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I'm trying to insert references into a beamer footline. These references are different for each slide, so I cannot include them in the footline template - unless there is then some way to later define them per-slide.
I have tried to simply include the after a \vfill, but the location of the line then varies with each slide, and this is not what I want.
How do I insert references (or really, just any custom text) into the footline of a specific slide in beamer?
This provides a new template/font/color footline extra and a macro \footlineextra to add text to the footline.
\documentclass{beamer}
\title{Adding extra text to footline}
\author{R.J.~Drofnats}
\institute{University of St. Anford}
\useoutertheme{infolines}% for example, ymmv
\makeatletter
% add a macro that saves its argument
\newcommand{\footlineextra}[1]{\gdef\insertfootlineextra{#1}}
\newbox\footlineextrabox
% add a beamer template that sets the saved argument in a box.
% The * means that the beamer font and color "footline extra" are automatically added.
\defbeamertemplate*{footline extra}{default}{
\begin{beamercolorbox}[ht=2.25ex,dp=1ex,leftskip=\Gm@lmargin]{footline extra}
\insertfootlineextra
%\par\vspace{2.5pt}
\end{beamercolorbox}
}
\addtobeamertemplate{footline}{%
% set the box with the extra footline material but make it add no vertical space
\setbox\footlineextrabox=\vbox{\usebeamertemplate*{footline extra}}
\vskip -\ht\footlineextrabox
\vskip -\dp\footlineextrabox
\box\footlineextrabox%
}
{}
% patch \begin{frame} to reset the footline extra material
\let\beamer@original@frame=\frame
\def\frame{\gdef\insertfootlineextra{}\beamer@original@frame}
\footlineextra{}
\makeatother
\setbeamercolor{footline extra}{fg=structure.fg}% for instance
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}\maketitle\end{frame}
\begin{frame}{foo}
\begin{itemize}
\item one
\item two
\item three
\end{itemize}
\footlineextra{Source: ``Mr. Lee'' by the Bobbettes}
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}{bar}
\begin{itemize}
\item Able
\item Baker
\item Charlie
\end{itemize}
\footlineextra{Source: \emph{What do People Do All Day?} by Richard Scarry}
\end{frame}
\begin{frame}{baz}
No footlineextra here
\end{frame}
\end{document}
Having spent an hour on this I must quit but a nice addition would be to make \footlineextra overlay-specification aware.
bg=blue, for example, to setbeamercolor{footline extra}, then you'll get a blue footline on every page, even when the footline has no content. I want the background to appear only when the footline has content, so I have added bg=\footlinebgcolor to setbeamercolor{footline extra}, \gdef\footlinebgcolor{blue} to the argument of \newcommand{\footlineextra}[1], and \gdef\footlinebgcolor{white} to the argument of \def\frame. That works, although I don't know whether it's really the right way to do it.
Jan 11, 2015 at 12:37
Adding an alternative that doesn't use the footline template. This is in response to the comment on my previous answer. (Requires \usepackage{tikz})
\newcommand{\footlineextra}[1]{
\begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture,overlay]
\node[yshift=2ex,anchor=south west] at (current page.south west) {\usebeamerfont{author in head/foot}\hspace{2ex}#1};
\end{tikzpicture}
}
I do this too, here's my hack that's roughly similar to the tikz approach posted earlier.
\usepackage[absolute,overlay]{textpos}
\setbeamertemplate{footline}{}
\newcommand{\MyfootnoteBlock}[1]{%
\begin{textblock*}{11cm}(1cm,9.1cm)%
#1%
\end{textblock*}%
}
\defbeamertemplate{footline}{foot1}{<define footer 1 here>}
\defbeamertemplate{footline}{foot2}{<define footer 2 here>}
...
then before each frame
\setbeamertemplate{footline}[<foot name>]