Beamer bullets with Alegreya Sans

Question

I find Alegreya Sans especially readable for presentations, in part because it has real italics and not just an oblique shape. However, itemization is problematic.

Although the default, triangular bullets of beamer work as expected, the circle, ball, and square options produce miniature bullets, and the latter two are lower than they should be.

For example:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usefonttheme{professionalfonts}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{AlegreyaSans}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
  \frametitle{Tiny Bullets}

  \structure{default}
  \begin{itemize}
  \item An item.
  \end{itemize}

  \structure{circle}
  \setbeamertemplate{itemize items}[circle]
  \begin{itemize}
  \item An item.
  \end{itemize}

  \structure{ball}
  \setbeamertemplate{itemize items}[ball]
  \begin{itemize}
  \item Another item.
  \end{itemize}

  \structure{square}
  \setbeamertemplate{itemize items}[square]
  \begin{itemize}
  \item Yet another item.
  \end{itemize}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

I get the same results with luatex, but xetex stumbles only on the circle:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\usefonttheme{professionalfonts}
\setsansfont{Alegreya Sans}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
  \frametitle{Tiny Bullets}

  \structure{default}
  \begin{itemize}
  \item An item.
  \end{itemize}

  \structure{circle}
  \setbeamertemplate{itemize items}[circle]
  \begin{itemize}
  \item An item.
  \end{itemize}

  \structure{ball}
  \setbeamertemplate{itemize items}[ball]
  \begin{itemize}
  \item Another item.
  \end{itemize}

  \structure{square}
  \setbeamertemplate{itemize items}[square]
  \begin{itemize}
  \item Yet another item.
  \end{itemize}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

In luatex, I can use luacode to gain access to the font’s ornaments, among which are circles and squares:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{fontspec,luacode}
% http://tex.stackexchange.com/a/120762/7883
\begin{luacode}
  documentdata       = documentdata or { }

  local stringformat = string.format
  local texsprint    = tex.sprint
  local slot_of_name = luaotfload.aux.slot_of_name

  documentdata.fontchar = function (chr)
local chr = slot_of_name(font.current(), chr, false)
if chr and type(chr) == "number" then
  texsprint
    (stringformat ([[\char"%X]], chr))
end
  end
\end{luacode}
\def\fontchar#1{\directlua{documentdata.fontchar "#1"}}
\usefonttheme{professionalfonts}
\setsansfont{Alegreya Sans}
\defbeamertemplate{itemize item}{cornament}{\fontchar{circle1}}
\defbeamertemplate{itemize item}{sornament}{\fontchar{square1}}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
  \frametitle{Custom Bullets}

  \structure{circle}
  \setbeamertemplate{itemize item}[cornament]
  \begin{itemize}
  \item An item.
  \end{itemize}

  \structure{square}
  \setbeamertemplate{itemize item}[sornament]
  \begin{itemize}
  \item Another item.
  \end{itemize}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

Any ideas why this is happening? It makes no difference whether I use the OpenType fonts provided in TeX Live (for reasons unknown, the package author created them by converting google’s Truetype fonts) or the OpenType fonts straight from the foundry.

Answer 1

Use

\documentclass{beamer}
\usefonttheme{professionalfonts}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{AlegreyaSans}
\AtBeginDocument{%
  \fontdimen5\font=\fontcharht\font`\x}
\begin{document}
[ ... ]

For the circle define an own mycircle template and use that instead of `circle'

\defbeamertemplate{itemize item}{mycircle}{\scalebox{10}{\raisebox{-0.5ex}{\textbullet}}}%% Value 10 only for demo  :-)
\defbeamertemplate{itemize subitem}{mycircle}{\huge\raisebox{-0.5ex}{\textbullet}}
\defbeamertemplate{itemize subsubitem}{mycircle}{\huge\raisebox{-0.5ex}{\textbullet}}

and then \structure{circle}

 \setbeamertemplate{itemize items}[mycircle]
 \begin{itemize}