General ⇒ An author and a title on chapter page

[frabjous]

Do you mean how can you have the size of the font for different lines, or how to change the size of the space between the lines?

Can you show us a picture of what you're trying to achieve, or do your best to create one?

[krz]

Let's say I need both. I want to change the font size in the different lines and the space between the lines.
I just want to have full control over the title of chapter. Just like you have in WYSIWYG programs, for example.
Now, I really don't know what effect I want to get. I want to try some different arrangements and choose one. I need to get something like that:

(space from the top of the page)
title (font size about 18 pt)
author (font size about 12 pt)
city name (font size about... )
(some space, for example 36 pt)
main text

I hope this primitive presentation is a little clear.

[frabjous]

If you don't want to use confproc or similar, you could try something along these lines. Hopefully the comments I added will help explain what you'd need to do to tweak things.

Code: Select all

\documentclass[12pt]{book}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{titlesec}

\newcommand{\chapterauthor}{}
\newcommand{\chaptercity}{}

\titleformat{\chapter}% command to format the chapter titles
        [hang]% shape/type of title
        {\LARGE\bfseries}% formatting commands applied to both label and title
        {\makebox[0.5in][l]{\thechapter}}% chapter number; here set inside an invisible box with a constant width
        {0em}% separation between number and chapter title; we've already covered this with the box
        {}% additional formatting command for title itself not applied to number
        [% everything inside [...] below comes after the title
            \normalsize\normalfont% reset font formatting
            \vspace{0.5\baselineskip}% add a half-space of vertical space before author
            \hspace*{0.5in}% indent author name width of chapter number box 
            \large% make text that follows large
            \thispagestyle{empty}% suppress page numbers
            \textit{\chapterauthor}% insert chapter author name in large italic font 
            \\% linebreak 
            \hspace*{0.5in}% again indent width of chapter number box
            \chaptercity% insert city 
        ]% end of what comes after title
\titlespacing*{\chapter}% spacing commands for chapter titles; the star unindents first line afterwards
     {0em}% spacing to left of chapter title
     {0ex}% vertical space before title 
     {3\baselineskip}% vertical spacing after title; here set to 3 lines 

% The lipsum package is not part of my suggestion;
% it is just used to generate dummy text
\usepackage{lipsum}


\begin{document}
\tableofcontents

\renewcommand{\chapterauthor}{Joe Schmoe}
\renewcommand{\chaptercity}{Paris}
\chapter{Introduction}

\lipsum[21-30]% dummy text  

\renewcommand{\chapterauthor}{Jane Doe}
\renewcommand{\chaptercity}{Melbourne}
\chapter{The First Contribution}

\lipsum[1-10] 

\renewcommand{\chapterauthor}{Severus Snape}
\renewcommand{\chaptercity}{London}
\chapter{Another Great Contribution}

\lipsum[41-50]

\renewcommand{\chapterauthor}{Frank Lloyd Wright}
\renewcommand{\chaptercity}{Chicago}
\chapter{The Last One}

\lipsum[31-40]  
\end{document}

I'm sure more tweaking will be necessary, especially with regard to the table of contents (in order to get e.g., chapter author names in there, etc.)

[krz]

frabjous, thank you!! Your template looks really great! Tomorrow I'll try to adapt it to my book (I'm going to bed at last).
I'd like to use confproc, but this fat manual terrified me.
You mentioned about the table of content. Do I have to format it by using package like tocloft or so? Or maybe \tableofcontent would be enough?
By the way, I didn't know I can use "Lorem ipsum" in LaTeX just by using one command.
Thanks!
krz

PS. And thanks for comments. I've just read them and it's very useful for me.

[krz]

So, I still fight with my book, but I hope the first problem is resolved. I use this in my preamble:

Code: Select all

\usepackage{titlesec}
\titleformat{\chapter}{\normalfont\Large\scshape}{\thechapter}{1em}{}

and this in a document area:

Code: Select all

\chapter*{Title \\ \normalfont\normalsize\textit{--- Author ---}}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{\normalfont\scshape{Title} \\ \normalfont\textit{Author}}

Maybe it doesn't look preaty in a code, but pdf is really nice. The chapter page and the table of contents too.
Thanks for help!