How to fit title and author into footline of the CambridgeUS beamer theme

Question

I am writing a presentation using a beamer theme; the code I wrote is this:

\documentclass{beamer}
%\documentclass[handout]{beamer}

% THIS PUTS TWO SLIDES ON EACH PAGE
%\usepackage{pgfpages}
%\pgfpagesuselayout{2 on 1}[a4paper,border shrink=5mm]

\usetheme{CambridgeUS}
\usepackage{time}             % date and time
\usepackage{graphicx, epsfig}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}      % european characters
\usepackage{amssymb,amsmath}  % use mathematical symbols
\usepackage{palatino}         % use palatino as the default font
\usepackage{multimedia}
\usepackage{subfigure}
\usepackage{mathrsfs}

% CREATES SHADED INSTEAD OF HIDDEN OVERLAYS
%\setbeamercovered{transparent}


% SOME COMMANDS I'VE CREATED FOR LONG COMMANDS I USE OFTEN
\newcommand{\ds}{\displaystyle}
\newcommand{\ve}{\varepsilon}
\newcommand{\der}[2]{\frac{d #1}{d #2}}
\newcommand{\pder}[2]{\frac{\partial #1}{\partial #2}}
\newcommand{\inv}{^{-1}}
\newcommand{\mat}[1]{\textbf{#1}}



\title{Un titolo a caso}
%\subtitle{An Introduction}
\author{\small Author: pinco\\
Assistant: pallo}
\institute{\large Polimi\\
\footnotesize Facolt\'a delle merendine industriali\\
\small Corso in cannoli e bomboloni} % COMMAND UNIQUE TO BEAMER
\date{\today}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
  \titlepage
\end{frame}

\end{document}

The output that I get is this:

Here are the problems:

1) as you can see in the red box below the text does not fit; what you see is this: "Author: pinco Assinstan: pa". What I would like to have is just the name of the author: "pinco" and nothing else in it.

2) The same problem persists in the grey box which should contain the title of this frame; however what I want is to display the word "Polifighe" instead.

Can tell me what should I change in my code in order to achieve my goals?

Answer 1

As described in section 3.3 of the beamer documentation, \title, \author, etc. accept optional short arguments in square brackets. This short version will be placed into the footline.

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{CambridgeUS}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}      % european characters
\usepackage{amssymb,amsmath}  % use mathematical symbols
\usepackage{palatino}         % use palatino as the default font

\title[Polifighe]{Super long title that does not fit in the grey box below}
%\subtitle{An Introduction}
\author[pinco]{\small Author: pinco\\
Assistant: pallo}
\institute[]{\large Polimi\\
\footnotesize Facolt\'a delle merendine industriali\\
\small Corso in cannoli e bomboloni} % COMMAND UNIQUE TO BEAMER
\date{\today}

\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
  \titlepage
\end{frame}
\end{document}

Note the empty [] after \institute. Without this, the institute will follow the author in the footline.