Add some space around the headline in a beamer slide

Question

How can I customise the headline of my slides in order to have some white space above and below the title of the frame?

I guess I should change the template with the following instruction: \setbeamertemplate{headline}

but how?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

From your description, it's not clear (at least to me) which template you need to modify; headline or frametile. Anyways, you can use \addtobeamertemplate to add the spacing before (using the first argument) and after (using the second argument) the headline or frametitle template; a little example (of course, instead of 1cm you can use the desired length):

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{Warsaw}

\addtobeamertemplate{frametitle}{\vspace*{1cm}}{\vspace*{1cm}}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Test Frame}
test
\end{frame}

\end{document}

After the new requirement made in a comment, a redefinition of the frametitle template (as defined in beamerouterthemeshadow,sty since the theme used is Warsaw) is needed:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{Warsaw}

\makeatletter
\setbeamertemplate{frametitle}
{%
  \nointerlineskip%
  \vskip-2pt%
  \hbox{\leavevmode
    \advance\beamer@leftmargin by -12bp%
    \advance\beamer@rightmargin by -12bp%
    \beamer@tempdim=\textwidth%
    \advance\beamer@tempdim by \beamer@leftmargin%
    \advance\beamer@tempdim by \beamer@rightmargin%
    \hskip-\Gm@lmargin\hbox{%
      \setbox\beamer@tempbox=\hbox{\begin{minipage}[b]{\paperwidth}%
          \vbox{}\vskip.50ex% NEW: original \vskip-.75ex
          \leftskip0.3cm%
          \rightskip0.3cm plus1fil\leavevmode
          \insertframetitle%
          \ifx\insertframesubtitle\@empty%
            \strut\par%
          \else
            \par{\usebeamerfont*{framesubtitle}{\usebeamercolor[fg]{framesubtitle}\insertframesubtitle}\strut\par\vskip2ex}% NEW: added \vskip2ex
          \fi%
          \nointerlineskip
          \vbox{}%
          \end{minipage}}%
      \beamer@tempdim=\ht\beamer@tempbox%
      \advance\beamer@tempdim by 2pt%
      \begin{pgfpicture}{0pt}{0pt}{\paperwidth}{\beamer@tempdim}
        \usebeamercolor{frametitle right}
        \pgfpathrectangle{\pgfpointorigin}{\pgfpoint{\paperwidth}{\beamer@tempdim}}
        \pgfusepath{clip}
        \pgftext[left,base]{\pgfuseshading{beamer@frametitleshade}}
      \end{pgfpicture}
      \hskip-\paperwidth%
      \box\beamer@tempbox%
    }%
    \hskip-\Gm@rmargin%
  }%
  \nointerlineskip
    \vskip-0.2pt
    \hbox to\textwidth{\hskip-\Gm@lmargin\pgfuseshading{beamer@topshade}\hskip-\Gm@rmargin}
    \vskip-2pt
}
\makeatother
\addtobeamertemplate{frametitle}{\vspace*{1cm}}{\vspace*{1cm}}


\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Test Frame Title}
\framesubtitle{Test Frame Subtitle}
test
\end{frame}

\end{document}

The lines that were changed are signaled in the code with % NEW; there you can adjust the lengths according to your needs.