How to have the title at the top of a LaTeX document?

Question

So far I have the following code for some document;

\begin{document}

\title{..}

\author{..}

\maketitle

\end{document}

When I create the file, the title is always centred but at the middle of the page. Is there any way to move the title (and author) to the top of the page?

Apologies if I am missing something simple - at this stage I am simply experimenting with the software which I will use extensively next semester.

Which class are you using? Try amsart or article. Also you need some contents to produce some text and change the vertical spacing. — Sigur, Dec 28 '12 at 12:01
Does this question help? If so, let us know, otherwise please add some more information to your question. — egreg, Dec 28 '12 at 12:03
Try adding the lipsum package to your preamble (\usepackage{lipsum}) and issue a \lipsum after the \maketitle. This should output a few paragraphs of blind text, which should push the title up. LaTeX has some expectations about where text should be and is also very generous in the top spacing before the title, so it will not be all the way at the top (in a single column document). @egreg's comment should point you to a handful of very useful solutions to your current problem. — Ricardo, Dec 28 '12 at 14:35

score 39 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 13 '17 at 15:20

39

Another way of doing this is not to use \maketitle at all. Instead typeset the author and title in any font you like and enclose the material in stretches:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\begin{titlepage}
   \vspace*{\stretch{1.0}}
   \begin{center}
      \Large\textbf{My title}\\
      \large\textit{A. Thor}
   \end{center}
   \vspace*{\stretch{2.0}}
\end{titlepage}
\end{document}

\begin{titlepage} gives you an empty page. The stretches align the enclosed material vertically. In this case, the whitespace below is twice the size of the whitespace above. Experiment with the two stretch values to fit your needs.

edited Jul 13 '17 at 15:20

David Carlisle

757,742

answered Dec 28 '12 at 21:40

alexkelbo

837

5

your example isn't going to work. \documentclass{...} must come before \begin{document}. – barbara beeton Dec 28 '12 at 21:47
1

Welcome to TeX.sx! I've taken the liberty of correcting the obvious mistake. – egreg Dec 28 '12 at 22:23
Yes, thanks. Didn't try the code. – alexkelbo Dec 28 '12 at 23:55
I have experimented with the stretch values, however, whatever I try I can't seem to get it right to the top. I have managed to get it slightly above the center, but no higher? – CAF Dec 29 '12 at 10:46
If you want the title to go right below the top margin then simply leave the \vspace*{\stretch{...}} out of your code. Then the above code puts the title on the first line of the titlepage. – alexkelbo Dec 29 '12 at 13:48

score 11 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:36

As commented, check if with enough text the title is still too low for you.

If this is true, think twice if you're right. Most "standard" classes have a well designed default style and change this probably is not as elegant as you think. Extra space before of the title emphasized it discrete but effectively. Maybe it is worth to check before similar document class (for example, for an article compare article, paper,scrartcl, etc) and reduce margins (a little) with package geometry.

If despite all you are decided to change the tile format, it is possible add a negative vertical space with \droptitle (that need the package titling) or simply add a \vspace inside the title without extra packages. Uncomment the corresponding lines of this example (remove the first % only of each line) to see the effect of each option:

\documentclass{article} % Try also "scrartcl" or "paper"
\usepackage{blindtext} % for dummy text
% \usepackage[margin=2cm]{geometry}   % to change margins
% \usepackage{titling}             % Uncomment both to   
% \setlength{\droptitle}{-2cm}     % change title position 
\author{Fran}
\title{%\vspace{-1.5cm}            % Another way to do
A Minimal Working Example}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\Blinddocument
\end{document}

Other packages as savetrees or wordlike have global effects in all the document (margins, spacing) but also raises the title.

Of course, you can also make a title from scratch. Redefining \maketitle to put a maximum of information in a page show some ways to do. See also Custom title page in report or book class?

How to have the title at the top of a LaTeX document?

2 Answers2