The Celestia theme

Getting started

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme{Celestia}

\title{My presentation}
\author{Author name}
\date{\today}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\end{document}

Language

The language option sets the presentation language, which is automatically passed to the babel package. Default: english

\usetheme[language=french]{Celestia}

Preset styles

The style option

Applies a preset style that automatically configures several settings (palette, frametitle, footerstyle, block) for a consistent look and feel. Twelve styles are available.

\usetheme[style=academic]{Celestia}

Note: any setting defined by a preset style can be overridden by explicitly passing another option.

\usetheme[style=modern, palette=copper]{Celestia}

Color palettes

Built-in palettes

Celestia ships with 22 carefully crafted palettes. Each one automatically defines six colors: primary (main), accent, standard block (blockcolor), example (examplecolor), alert (alertcolor), and background (background).

The palette option

Default: nordic

Available palettes

• chalk — dark text on a warm beige background, chalkboard style
• copper — slate blue-gray with coppery accents
• dusk — light text on a dark teal background
• horizon — deep oceanic blues
• imperial — midnight blue with burgundy accents
• lumiere — deep blue-gray with pink accents
• manuscript — indigo and violet, manuscript vibe
• midnight — light text on a deep indigo background
• mineral — deep navy with amber accents
• nordic — icy Scandinavian blues (default)
• obsidian — light text on a dark background
• oxford — classic academic blues
• palatial — midnight blue with golden accents
• petrol — petrol greens with ochre accents
• prestige — deep blue with rose accents
• royal — dark, elegant blue-greens
• sakura — soft grays with pink accents
• sapphire — deep sapphire blues
• steel — steel blues with understated accents
• terracotta — warm terracotta earth tones
• velours — light text on a deep plum background
• velvet — dark plum with warm golden accents

\usetheme[palette=petrol]{Celestia}

Note: the obsidian, midnight, dusk and velours palettes use a dark background. They work especially well for presentations in dimly lit rooms.

Custom palette

The custompalette option

Lets you define a fully custom palette by specifying six hex color codes (without the #) in order: primary, accent, standard block, example block, alert block, background.

\usetheme[
    custompalette={2C3E50,E74C3C,3498DB,27AE60,E67E22,ECF0F1}
]{Celestia}

Individual colors

For finer-grained control, you can set each color independently (hex codes without the #).

• maincolor — primary color for text and headings
• accentcolor — secondary color for decorative elements
• backgroundcolor — slide background color
• codebackgroundcolor — background color for code blocks
• blockcolor — standard block color
• examplecolor — example block color
• alertcolor — alert block color

\usetheme[
    maincolor=045549,
    accentcolor=E63946,
    backgroundcolor=FAFAFA,
    blockcolor=1A3B52
]{Celestia}

The unicolor option

Enables monochrome mode, where the emphasis color is used across all elements (blocks, list items, decorations).

\usetheme[unicolor]{Celestia}

Emphasis & decoration

These two options control the colors used for emphasis elements (headings, list items) and decorations (rules, ornaments), respectively.

The emphasis option

Default: main

• main — headings and list items use the primary color. The decoration color is then automatically set to accent
• accent — headings and list items use the accent color

The decoration option

Default: follows the emphasis value

Allows you to independently choose the color for decorative elements (main or accent).

\usetheme[emphasis=accent, decoration=main]{Celestia}

Fonts

Default fonts

• Serif: Literata (fallback: TeX Gyre Pagella)
• Sans-serif: Inter with light weights (fallback: TeX Gyre Heros)
• Monospace: IBM Plex Mono (fallback: TeX Gyre Cursor)
• Math: Iwona (default)

Custom fonts

\usetheme[
    serifface=EB Garamond,
    seriffaceoptions={Scale=1.1},
    sansface=Montserrat,
    monoface=Fira Code
]{Celestia}

XeLaTeX vs LuaLaTeX: both use fontspec, but their font discovery differs. LuaLaTeX maintains its own database (luaotfload) and reliably finds fonts by family name (e.g. Source Sans 3). XeLaTeX relies on system libraries (fontconfig / Core Text), which may not recognize the same name. If a font is not found, the theme falls back to the TeX Gyre family and emits a warning. To avoid this on XeLaTeX, use the exact file name (e.g. sansface=SourceSans3-Regular.otf) or prefer LuaLaTeX.

The semibold option

Enables semibold mode (weight 600) for the bold series of the serif and sans-serif fonts. With pdflatex, this uses \DeclareFontSeriesDefault. With LuaLaTeX/XeLaTeX, it automatically adds BoldFeatures={Weight=600} to the fontspec options.

