Align content top with beamer (and metropolis)

Question

I'm having trouble aligning content top with Beamer even when I add the class option t. Ideally, I would like my content to be flushed to the same vertical height irrespective of what content I start with. But slides that start with itemize or displayed equations have some extra vertical space between the frametitle and the content. Without success, I have tried adding \vspace{-\topsep} before itemize and \vspace{-\abovedisplayskip} before align*.

In the end, I would like to use the Metropolis theme, but I suspect that the problem is unrelated to the theme.

MWE:

\documentclass[t]{beamer}
% \usetheme[sectionpage=none]{metropolis}
\begin{document}
  \begin{frame}{First frame}
    Hello, world!
  \end{frame}
\begin{frame}{Second frame}
    % \vspace{-\topsep}
    \begin{itemize}
      \item Hello, world!
    \end{itemize}
  \end{frame}
\begin{frame}{Third frame}
    % \vspace{-\abovedisplayskip}
    \begin{align}
      Hello, world!
    \end{align}
  \end{frame}
\end{document}

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 17 '21 at 10:50

I am not sure there is a good way to achieve this. Also, I don't know which tag or environment is responsible for this (and there might well be differences for various themes, for all I know), but I think your \vspace{-...} approach might be the way to go for now.

In a case like that, I usually draw a TikZ grid on the page (or slide) in question, and adjust my values accordingly:

\documentclass[t]{beamer}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}
\newcommand\drawgrid{
\tikzset{strong lines/.style={black!25, very thin}}
\begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture, overlay]
  \draw[style=strong lines,step=2.5mm] 
(current page.south west) grid (current page.north east);
\end{tikzpicture}}
\begin{frame}[t]{First frame}
    \drawgrid
Hello, world!

\end{frame}
\begin{frame}{Second frame}
    \drawgrid
\vspace{-.6ex}
\begin{itemize}
      \item Hello, world!
\end{itemize}

\end{frame}
\begin{frame}{Third frame}
    \drawgrid
\vspace{-5.1ex}
\begin{align*}
  Hello, world!
\end{align*}

\end{frame}
\end{document}

It is, I admit, not a very elegant solution, but it should work in a pinch. I'll have to let others figure out what causes it and how to fix it “properly”.

The \drawgrid command shifts the frame content down, which makes the adjustments conditional on having the grid there. I suppose that one could change the color of the grid so that it invisible... — Fredrik P, Mar 18 '21 at 09:23

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 18 '21 at 09:22

\vspace{} is probably the way to go. The method to the madness (as per this answer) seems to be that displayed equations start a new paragraph (hence, vspace{-\baselineskip}) and then add a skip (hence, \vspace{-\abovedisplayskip}). As for the list, \vspace{-\topsep} is because there is space added to an assumed preceding paragraph. However, the logic behind \vspace{-\itemsep} escapes me.

\documentclass[t]{beamer}
% \usetheme[sectionpage=none]{metropolis}
\begin{document}
  \begin{frame}{First frame}
    Hello, world!
  \end{frame}
\begin{frame}{Second frame}
    \vspace{-\topsep}\vspace{\itemsep}
    \begin{itemize}
      \item Hello, world!
    \end{itemize}
  \end{frame}
\begin{frame}{Third frame}
    \vspace{-\baselineskip}\vspace{-\abovedisplayskip}
    \begin{align}
      Hello, world!
    \end{align}
  \end{frame}
\end{document}

Align content top with beamer (and metropolis)

2 Answers2