Multiple authors don't fit on one line

Question

I am working with the article class.

I have four authors. Unfortunately, they are just a tiny bit too wide to fit on one line. (I'm talking less than a quarter inch from the margins I had set.) How can I do one of the two following things:

1. Decrease the space between the authors, just a little bit
2. Make the page temporarily wider around the title

I've tried \newgeometry/\restoregeometry, but that clears the page at the commands. I've tried changepage's adjustwidth, but that makes latex output one extra page at the beginning.

Answer 1

Modify the definition of \and; the default is

\makeatletter
\def\and{%
  \end{tabular}%
  \hskip 1em \@plus.17fil\relax
  \begin{tabular}[t]{c}}
\makeatother

Try reducing 1em to what fits you.

Answer 2

In answer to your second question, put the list of authors in a fixed-width box:

\makebox[\linewidth][c]{First Author, Second Author, Third Author, Fourth Author}%

Without any knowledge of footnotes to author contacts, I think the above should suffice. If you do need contact details for authors in a footnote, using \footnotemark[num] and \footnotetext[num]{...} should do the trick.

The above uses no additional package and doesn't require modification of LaTeX internals. However, even though it will remove any unwanted "Overfull \hbox warnings", the text will still protrude into both the left and right hand margins. You could also consider using the letterspacing, microtype or soul packages to "fit text into a box."