Default: true

\usetheme[semibold=false]{Celestia}

The light option

Controls whether the sans-serif font uses lighter weights.

Default: true

\usetheme[light=false]{Celestia}

Math font

The mathface option

Selects a math font from a set of recognized presets. Each preset automatically loads the appropriate package with sensible defaults.

Default: iwona

Available presets:

• iwona — Iwona (default)
• kurier — Kurier
• pagella — TeX Gyre Pagella Math
• termes — TeX Gyre Termes Math
• stix — STIX Two Math
• libertinus — Libertinus Math
• fira — Fira Math
• noto — Noto Sans Math
• mtpro2 — MathTime Professional II

\usetheme[mathface=pagella]{Celestia}

The mathfaceoptions option

Passes additional options to the selected math font package.

\usetheme[mathface=pagella, mathfaceoptions={Scale=1.05}]{Celestia}

The allserif option

Uses the main serif font for math typesetting.

\usetheme[allserif]{Celestia}

Layout

Margins

The margin option

Sets the content margin on slides.

Default: 2em

\usetheme[margin=1.5em]{Celestia}

Frame title style

The frametitle option

Controls how frame titles are rendered.

Default: subtle

Available styles:

• plain — simple left-aligned title with no decoration
• cosmic — title with a decorative horizontal rule and diamond
• line — title with a colored underline
• gradient — subtle horizontal gradient below the title
• clean — vertical colored sidebar to the left of the title
• elegant — title on a full-width colored background
• subtle — short rule below the title text (default)
• plainrule — title with a gradient separator rule
• leftbar — thick vertical bar spanning the full title height

\usetheme[frametitle=elegant]{Celestia}

Every style supports subtitles via \framesubtitle{...}.

Title page

The titlealign option

Sets the content alignment on the title page.

Default: left

Accepted values: left, center, right

\usetheme[titlealign=center]{Celestia}

The titlebackground option

Specifies a background image (rendered at reduced opacity) for the title page.

\usetheme[titlebackground=image.jpg]{Celestia}

Typography

Heading style

Heading sizes

Controls font sizes for various heading levels. In addition to the standard LaTeX sizes, Celestia defines intermediate sizes for finer control.

\usetheme[
    titlesize=Huge,
    frametitlesize=Large,
    sectiontitlesize=huge
]{Celestia}

Intermediate sizes

Celestia adds an intermediate size between each consecutive pair of standard LaTeX sizes: tinyscriptsize, scriptsizefootnotesize, footnotesizesmall, smallnormalsize, normalsizelarge, largeLarge, LargeLARGE, LARGEhuge, hugeHuge.

Footer

The footerstyle option

Sets the footer style (hidden on the title slide).

Default: info

• prestige — three-column layout with short dash separators
• cosmic — three-column layout with author, title, and slide number separated by decorative diamonds
• info — author and title on the left, slide number on the right, with an optional progress bar (default)
• minimalist — discreet slide number in the bottom right corner
• badge — slide number in a colored badge at bottom right, author and title at bottom left
• classic — bar split into four zones with alternating colored backgrounds (author / title / date / number)
• fullbar — similar to classic but fully colored with circular separators
• ruled — footer with horizontal rules above and below
• framed — footer enclosed in a framed box
• boxed — footer with a filled background box
• boxedruled — boxed footer with horizontal rules

\usetheme[footerstyle=info]{Celestia}

The progressbar option

Adds a progress bar at the bottom of each slide. For the info and minimalist styles, the bar is natively integrated into the footer. For all other styles, it appears as an overlay at the very bottom of the page.

Default: false

\usetheme[progressbar]{Celestia}

The shownavigation option

Displays Beamer's built-in navigation symbols (disabled by default).

\usetheme[shownavigation]{Celestia}

Table of contents

The compacttoc option

Reduces the vertical spacing between entries in the table of contents.

\usetheme[compacttoc]{Celestia}

The twocoltoc option

Automatically splits the sections into two balanced columns.

\usetheme[twocoltoc]{Celestia}

The \twocolumntoc command

Gives you manual control over the two-column split by specifying section ranges.

\twocolumntoc[1][5][10]

This places sections 1–4 in the left column and sections 5–10 in the right column.

Blocks

Block types

Three standard Beamer block types are available, each tied to a semantic color:

\begin{block}{Block title}
    Standard block content (blockcolor)
\end{block}

\begin{exampleblock}{Example}
    Example block content (examplecolor)
\end{exampleblock}

\begin{alertblock}{Warning}
    Alert block content (alertcolor)
\end{alertblock}

Block style

The block option

Sets the visual style for blocks.

