Tikz and Beamer: How to fix coordinate system to be the same on each slide?

Question

Is it possible to make the coordinate system to be fixed on several slides in a beamer presentation? So that each point with the same coordinates in different tikzpicture environments on different slides is in exactly the same position in the resulting PDF?

Example:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw (0,0) circle (1cm);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw (0,0) circle (1cm);
\draw (2,2) circle (2cm);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

How to modify this example, such that on both slides the circle at position (0,0) overlays?

This is hard to answer without an example illustrating what you mean exactly. At any rate, you can always place your TikZ picture relative to anchors of the (current page) coordinate. — Herr K., Dec 09 '13 at 19:48
possible duplicate of How can I fix jumping TikZ pictures in beamer? — Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine, Dec 09 '13 at 19:53
Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine: I don't think so, as I have different frame-ennvironments. So I cannot see how to make use of the answers of the denoted post. — Thomas W., Dec 09 '13 at 20:17
You need to make sure that the tikzpicture occupies the same space (at least) vertically. This is achieved either by putting it in a box, or adding phantom elements in your tikzpicture to match them (in this case, adding something to the first tikzpicture). — Werner, Dec 09 '13 at 20:23

d-cmst · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-09T20:40:54.997

you can set the overlay and remember picture option to the tikzpicture:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
\begin{tikzpicture}[overlay,remember picture]
\draw (0,0) circle (1cm);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
\begin{tikzpicture}[overlay,remember picture]
\draw (0,0) circle (1cm);
\draw (2,2) circle (2cm);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

enter image description here

With these options you have also access to the current page anchor, which allows for cool stuff like:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
\begin{tikzpicture}[overlay,remember picture,every node/.style={draw,minimum size=2.5cm,circle}]
\node [anchor=east] at (current page.east){};
\node [anchor=west] at (current page.west){};
\node [anchor=north] at (current page.north){};
\node [anchor=south] at (current page.south){};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}
\begin{tikzpicture}[overlay,remember picture,every node/.style={draw,minimum size=2.5cm,circle}]
\node [anchor=east] at (current page.east){};
\node [anchor=west] at (current page.west){};
\node [anchor=north] at (current page.north){};
\node [anchor=south] at (current page.south){};
\node at (current page.center){};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{frame}

enter image description here

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 21 '16 at 20:18

You can also fix the position using the textpos package and textblock* environment. This allows you to fix anything to a fixed coordinate position of the slide.

Do not that this works as an overlay and will therefore not interact typesetting-wise with stuff outside in inserted textblock.

A small working example:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage[absolute,overlay]{textpos}
\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}{Frame Title}

\begin{textblock*}{.0\textwidth}(13mm,77mm)

\begin{tikzpicture}
\node (x) {Here's a node};    
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{textblock*}

\end{frame}
\end{document}

Tikz and Beamer: How to fix coordinate system to be the same on each slide?

2 Answers2