*{item}{fg=red!70!black!100!}
\useinnertheme{circles}
\usepackage{varwidth}
\newcommand{\mytitle}{
\begin{beamercolorbox}[ht=3ex,dp=1ex,center,wd=\framewidth]{frametitle}
\usebeamerfont{frametitle}\insertframetitle
\end{beamercolorbox}\begin{beamercolorbox}[ht=3ex,dp=1ex,center,wd=\framewidth]{framesubtitle}
\usebeamerfont{framesubtitle}\insertframesubtitle
\end{beamercolorbox}}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}[plain]{Frametitle}{Framesubtitle}
\centering
\mytitle
\medskip
Some Text. Some Text. Some Text. Some Text. Some Text. Some Text.
\medskip
\begin{varwidth}{.5\linewidth}
\begin{itemize}
\item One Subject
\item Another Subject
\end{itemize}\end{varwidth}
\end{frame}
\end{document}
Best Answer
Here, I added a left-aligned
\smashed stack on top of the frame title. It appears to have the same spacing as when the\frametitleis merely plain text. Having a full MWE from the OP would have helped to understand if this approach is adequate.