# Beamer - stop page numbering

I would like to stop the page numbering for some slides that are basically the same. Does anyone know how to do it?

I attach a (MWE) example below. As you can see in the first slide I highlight in red the title of column 1, in the second slide (identical to the previous one) I highlight column 2. Latex counts two slides, whereas I would like to count only the first.

\documentclass[10pt,notes=show,beamer]{beamer}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{mathpazo}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{multimedia}
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{epstopdf}
\usepackage{color}

\setcounter{MaxMatrixCols}{10}

%%%%%%%%%%% BEAMER TEMPLATE %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\mode<presentation>
{
\usetheme[compress]{Singapore}
\setbeamercovered{transparent}
}
\setbeamertemplate{footline}[frame number]

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% END PREAMBLE
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}{First slide}

\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{ll}
\textcolor{red}{Column 1} & Column 2  \\
\hline \hline
num1    & num2   \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Second slide}

\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{ll}
Column 1 & \textcolor{red}{Column 2}  \\
\hline \hline
num1    & num2   \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{frame}

\end{document}

• Just to be more clear, now latex counts a total of two pages and displays 1/2 and 2/2, whereas I would like to see 1/1 and 1/1 Sep 4 '18 at 14:58
• Off-topic: you don't need \usepackage{hyperref}, \usepackage{graphicx} and \usepackage{color} with beamer. Sep 4 '18 at 15:09

The solution is the command \alert:

\documentclass{beamer}
\mode<presentation>
{
\usetheme[compress]{Singapore}
\setbeamercovered{transparent}
}
\setbeamertemplate{footline}[frame number]
\begin{document}

\begin{frame}{First slide}

\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{ll}
\hline \hline
num1    & num2   \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{frame}
\end{document}


• Thanks a lot! It works perfectly! I just have a follow-up question: what if I would like to highlight Column1/Column2 with a color that is not red? Can I still use the command \alert? Sep 4 '18 at 15:17
• The color of \alert can be changed: tex.stackexchange.com/questions/96864/… However, if you want more flexibility, you should probably use \textcolor (see also @Skillmon's answer)
– bmv
Sep 4 '18 at 15:21

Do you know the commands \only and \visible added by beamer? Those might help you. If you really want to use two frame environments, you could decrease the counter by 1 or use the handy option noframenumbering (the latter might be preferred as it's the way beamer wants you to do it). The following uses both approaches:

\documentclass[10pt,notes=show,beamer]{beamer}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{color}

%%%%%%%%%%% BEAMER TEMPLATE %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\mode<presentation>
{
\usetheme[compress]{Singapore}
\setbeamercovered{transparent}
}
\setbeamertemplate{footline}[frame number]

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% END PREAMBLE
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}{First slide}

\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{ll}
\textcolor{red}{Column 1} & Column 2  \\
\hline \hline
num1    & num2   \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{frame}

\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{ll}
Column 1 & \textcolor{red}{Column 2}  \\
\hline \hline
num1    & num2   \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}

\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{combined}% >>>
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{ll}
\only<1>{\textcolor{red}}{Column 1}
& \only<2>{\textcolor{red}}{Column 2}\\
\hline\hline
num1 & num2 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\end{table}
\end{frame}% <<<

\end{document}


As @samcarter pointed out, beamer alters the command \textcolor to also support \textcolor<1>{red}{Column 1} and \textcolor<2>{red}{Column 2}. So instead of \only<1>{\textcolor{red}}{Column 1} one could also use that.

• Maybe a bit easier: \textcolor<2>{red}}{Column 2} Sep 4 '18 at 15:07
• @samcarter you even hacked \textcolor? I didn't know that, but I think showing the more basic commands like \only gives more opportunities, as one could add almost arbitrary stuff there. Sep 4 '18 at 15:09
• I'm innocence! It's beamer who redefined many of the basic commands. Sep 4 '18 at 15:10
• @samcarter I thought you were part of the team maintaining beamer. Sorry if that was wrong. Sep 4 '18 at 15:11
• Instead of \addtocounter{framenumber}{-1} you could also use noframenumbering as option for the second frame. Sep 4 '18 at 15:13