Beamer block environment without title

Question

Is it possible to create a customised beamer block environment that only has a body and not a title?

For example, I wish to typeset the following quote within a coloured block so that it stands out but I have no need for the block's title. I just want the quote to be superimposed on a coloured, rounded, and shadowed box.

\begin{example}
{\large ``To be, or not to be: that is the question.''}
\vskip5mm
\hspace*\fill{\small--- William Shakespeare, Hamlet}
\end{example}

If not, are there suggestions for how to do this in another package, like tikz?

Answer 1

You could use an exampleblock environment with empty title:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{Warsaw}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\begin{exampleblock}{}
  {\large ``To be, or not to be: that is the question.''}
  \vskip5mm
  \hspace*\fill{\small--- William Shakespeare, Hamlet}
\end{exampleblock}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Answer 2

A simple solution, as given in the Beamer manual p.124, might be customizing the following code to your needs.

\setbeamercolor{postit}{fg=black,bg=yellow}
\begin{beamercolorbox}[sep=1em,wd=5cm]{postit}
Place me somewhere!
\end{beamercolorbox}

Also you can make it look like a block without its title.

Answer 3

Another working quick-fix in cases where \begin{block}{} causes some ugliness at the top of the block, you can use negative vertical space as the block title:

\documentclass{beamer}

\usetheme{Copenhagen}

\setbeamertemplate{blocks}[default]

\begin{document}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\begin{frame}

\begin{block}{abc}
abcabc
\end{block}

\begin{block}{}
defdef
\end{block}

\begin{block}{\vspace*{-3ex}}
ghighi
\end{block}

\end{frame}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\end{document}

Answer 4

This is just a remark regarding percusses solution and Steve's usage, but i can't add a comment, because their discussion has been over too long ago. Instead of creating a new beamer color with approximately the same colors as the block body example color, it would be wiser to just use the predefined color if one intents to create a block with the same appearance:

\begin{beamercolorbox}[wd=\textwidth,rounded=true,shadow=true]{block body example}
   Quote here.
\end{beamercolorbox}

Answer 5

My solution would be to change the block begin template. It's default is defined in beamerinnerthemedefault.sty as

\defbeamertemplate*{block begin}{default}
{
  \par\vskip\medskipamount%
  \begin{beamercolorbox}[colsep*=.75ex]{block title}
    \usebeamerfont*{block title}\insertblocktitle%
  \end{beamercolorbox}%
  {\parskip0pt\par}%
  \ifbeamercolorempty[bg]{block title}
  {}
  {\ifbeamercolorempty[bg]{block body}{}{\nointerlineskip\vskip-0.5pt}}%
  \usebeamerfont{block body}%
  \begin{beamercolorbox}[colsep*=.75ex,vmode]{block body}%
    \ifbeamercolorempty[bg]{block body}{\vskip-.25ex}{\vskip-.75ex}\vbox{}%
}

In your document you can create an additional option for block begin with has no title by deleting the first few lines of the definition:

%create template for block without title
\defbeamertemplate{block begin}{notitle}
{
  \usebeamerfont{block body}%
  \begin{beamercolorbox}[colsep*=.75ex,vmode]{block body}%
    \ifbeamercolorempty[bg]{block body}{\vskip-.25ex}{\vskip-.75ex}\vbox{}%
}

Now you can turn off the title bar with \setbeamertemplate{block begin}[notitle] and turn it back on with \setbeamertemplate{block begin}[default].

Of course this is only true if you use a inner theme which uses \setbeamertemplate{block begin}[default]. If your inner theme uses another option for block begin, you need to make a copy of that and change it accordingly. rounded for example (used by inner theme rounded) is defined in beamerauxtemplates.sty. Also the command to turn titles back on would need to be copied from your theme, in that case from beamerinnerthemerounded.sty.