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I found in the question How to set a small default font size with beamer? that you can reduce the default font size in Beamer by writing

\documentclass[8pt]{beamer}

However, the answer to this question doesn't explain how I can make the default font size bigger rather than smaller.

My questions are:

  1. What is the default font size?
  2. What other default font sizes are supported besides 8pt?

Note: I was able to find the answer to this question on my own, but I am posting the question here because I believe that the answer would be useful to others.

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  • 2
    I take it you know that it is perfectly ok to answer your own question? So please add your answer.
    – Peter Jansson
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 10:33
  • 3
    For an overview see beamer user guide "18.2.1 Choosing a Font Size for Normal Text"
    – samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 10:57

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Edit: I am grateful to samcarter who pointed out that the information that I provided below is also available in the beamer user guide "18.2.1 Choosing a Font Size for Normal Text".

I was able to find that in the source code of the beamer.cls file, there are relevant lines:

\def\beamer@size{{size11.clo}}

\DeclareOptionBeamer{8pt}{\def\beamer@size{{size8.clo}}}
\DeclareOptionBeamer{9pt}{\def\beamer@size{{size9.clo}}}
\DeclareOptionBeamer{10pt}{\def\beamer@size{{size10.clo}}}
\DeclareOptionBeamer{11pt}{\def\beamer@size{{size11.clo}}}
\DeclareOptionBeamer{12pt}{\def\beamer@size{{size12.clo}}}
\DeclareOptionBeamer{14pt}{\def\beamer@size{{size14.clo}}}
\DeclareOptionBeamer{17pt}{\def\beamer@size{{size17.clo}}}
\DeclareOptionBeamer{20pt}{\def\beamer@size{{size20.clo}}}

These lines indicate that the default font size is 11pt, and that the options Xpt are available for X in {8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 20}. Furthermore smaller (same as 10pt) and bigger (same as 12pt) are available. All options besides 10pt, 11pt and 12pt require the extsize package to be installed.

MWE: 20pt

\documentclass[20pt]{beamer}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}{}
This is 20pt.
\end{frame}

\end{document}

enter image description here

MWE: 8pt

\documentclass[8pt]{beamer}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}{}
This is 8pt.
\end{frame}

\end{document}

enter image description here

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  • These options are listed in the manual as well, see the comment by samcarter to your question.
    – Torbjørn T.
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 11:53
  • And notice that some options are only available depending on other packages to be installed.
    – samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 12:01
  • I added smaller and bigger as options. Hope that's ok with you.
    – samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 12:22
  • how do I change the font size for a certain portion of text in a slide and maintain the initially set size everywhere else?
    – Harsha J K
    Commented Dec 2, 2023 at 17:16

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