Making a title page with a subtitle in Memoir

Question

This is my first ever posting. I am quite new to LaTeX but have recently written a book in it. I have got the whole thing set up, including margins, page size and everything. But the title page has defeated me.

I have used the \maketitle command, and it makes quite a good page. But my book has a subtitle, which I would like to include between the title and my name. I have looked around the internet for hours, and as far as I can see, you need to be a LaTeX expert to do this. I have tried pasting in the code from the memoir title page examples here: ftp://tug.org/tex-archive/info/latex-samples/TitlePages/titlepages.pdf, but none of them seem to work.

So I wondered whether anyone could help me. All I want is a page that is very like the standard \maketitle page, but has a subtitle between the title and the author name.

Answer 1

Although the memoir document class offers a customizable \maketitle command, I'd rather design this page from scratch (this gives more freedom). Here's one possibility using the titlingpage environment and a variation of one of the titles contained in the titlepages document; adjust the settings according to your needs:

\documentclass{memoir}

\newlength\drop
\makeatletter
\newcommand*\titleM{\begingroup% Misericords, T&H p 153
\setlength\drop{0.08\textheight}
\centering
\vspace*{\drop}
{\Huge\bfseries The Title}\\[\baselineskip]
{\scshape the subtitle}\\[\baselineskip]
\vfill
{\large\scshape the author}\par
\vfill
{\scshape \@date}\par
\vspace*{2\drop}
\endgroup}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\begin{titlingpage}
\titleM
\end{titlingpage}

\end{document}

As I mentioned before, another option is to use the various hooks provided by the class to customize the title page using the \maketitle command; here's a simple example using this approach (the hooks and their default definitions can be found in the documentation, pages 62 and 63):

\documentclass{memoir}

\pretitle{\begin{center}\Huge\bfseries}
\title{The Title}
\posttitle{\par\vskip1em{\normalfont\normalsize\scshape the subtitle\par\vfill}\end{center}}
\author{The Author}
\predate{\vfill\begin{center}\large}

\begin{document}

\begin{titlingpage}
\maketitle
\end{titlingpage}

\end{document}

Answer 2

While Memoir has an excellent manual (memman.pdf), if you typeset memoir.dtx you get the source code w/ explanatory text. The relevant page in the current version of memman.pdf is pg. 63 which mentions the commands below. It's always good to “use the source” though.

In the source code is documented the existence of four commands, \maketitlehooka—d which are intended to allow one to insert additional formatting commands or text. Typesetting a simple file will reveal:

\documentclass{memoir}
\title{A Short Title}
\newcommand{\subtitle}{of a work with a much longer subtitle}
\author{John Q.~Public}

\renewcommand{\maketitlehooka}{A}
\renewcommand{\maketitlehookb}{B}
\renewcommand{\maketitlehookc}{C}
\renewcommand{\maketitlehookd}{D}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\end{document}

that \maketitlehookb is the one which falls after the title. We then comment out or remove the other commands and re-define \maketitlehookb we want to be something like:

\renewcommand{\maketitlehookb}{\centering\textsc{\subtitle}}

and you should have something which if not directly usable can be easily adapted to your needs.

Answer 3

A very simple solution can be

\documentclass{memoir}
\title{Title \\ \textsc{\small with a subtitle}}
\author{Me}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\end{document} 

but you will have much better answers, for sure!

Answer 4

A version of Will's solution is to use the \posttitle command. I've used it successfully to add a subtitle in a different font.

In any of these solutions, an elegant way to implement the subtitle is to assign it to its own macro, \thesubtitle, and to have the LaTeX in the \posttitle or \maketitlehookb test to see if it's defined. If not, just go on.

Here's what I put in my LyX preamble:

\posttitle{%
  \@ifundefined{thesubtitle}{}{\par\itshape\thesubtitle}
  \\ [2\baselineskip]
  \end{center}
}

This is part of a larger set of changes that replicate Wilson's \titleSI style title page.