[Tex/LaTex] right description list LaTeX beamer

beamerdescriptionhorizontal alignmentlistsspacing

How to do right align a description list using beamer?

      Name | Joel Spolsky
   Address | Some address

Using the enumitem package as suggested in
Description list with right alignment of labels does not seem to work with the beamer package

Best Answer

With beamer package, the description environment can use an optional argument: a text to fix the maximum width of terms (cf. section 12.1 "Itemizations, Enumerations, and Descriptions", p.113 of beamer guide v3.26).

Example:

\documentclass{beamer}
\setbeamercolor{normal text}{bg=cyan!10}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
  \begin{description}[Other description]
  \item[Name] Joel Spolsky
  \item[Address] Some address  
  \item[Other description] Some description
  \end{description}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

enter image description here

How to align items to the left

By default, items are aligned to the right. To align items to the the left :

  • in your preamble, define the predefined option align left for the template description item:

     \defbeamertemplate{description item}{align left}{\insertdescriptionitem\hfill}

  • apply this prefined option before a description list:

     \setbeamertemplate{description item}[align left]

Example:

enter image description here

\documentclass{beamer}
\setbeamercolor{normal text}{bg=gray!5}
\defbeamertemplate{description item}{align left}{\insertdescriptionitem\hfill}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
  \begin{block}{Default}
    \setbeamertemplate{description item}[default]
    \begin{description}[Other description]
    \item[Name] Joel Spolsky
    \item[Address] Some address  
    \item[Other description] Some description
    \end{description}
  \end{block}
  \begin{block}{Align left}
    \setbeamertemplate{description item}[align left]
    \begin{description}[Other description]
    \item[Name] Joel Spolsky
    \item[Address] Some address  
    \item[Other description] Some description
    \end{description}
  \end{block}
\end{frame}
\end{document}
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