How do you specify how many inches from the top each line is?

Question

I am trying to use LaTeX to make a title page for my thesis according to the requirements here:

http://www.grad.illinois.edu/graduate-college-thesis-requirements

As you can see, the formatting requirements specify how far from the top of the page each line must be. How do you specify this in LaTeX?

Answer 1

You can use the tikz package to put nodes in specific places of a page.

For example, by doing

\begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture,overlay]
\node [yshift=-2in] at (current page.north)
[text width = 0.7\textwidth, anchor=base, text centered]
{
\Huge Title of Thesis
};
\end{tikzpicture}

Lets you put the text 2 inches below the top of the page (and centered).

Answer 2

Normally I just use \vspace{<length>} to add some distance between the elements of the title page (\vspace*{<length>} for the first), but if you need full absolute distances as requested in linked requirements you can do this using either the textpos package which gives you an {textblock}{<width>}(<x>,<y>) environment or a tikzpicture with the overlay option (see fabikw's answer). For example code see this answer to How can I position an image in an arbitrary position in beamer? which also applies for normal documents, not just for beamer presentations. Don't forget to end (and start, if it's not the first page for some reason) the title page using \newpage or better \cleardoublepage. This is required because the above environments do not reserve any space.

Answer 3

As answered previously, the UIUC title page can be formatted with the Textpos package. Its implementation as per the university recommendations is illustrated below.

%%%Add this in the preamble
%%%For absolute positioning on the title page
\usepackage[absolute]{textpos}
\setlength{\TPHorizModule}{\paperwidth}
\setlength{\TPVertModule}{10in}
%%%%
%%%
\begin{titlepage}
     \begin{center}
        \begin{textblock}{0.757575}[0.5,0](0.5,0.2)
        \normalsize
        APPLE AND GRAVITY
        \end{textblock}
        \begin{textblock}{0.757575}[0.5,0](0.5,0.33344)
        \normalsize
        BY
        \end{textblock}
        \begin{textblock}{0.757575}[0.5,0](0.5,0.4)
        ISSAC NEWTON
        \end{textblock}
        \begin{textblock}{0.757575}[0.5,0](0.5,0.55)
        THESIS\\
        \end{textblock}
        \begin{textblock}{0.757575}[0.5,0](0.5,0.575)
        \normalsize
        Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements\\
        for the degree of Master of Science in XYZ\\
        in the Graduate College of the\\
        University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2000\\
        \end{textblock}
        \begin{textblock}{0.757575}[0.5,0](0.5,0.75)
        Urbana, Illinois\\
        \end{textblock}
        \begin{textblock}{0.757575}[0.5,0](0.5,0.8)
        \begin{flushleft}
        Adviser:\\
        \end{flushleft}
        \end{textblock}
        \begin{textblock}{0.757575}[0.5,0](0.5,0.825)
        \begin{flushleft}
        \hspace{0.75in}Assistant Professor XYZ
        \end{flushleft}
        \end{textblock}
     \end{center}
     \null\newpage
\end{titlepage}