titling (pkg): bug or feature? (\maketitle in titlingpage works only if first text in page)

Question

The titling package allows users to customise the appearance of the document title, to include multiple titles etc. In addition to allowing customisation of \maketitle, it defines a new environment, titlingpage, which is similar to titlepage but allows the use of \maketitle within the environment to typeset the title, author, date etc.

Here's an example based on code from page 5 of the manual:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{titling}
\title{Title}
\author{Author}

\begin{document}
  \begin{titlingpage}
    \setlength{\droptitle}{30pt}% lower the title
    \maketitle
    A few words\dots
    \begin{abstract}A few more words\dots\end{abstract}
  \end{titlingpage}
\end{document}

In trying to answer this question, I tried to use titlingpage to typeset the title below an image to be typeset first. When this failed, I produced the following modification of the above example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{titling}
\title{Title}
\author{Author}

\begin{document}
  \begin{titlingpage}
    A few words\dots
    \setlength{\droptitle}{30pt} % lower the title
    \maketitle
    \begin{abstract}A few more words\dots\end{abstract}
  \end{titlingpage}
\end{document}

Not what I expected based on the documentation....

Obviously, it is possible to use titlingpage, like titlepage, to typeset the title below other things here. But I cannot figure out how to do so using \maketitle.

Is this a bug or a feature? Either way, is there a workaround? (If a feature, is this a bug in the documentation?!)

Note that on page 4, the manual says that it defines \maketitle 'essentially' as follows:

\renewcommand{\maketitle}{%
\vspace*{\droptitle}
\maketitlehooka
{\pretitle \title \posttitle}
\maketitlehookb
{\preauthor \author \postauthor}
\maketitlehookc
{\predate \date \postdate}
\maketitlehookd
}

So, again, nothing to suggest that \maketitle will itself start a new page - especially in the titlingpage environment.

I'm assuming this is not really how it is defined. (And, indeed, the actual code when the titlepage option is not active and the document is in one-column mode includes a suspicious-looking newpage...)

It seems to me that titlingpage ought to do something like

\let\oldnewpage\newpage
\let\newpage\relax

and

\let\newpage\oldnewpage

at the beginning and end of the environment if titlingpage is to work as advertised. (But I'm sure this particular suggestion would either not work at all or have horrible side-effects or both.)

Answer 1

As you suspected, the problem comes from \newpage, not just one of them but two \newpages are responsible here for the mentioned behaviour.

This is the definition of \maketitle contained in titling.sty:

\providecommand{\maketitle}{}
\if@titlepage
  \renewcommand{\maketitle}{\begin{titlepage}%
    \let\footnotesize\small
    \let\footnoterule\relax
    \let \footnote \thanks
    \@bsmarkseries
      \def\@makefnmark{\rlap{\@textsuperscript{%
         \normalfont\@bsthanksheadpre \tamark \@bsthanksheadpost}}}%
      \long\def\@makefntext##1{\makethanksmark ##1}
    \null\vfil
    \vskip 60\p@
    \vspace*{\droptitle}
    \maketitlehooka
    {\@bspretitle \@title \@bsposttitle}
    \maketitlehookb
    {\@bspreauthor \@author \@bspostauthor}
    \maketitlehookc
    {\@bspredate \@date \@bspostdate}
    \maketitlehookd
    \par
    \@thanks
    \vfil\null
    \end{titlepage}%
    \@bscontmark  %  \setcounter{footnote}{0}%
%%%    \@bsmtitlempty
  } % end titlepage defs
\else
  \renewcommand{\maketitle}{\par
    \begingroup
      \@bsmarkseries
      \def\@makefnmark{\rlap{\@textsuperscript{%
         \normalfont\@bsthanksheadpre \tamark \@bsthanksheadpost}}}%
      \long\def\@makefntext##1{\makethanksmark ##1}
      \if@twocolumn
        \ifnum \col@number=\@ne
          \@maketitle
        \else
          \twocolumn[\@maketitle]%
        \fi
      \else
        \newpage
        \global\@topnum\z@
        \@maketitle
      \fi
      \thispagestyle{plain}\@thanks
    \endgroup
    \@bscontmark  %  \setcounter{footnote}{0}%
%%%    \@bsmtitlempty
  } % end non-titlepage

  \def\@maketitle{%
    \newpage
    \null
    \vskip 2em%
          \vspace*{\droptitle}
    \maketitlehooka
    {\@bspretitle \@title \@bsposttitle}
    \maketitlehookb
    {\@bspreauthor \@author \@bspostauthor}
    \maketitlehookc
    {\@bspredate \@date \@bspostdate}
    \maketitlehookd
    \par
    \vskip 1.5em}
\fi

Basically, we have a conditional test for @titlepage; since in your case this is false (article.cls sets \@titlepagefalse by default), we can go to the \else part which redefines \maketitle which, if two-column mode is not active (as it is by default), has a \newpage:

      \else
        \newpage
        \global\@topnum\z@
        \@maketitle
      \fi

before calling \@maketitle which in its turn is defined by

  \def\@maketitle{%
    \newpage
    \null
    \vskip 2em%
          \vspace*{\droptitle}
    \maketitlehooka
    {\@bspretitle \@title \@bsposttitle}
    \maketitlehookb
    {\@bspreauthor \@author \@bspostauthor}
    \maketitlehookc
    {\@bspredate \@date \@bspostdate}
    \maketitlehookd
    \par
    \vskip 1.5em}

which has another \newpage command. Those are responsible for the behaviour you noticed.

To avoid this, one possibility is to patch \maketitle and \@maketitle to suppress the \newpages:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{titling}
\usepackage{etoolbox}

\makeatletter
\patchcmd{\@maketitle}
 {\newpage}
 {}
 {}
 {}
\patchcmd{\maketitle}
 {\newpage}
 {}
 {}
 {}
\makeatother

\title{Title}
\author{Author}

\begin{document}
  \begin{titlingpage}
    A few words\dots
    \setlength{\droptitle}{30pt} % lower the title
    \maketitle
    \begin{abstract}A few more words\dots\end{abstract}
  \end{titlingpage}
\end{document}

Standard classes have the \newpage in the definition of \@maketitle, so I guess the author of the package kept this as a feature, though your example use perhaps suggests that these \newpages commands would be better left as optional and not hard-coded.