Default: sober

tcolorbox styles

• fullbar — colored sidebar with a tinted title area separated from the body
• bar — colored sidebar with the title inline with the content
• sober — lightly tinted background with no border, colored title (default)
• soft — uniformly tinted background, soft look
• shaded — prominent background with a colored title banner
• noback — no background, minimalist
• plain — traditional border-and-background blocks

Native Beamer styles

• native — native Beamer rounded blocks with colored background
• native-shadow — native Beamer rounded blocks with a shadow
• native-default — default Beamer blocks (rectangular)

\usetheme[block=sober]{Celestia}

Block opacity options

Controls the intensity of the colored backgrounds for certain block styles (decimal value between 0 and 1):

\usetheme[block=sober, soberblockopacity=0.25]{Celestia}

Special pages

Standout pages

The standout frame option turns a slide into a full-screen highlight page with an inverted color scheme. This feature requires enabling the standout option at the theme level.

\usetheme[standout]{Celestia}

\begin{frame}[standout]
    Key takeaway

    \vspace{1em}
    \large --- Quote
\end{frame}

Section pages

The sectionpage and sectionnumber options

Controls the automatic section title pages that appear at the beginning of each section, featuring the section title with a decorative ornament.

Defaults: sectionpage=true, sectionnumber=false

• sectionpage — enables or disables automatic section pages
• sectionnumber — displays the section number inside a decorative circle

\usetheme[sectionpage=false]{Celestia}
\usetheme[sectionnumber]{Celestia}

To disable section pages manually within the document:

\AtBeginSection{}

Source code

Code handler

The codehandler option

Selects the syntax highlighting engine.

Default: listings

• listings — uses the listings package
• minted — uses the minted package (requires Pygments)

\usetheme[codehandler=minted]{Celestia}

When language=french is set, listing captions are automatically relabeled as “Programme.”

Code block style

The codestyle option

Sets the visual style for code blocks.

Default: bar

• bar — colored sidebar on the left (default)
• frame — full border with a drop shadow
• macos — macOS-style window with three colored dots
• box — box with a colored top bar

\usetheme[codestyle=macos]{Celestia}

Code framing

The codebox and nocodeframe options

Controls whether code blocks are wrapped in a tcolorbox. Default: codebox=true

• codebox — enables the box (on by default; use codebox=false to disable)
• nocodeframe — keeps the tcolorbox but hides the border

\usetheme[codebox=false]{Celestia}

Usage with listings

\begin{lstlisting}[style=python]
def fibonacci(n):
    if n <= 1:
        return n
    return fibonacci(n-1) + fibonacci(n-2)
\end{lstlisting}

A ready-to-use python style is included with keyword and built-in function highlighting.

Text formatting

Special commands

• \texttt{text} — monospace font at a reduced size
• \alert{text} — text in the alert color
• \mathterm{x} — formats a math term (bold, block color)
• \mathdef{x} — formats a math definition (italic, example color)

The boldurl option

Renders URLs in bold within hyperlinks.

\usetheme[boldurl]{Celestia}

Math environments

Celestia provides a set of predefined math environments, each tied to a semantic color. When language=french is set, their names are automatically translated.

Available environments

Block environments (block color):

• theorem — theorem
• lemma — lemma
• proposition — proposition
• corollary — corollary
• property / properties — property / properties

Example environments (example color):

• definition / definitions — definition / definitions
• example / examples — example / examples

Alert environments (alert color):

• remark / remarks — remark / remarks
• method — method
• activity / activities — activity / activities
• application / applications — application / applications

Other:

• proof — proof (standard Beamer environment)

Syntax with tcolorbox blocks (default)

With all tcolorbox-based block styles (fullbar, bar, sober, soft, shaded, noback, plain), environments accept key-value options in brackets. Use title for a subtitle and label for cross-referencing:

\begin{theorem}[title=Pythagorean theorem, label=th:pyth]
    In a right triangle, $a^2 + b^2 = c^2$.
\end{theorem}

Syntax with native blocks

With block=native, block=native-shadow or block=native-default, the environments use the standard Beamer syntax with the title in braces:

\begin{theorem}{Pythagorean theorem}
    In a right triangle, $a^2 + b^2 = c^2$.
\end{theorem}

Important: the two syntaxes are not interchangeable. Using \begin{theorem}{Title} with a tcolorbox style or [title=...] with a native style will cause a compilation error.

Option reference

Boolean options

Key-value options