How to Make a One-Time Adjustment to the Textwidth

Question

I would like to be able to make a one-time adjustment to the textwidth in order to have a title (or subtitle) appear entirely on one line.

Consider the MWE

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{amsthm,latexsym,amssymb,amsmath,verbatim}
\oddsidemargin -8pt \evensidemargin -15pt \topmargin -25pt
\headheight -5pt \headsep 0pt \textheight 9.5in \textwidth 5.25in
\parskip 10pt
\usepackage{scalefnt}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\begin{LARGE}
\noindent{\textcolor{red}{\textbf{\textsl{Title, Whose Length is Fine}}}}
\vspace{5pt}
\noindent{\textcolor{red}{\textbf{\textsl{Subtitle Whose Length is a Little Too Long}}}}
\end{LARGE}
\large
\vspace*{15pt}
\lipsum[13]
\end{document}

with the output

QUESTION: How would I be able to force the statement "Subtitle Whose Length is a Little Too Long" to appear all on the same line---while not affecting the textwidth of 5.25in for the rest of the document?

Thank you.

I'd probably prefer to adjust the fontsize of the subtitle or reword it. But if you must do this, you could use \rlap{...}, which sets text in a zero width box and allows it to overlap to the right. — David Purton, Oct 25 '21 at 05:37
Perhaps you would also find the geometry package useful for setting page margins. And the titling package for customising a document title pae (e.g., https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/50186/87678) — David Purton, Oct 25 '21 at 06:02
For such ad hoc formatting, just enclosing the title in a \mbox will work. However, titles should usually be set via the markup for the given class. — Andrew Swann, Oct 25 '21 at 06:29
@Andrew Swann Thank you. I was not aware of \mbox. It works very nicely. Perhaps you will consider posting this as an answer. — DDS, Oct 25 '21 at 13:01
Related/duplicate: How can I change the margins for only part of the text? — Werner, Oct 25 '21 at 15:27

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 25 '21 at 16:35

The brute force way to do this is just to place the subtitle in an \mbox. You will then get overfull box warnings, which is probably a good thing, but may be annoying. The command \mbox is based on \makebox which will create boxes of given width, so to suppress warnings you can put the subtitle in \makebox[0pt][l]{...} a box of zero width with the content left aligned:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\oddsidemargin -8pt \evensidemargin -15pt \topmargin -25pt
\headheight -5pt \headsep 0pt \textheight 9.5in \textwidth 5.25in
\parskip 10pt
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\begin{flushleft}
  \LARGE\color{red}\bfseries\slshape
  Title, Whose Length is Fine\[1ex]
  \makebox[0pt][l]{Subtitle Whose Length is a Little Too Long}
\end{flushleft}
\large
\medskip
\lipsum[13]
\end{document}

I have also tried to simplify the other parts of the mark-up, putting all the title material in a flushleft, so avoiding the \noindent commands, and placing the font selection and color initially.

@SingleMalt I believe so. It is \makebox without checking of optional arguments. — Andrew Swann, Oct 26 '21 at 09:01

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 25 '21 at 16:48

\parbox and \mbox are a bit of overkill for this case and can be challenging to generalize to other contexts.

I would instead, adjust the right margin:

\NewDocumentCommand{\myhead}{ m }
   {%
     {\rightskip=0pt plus 1fil minus 1in % ❶
      \LARGE
      \noindent
      \textcolor{red}{\textbf{\textsl{#1}}}%
      \par
     }%
     \vspace{5pt}%
   }

at ❶ we set \rightskip to allow it to shrink by 1in (this is an arbitrarily chosen amount and you will want to pick something that meets your needs whether you want just a little overhang or you want to be able fill in the whole margin parspace or something else entirely).

Note also, most importantly, that I've wrapped everything up in a new command so that your document isn't filled with arbitrary formatting commands so that this will be easily modifiable on a global business.

Simon Dispa · Answer 3 · 2021-10-25T14:42:41.967

Take advantage of the large right margin by increasing the width of the marginpar area (\marginparwidth). Then insert the long subtitle into a \parbox that extends to this area.

Using a \mbox may seem simpler, but it won't break the line with even longer text and it will overflow the page.

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{amsthm,latexsym,amssymb,amsmath,verbatim}
\oddsidemargin -8pt \evensidemargin -15pt \topmargin -25pt
\headheight -5pt \headsep 0pt \textheight 9.5in \textwidth 5.25in
\parskip 10pt
\setlength{\marginparwidth}{120pt} % added <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
\usepackage{showframe} % only to show the margins
\usepackage{scalefnt}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\begin{LARGE}
\noindent{\textcolor{red}{\textbf{\textsl{Title, Whose Length is Fine}}}}
\vspace{5pt}
% use the margin for this long subtitle <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
\noindent\parbox{\dimexpr\textwidth+\marginparwidth+\marginparsep\relax}{\textcolor{red}{\bfseries\textsl{Subtitle Whose Length is a Little Too Long and Longer }}}
\noindent\mbox{\textcolor{red}{\bfseries\textsl{Subtitle Whose Length is a Little Too Long and Longer}}}
\end{LARGE}
\large
\vspace*{15pt}
\lipsum[13]
\end{document}

@Sigur Added. Thank you. – Simon Dispa Oct 25 '21 at 14:44 — Simon Dispa, Oct 25 '21 at 14:44

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 25 '21 at 17:29

The adjustwidth environment in the changepage package is designed for this.

% longtitleprob.tex  SE 620119
\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{changepage}  %% PW added
\usepackage{amsthm,latexsym,amssymb,amsmath,verbatim}
\oddsidemargin -8pt \evensidemargin -15pt \topmargin -25pt
\headheight -5pt \headsep 0pt \textheight 9.5in \textwidth 5.25in
\parskip 10pt
\usepackage{scalefnt}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\thispagestyle{empty}
\begin{LARGE}
\noindent{\textcolor{red}{\textbf{\textsl{Title, Whose Length is Fine}}}}
\vspace{5pt}
\begin{adjustwidth}{}{-2cm}  %% PW added
\noindent{\textcolor{red}{\textbf{\textsl{Subtitle Whose Length is a Little Too Long}}}}
\end{adjustwidth}
\end{LARGE}
\large
\vspace*{15pt}
\lipsum[13]
\end{document}

The adjustwidth environment takes two length arguments. \begin{adjustwidth}{<left>}{<right>} A positive <left> length will increase the left margin, thus decreasing the textwidth, while a negative length decreases the left margin, thus increasing the textwidth. Similarly for the <right> argument and margin. An empty argument means no adjustment. There is a starred version adjustwidth* which causes the values of the margins to switch between even and odd pages.

How to Make a One-Time Adjustment to the Textwidth

4 Answers4