Stevens Beamer Enhanced Template

The best LaTeX Beamer presentation template for Stevens Institute of Technology — with critical bug fixes, improved readability, and professional formatting.

Why Use This Template?

This enhanced template fixes critical rendering bugs in the original Stevens Beamer template and significantly improves readability for academic presentations, PhD defenses, thesis proposals, and conference talks.

Key Improvements Over the Original

Issue	Original Template	Enhanced Template
TOC Text Color	Red text on red background (unreadable)	White text (fixed)
Font Sizes	Too small for presentations	Optimized for readability
Backmatter Slide	Broken formatting	Clean, centered layout
Shaded Sections	50% opacity (too faint)	70% opacity (readable)

Acknowledgements

This template is derived from the Stevens Beamer LaTeX Template by ProofLabs and Kishore Pochiraju.

The original template chain includes contributions from:

• Andrea Gasparini (andrea@gasparini.cloud) — Sapienza Presentation
• Federico Zenith (federico.zenith@sintef.no) — SINTEF Presentation
• Liu Qilong — Beamer-LaTeX-Themes

Released under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

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Major Bug Fixes & Improvements

1. Fixed: Table of Contents Text Invisible on Section Dividers

The Problem: In the original template, when using \section{} to create automatic Table of Contents divider slides, the TOC text appeared in red on a red background, making it completely unreadable.

Root Cause: Beamer renders TOC entries as hyperlinks. The \themecolor{main} command doesn't affect hyperlink colors, which default to the theme's maincolor (Stevens Red).

The Fix: Added \hypersetup{linkcolor=white} inside the \AtBeginSection block to override hyperlink colors:

\AtBeginSection[]
{
    \begingroup
    \themecolor{main}
    % ... other settings ...
    \hypersetup{linkcolor=white}  % THE CRITICAL FIX
    \begin{frame}{Table of Contents}
        \tableofcontents[currentsection]
    \end{frame}
    \endgroup
}

2. Improved: Font Sizes for Presentation Readability

Academic presentations are often viewed from the back of lecture halls. The original template used fonts that were too small.

Element	Original	Enhanced	Improvement
Base document	10pt	11pt	+10% larger
Author name	\scriptsize	\footnotesize	+20% larger
Date	\tiny	\scriptsize	+40% larger
Title	\bfseries	\bfseries\Large	Explicit large size
Frame title	\bfseries	\bfseries\Large	Explicit large size
Subtitle	\footnotesize	\normalsize	+30% larger

Added explicit itemize sizing:

\setbeamerfont{itemize/enumerate body}{size=\normalsize}
\setbeamerfont{itemize/enumerate subbody}{size=\small}
\setbeamerfont{itemize/enumerate subsubbody}{size=\footnotesize}

3. Fixed: Backmatter "Thank You" Slide Formatting

The Problem: The title and "Thank you for listening!" text appeared on the same line, creating a messy layout.

The Fix: Proper line breaks with vertical spacing:

{\Huge \inserttitle}\\[10mm]
{\Large \textsl{Thank you for listening!}}\\[5mm]
{\Large \textsl{Any questions?}}

Also removed the footline from the backmatter slide for a cleaner, more professional appearance.

4. Improved: TOC Shaded Section Visibility

The Problem: Non-current sections in the TOC used 50% white opacity, making them barely visible against the red background.

The Fix: Increased to 70% white for better contrast while maintaining visual hierarchy:

\setbeamercolor{section in toc shaded}{fg=white!70}  % was white!50

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Quick Start

Installation

1. Download or clone this template
2. Copy all files to your project directory
3. Edit main.tex with your content
4. Compile with pdflatex main.tex (run twice for TOC)

File Structure

StevensBeamerEnhanced/
├── README.md                 # This documentation
├── main.tex                  # Sample presentation (start here!)
├── beamerthemesintef.sty     # Enhanced theme file
├── sintefcolor.sty           # Stevens color definitions
└── assets/
    ├── background.png        # Title slide background
    ├── background_alternative.png
    ├── background_negative.png
    ├── logo_RGB.png          # Stevens logo (color)
    └── logo_RGB_negative.png # Stevens logo (white)

Document Class Options

% For handouts (no animations, one slide per page)
\documentclass[11pt, handout]{beamer}

% For presentation mode (with animations)
\documentclass[11pt]{beamer}

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Usage Guide

Available Stevens Colors

Primary:

• maincolor — Stevens Red (#A32638)
• stevensgray — Warm gray

Secondary:

• stevensdarkgray, stevensdarkblue, stevensmediumblue
• stevensmediumorange, stevensmediumgold

Light:

• stevenslightgray, stevenslightblue
• stevenslightorange, stevenslightgold

Accent:

• sintefgreen, sintefdarkgreen, sintefred, sintefyellow

Special Slide Types

Chapter Slide (colored background with optional image):

\begin{chapter}[assets/background_negative]{}{Chapter Title}
    \begin{itemize}
        \item Key point for this chapter
    \end{itemize}
\end{chapter}

Side Picture Slide:

\begin{sidepic}{assets/image.png}{Slide Title}
    Content appears on the left side
\end{sidepic}

Custom Color Block:

\begin{colorblock}[text-color]{background-color}{Block Title}
    Block content here
\end{colorblock}

Footline Colors

\footlinecolor{stevensmediumgold}  % Enable colored footline
\begin{frame}{Slide with Gold Footline}
    This slide has a gold footer bar.
\end{frame}
\footlinecolor{}  % Disable footline for next slides

Checkmarks and Crosses

\item Feature A: \cmark{} Supported
\item Feature B: \xmark{} Not supported

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Use Cases

This template is perfect for:

• PhD Proposal Defenses at Stevens Institute of Technology
• PhD Dissertation Defenses
• Master's Thesis Presentations
• Conference Presentations (ACM, IEEE, etc.)
• Research Group Meetings
• Course Lectures
• Seminar Presentations
• Academic Job Talks

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License

GNU General Public License v3.0

This template is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation.