How can I draw a border around a title page?

Question

I want to draw a red page border only on the title page and signature page of my thesis. How can I achieve this. I tried the fancybox package but it has some conflict with fancyhdr package and displayed some of the page headings out of place.

Answer 1

Without a graphic-package like tikz or pstrick you can use eso-pic

    \documentclass{scrreprt}

    \usepackage{xcolor}
    \usepackage{eso-pic}
    \usepackage{lipsum}
    \title{Title}
    \author{Name}
    \newcommand{\frameattitle}[1][red]{%
      \AddToShipoutPictureBG*{\AtTextLowerLeft{%
          \color{#1}%
          \linethickness{5pt}%
         \framebox(\LenToUnit{\textwidth},\LenToUnit{\textheight}){}}%
         }%
    }

    \begin{document}
    \frameattitle
    \maketitle
    \clearpage
    \frameattitle
    \null\vfill
    \begin{center}
    \bfseries
    Signature
    \end{center}
    \vfill
    \clearpage
    \chapter{foo}
    \lipsum


    \end{document}

In relation to the idea of xport here an example with allows a frame around the text size and the paper size.

EDIT:

I modified my code. Now you can stretch the frame around the text with the setting of the lengths extraxsep and extraysep.

\documentclass{scrreprt}

\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{eso-pic}
\usepackage{lipsum,showframe}
\title{Title}
\author{Name}
\makeatletter
%\frameattext{<backgroundcolor>}{linecolor}{<linewidth>}
\newdimen\extraxsep
\newdimen\extraysep
\extraxsep=20mm
\extraysep=20mm
\newcommand\frameattext[3]{%
  \linethickness{#3}%
  \AddToShipoutPicture*{%
    \AtTextLowerLeft{%%text-boder
       \put(\LenToUnit{-,5\extraxsep},\LenToUnit{-0.5\extraysep}){\color{#1}%
             \rule{\dimexpr\textwidth+\extraxsep\relax}{\dimexpr\textheight+\extraysep\relax}}%
       \put(\LenToUnit{-,5\extraxsep},\LenToUnit{-0.5\extraysep}){\color{#2}%
       \framebox(\LenToUnit{\dimexpr\textwidth+\extraxsep\relax},%
                 \LenToUnit{\dimexpr\textheight+\extraysep\relax}){}
       }
    }%
  }%
}
%\frameatpage{<backgroundcolor>}{linecolor}{<linewidth>}
\newcommand\frameatpage[3]{%
  \linethickness{#3}%
  \AddToShipoutPicture*{%
    \AtPageLowerLeft{%%page-border
      \put(0,0){\color{#1}\rule{\paperwidth}{\paperheight}}%
      \put(\LenToUnit{\@wholewidth},\LenToUnit{\@wholewidth}){%
       \color{#2}\framebox(\LenToUnit{\dimexpr\paperwidth-2\@wholewidth\relax},%
                  \LenToUnit{\dimexpr\paperheight-2\@wholewidth\relax}){}%
      }%
    }%
  }%
}

\makeatother
\begin{document}
\frameattext{green}{blue}{10pt}
\maketitle
\clearpage
\frameatpage{yellow}{red}{6pt}
\null\vfill
\begin{center}
\bfseries
Signature
\end{center}
\vfill
\clearpage
\frameatpage{yellow}{red}{6pt}
\chapter{foo}
\lipsum
\end{document}

enter image description here

Answer 2

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fancybox,fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancypage*{%
  \setlength{\fboxsep}{8pt}%
  \setlength{\shadowsize}{8pt}%
  \shadowbox}{}
\fancyhead{bar}

\begin{document}
\section{foo}

    Hello world

\end{document}

Answer 3

I actually required something like this yesterday for my appendix pages of my thesis. Use the tikz package and then place the following code somewhere on the title page. This requires two compilation runs to get correct results. Adjust the settings accordantly.

\tikz[remember picture,overlay] {%
    \draw [thick,red!50!black]
    ([shift={(+10mm,-10mm)}]current page.north west)
    rectangle
    ([shift={(-10mm,+10mm)}]current page.south east) 
    ;
}%

See also Use TikZ to draw frontpage and Title page using TikZ as well as Get a "Boxed" page with TeX.

Answer 4

This is what I did:

1. Create a title page by LibreOffice and export it to PDF say, title.pdf

2. Use package wallpaper and include these lines after \begin{document}:

   \begin{titlepage}
   \ThisLRCornerWallPaper{1}{title.pdf}
   \null
   \vfill
   \end{titlepage}
   

3. Enjoy :-)

Answer 5

\documentclass[dvipsnames,cmyk]{article}
\usepackage[a4paper,margin=25mm]{geometry}
\usepackage{eso-pic,xcolor,calc}

% #1: border color
% #2: background color
% %3: border width
\newcommand\Border[3]{%
    \pagecolor{#1}%
    \newdimen\borderwidth
    \borderwidth=#3
    \AddToShipoutPictureBG*{%
    \AtPageLowerLeft{%
        \color{#2}\hspace{\borderwidth}%
        \rule[\borderwidth]{\paperwidth-2\borderwidth}{\paperheight-2\borderwidth}}}}


\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}
\Border{red}{yellow!50}{1cm}
\lipsum[1]
\newpage

\Border{Green}{cyan!30}{1cm}
\lipsum[2]
\newpage

\pagecolor{white}
\lipsum
\end{document}