beamer dark theme

Question

I have a very simple question - there are a bunch of beamer themes, however, all of them have white background. I would like to use some theme, let's say Warsaw (since it is perfect), however I'm looking for some dark version of this theme.

The most important thing for me is black background - unfortunately projectors are not as good as screens/printed papers, so dark themes are much better for long presentations, etc.

Any suggestions? Ideally, I'd like to change just a line or so in the beginning of my tex file with presentation.

Answer 1

Personally, I don't like presentations with dark backgrounds since my eyes get tired too soon, but that's just a personal opinion. The beamer theme matrix shows a number of color themes that will give you dark backgrounds; for example:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{Warsaw}
\usecolortheme{beetle}

\begin{document}

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

\end{document}

or

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{Warsaw}
\usecolortheme{fly}

\begin{document}

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

\end{document}

If you want to design your own, you can for example look at those color themes (they are in the directory /usr/local/texlive/2011/texmf-dist/tex/latex/beamer/themes/color in a typical TeX Live2011 installation) and make your adjustments. For example, here'sa variation on the fly color theme, but with a black background, as requested:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{Warsaw}

\setbeamercolor{normal text}{fg=white,bg=black!90}
\setbeamercolor{structure}{fg=white}

\setbeamercolor{alerted text}{fg=red!85!black}

\setbeamercolor{item projected}{use=item,fg=black,bg=item.fg!35}

\setbeamercolor*{palette primary}{use=structure,fg=structure.fg}
\setbeamercolor*{palette secondary}{use=structure,fg=structure.fg!95!black}
\setbeamercolor*{palette tertiary}{use=structure,fg=structure.fg!90!black}
\setbeamercolor*{palette quaternary}{use=structure,fg=structure.fg!95!black,bg=black!80}

\setbeamercolor*{framesubtitle}{fg=white}

\setbeamercolor*{block title}{parent=structure,bg=black!60}
\setbeamercolor*{block body}{fg=black,bg=black!10}
\setbeamercolor*{block title alerted}{parent=alerted text,bg=black!15}
\setbeamercolor*{block title example}{parent=example text,bg=black!15}


\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{Test Frame}
\framesubtitle{Test Frame}
Test
\begin{enumerate}
\item Test
\end{enumerate}
\begin{block}{Test}
Test
\end{block}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Answer 2

This might be similar as above. I wanted a quick solution. Adding these to a blank preamble, I got a pure black theme.

\setbeamercolor{frametitle}{fg=white}
\setbeamercolor{background canvas}{bg=black}
\setbeamercolor{normal text}{fg=white}