Left align title with blue background, matching a style

Question

I'm trying to replicate a journal's titling style in LaTeX specifically one that looks like this:

So far I've got this:

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper,twoside, twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[UKenglish]{babel}
\usepackage[UKenglish]{isodate}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{bm}
\usepackage[usenames,dvipsnames]{color}
\definecolor{docblue}{RGB}{0,116,178}   
\definecolor{docgrey}{RGB}{166,168,170} 

\usepackage{titling}
\setlength{\droptitle}{-9em} 

\title{\colorbox{docblue}{\LARGE \textbf{\color{white}{Detection and diagnosis of H7N9 \& MERS-CoV by RT-PCR}}}}
\author{ \textbf{\textsf{J Smith}$\bm{^{1}}$} \\ \color{docgrey}{\textbf{1. Institute, City, Country}}}
\date{}
\usepackage{microtype}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\end{document}

Which looks like this:

I have a few issues:

• None of the title elements are aligned left, I tried using the flushleft environment however it caused compile errors.

• colorbox causes the title to not wrap correctly and extend over the right margin, it also appears to have slightly less padding too.

How can the above be solved?

Answer 1

\colorbox won't break across lines unless you put the contents inside a \parbox / minipage. Hence you may put the title contents inside a parbox.

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper,twoside, twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{bm}
\usepackage[usenames,dvipsnames]{xcolor}
\definecolor{docblue}{RGB}{0,116,178}
\definecolor{docgrey}{RGB}{166,168,170}

\usepackage{titling}
\setlength{\droptitle}{-9em} 

\pretitle{\par}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\titlething}{\colorbox{docblue}{%
\LARGE \bfseries\textcolor{white}{\parbox{\dimexpr\linewidth-2\fboxsep\relax}{Detection and diagnosis of H7N9 \& MERS-CoV by RT-PCR}}}}
\title{\titlething}
\posttitle{\par}
\preauthor{\begin{flushleft}}
\author{ \textbf{\textsf{J Smith}$\bm{^{1}}$} \\ \color{docgrey}{\textbf{1. Institute, City, Country}}}
\postauthor{\end{flushleft}}
\date{}
\usepackage{microtype}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\end{document}

Another approach using tcolorbox (things can get fancier here ;-)...):

\documentclass[11pt,a4paper,twoside, twocolumn]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage{bm}
\usepackage[usenames,dvipsnames]{xcolor}
\definecolor{docblue}{RGB}{0,116,178}
\definecolor{docgrey}{RGB}{166,168,170}
\usepackage{titling}
\setlength{\droptitle}{-9em}
\usepackage{tcolorbox}


\pretitle{\par}
\DeclareRobustCommand{\titlething}{%
\begin{tcolorbox}[   %% Adjust the following parameters at will.
        left=0pt,
        right=0pt,
        top=0pt,
        bottom=0pt,
        colback=docblue,
        colframe=docblue,
        width=\dimexpr\textwidth\relax,
        enlarge left by=0mm,
        boxsep=5pt,
        arc=0pt,outer arc=0pt,
        ]
        \LARGE \bfseries\textcolor{white}{Detection and diagnosis of H7N9 \& MERS-CoV by RT-PCR}
\end{tcolorbox}
}
\title{\titlething}
\posttitle{\par}
\preauthor{\begin{flushleft}}
\author{ \textbf{\textsf{J Smith}$\bm{^{1}}$} \\ \color{docgrey}{\textbf{1. Institute, City, Country}}}
\postauthor{\end{flushleft}}
\date{}
\usepackage{microtype}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

\end{document}