Using titlepages with memoir

Question

I was wondering how to use the titlepage package together with the memoir package. I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong.

The code is from \titleHGP on pages 48-49 of the titlepages.pdf

I'm looking for this

but I'm getting this instead.

\documentclass[a4paper, 11pt, openright]{memoir}
\usepackage{titlepages}
\newcommand*{\titleHGP}{\begingroup% Handy Guide to Papermaking
\drop=0.1\txtheight
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.05\txtwidth}
\color{Red}
\rule{6pt}{\txtheight}
\end{minipage}
\hspace{0.05\txtwidth}
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.6\txtwidth}
\vspace*{\drop}
{\Large THE AUTHOR} \\
\rule{0.9\txtwidth}{1pt} \par
\vspace{3\baselineskip}
{\noindent\Huge\bfseries CONUNDRUMS} \par
\vspace{2\baselineskip}
{\Large\itshape A Handy Guide to Puzzles and Enigmas} \par
\vspace{6.5\baselineskip}
{\scshape after the foreign edition of year \\
translated by} \par
\vspace{0.1\baselineskip}
{\Large THE TRANSLATOR} \par
\vspace{\baselineskip}
\rule{0.9\txtwidth}{1pt} \par
\vspace{\baselineskip}
{\Large THE PUBLISHER}
\end{minipage}
\hfill
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.15\txtwidth}
{\color{Red}
\FSfont{5fh}% FontSite Fette Gotisch
\HUGE
\vspace{3.3\baselineskip}
H \\[1.15\baselineskip]
G \\[1.15\baselineskip]
P \\[1.15\baselineskip]
E
}\par
\vspace{4\baselineskip}
{\Large YEAR}
\end{minipage}
\endgroup}

\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
\titleHGP
\end{document}

Answer 1

titlepages on CTAN is not a package; it's just a showcase of what other people have done.

It provides the code used by other people. Unfortunately it takes that code somewhat out of context, and does not tell you what packages, page geometry, etc., the people who originally created the titlepage used. You're more or less left to figure those things out yourself.

To reproduce that particular sample, I had to define some additional lengths, scaling them to the fact that memoir with a4 uses bigger pages, and I had to download the font ds-fette-gotisch.ttf from here. Since that's a truetype font, to use it, I had to load the fontspec package, which means you'll have to compile this code with xelatex rather than pdflatex. But you could modify it to use some other blackletter font instead. For options, see the LaTeX font catalogue.

I made some other small modifications in the attempt to match the original.

%xelatex 
\documentclass[a4paper, 11pt, openright]{memoir}
\usepackage[dvipsnames]{xcolor}
\newlength{\drop}
\newlength{\txtwidth}
\setlength{\txtwidth}{0.95\textwidth}
\newlength{\txtheight}
\setlength{\txtheight}{0.95\textheight}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\newcommand{\FSfont}[1]{\fontspec[Extension=.ttf,Scale=1.6]{ds-fette-gotisch.regular}}
\newcommand*{\titleHGP}{\begingroup% Handy Guide to Papermaking
\drop=0.1\txtheight
\noindent\begin{minipage}[t]{0.05\txtwidth}
\color{Red}
\rule{6pt}{\txtheight}
\end{minipage}
\hspace{0.05\txtwidth}
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.6\txtwidth}
\vspace*{\drop}
{\Large THE AUTHOR} \\
\rule{0.9\txtwidth}{1pt} \par
\vspace{3\baselineskip}
{\noindent\Huge\bfseries CONUNDRUMS} \par
\vspace{2\baselineskip}\raggedright
{\Large\itshape A Handy Guide to Puzzles and Enigmas} \par
\vspace{6.5\baselineskip}
{\scshape\fontsize{14pt}{16pt}\selectfont after the foreign edition of year \\
translated by} \par
\vspace{0.2\baselineskip}
{\Large THE TRANSLATOR} \par
\vspace{\baselineskip}
\rule{0.9\txtwidth}{1pt} \par
\vspace{\baselineskip}
{\Large THE PUBLISHER}
\end{minipage}
%\hfill
\hspace{0.6in}
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.15\txtwidth}
{\color{Red}
\FSfont{5fh}% FontSite Fette Gotisch
\HUGE
\vspace{3.9\baselineskip}
H \\[1.15\baselineskip]
G \\[1.15\baselineskip]
P \\[1.15\baselineskip]
E
}\par
\vspace{4\baselineskip}
{\Large YEAR}
\end{minipage}
\endgroup}

\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
\titleHGP
\end{document}

If there's another example you'd like to try to recreate, let us know.

Answer 2

titlepages is not a package but a sample document. If you want to use one of the titlepages it defines you must copy all the needed definitions from the document too. E.g.

\documentclass[a4paper, 11pt, openright]{memoir}
\usepackage[svgnames]{xcolor}
\newcommand*{\FSfont}[1]{%
  \fontencoding{T1}\fontfamily{#1}\selectfont}
\newlength{\tpheight}\setlength{\tpheight}{0.9\textheight}
\newlength{\txtheight}\setlength{\txtheight}{0.9\tpheight}
\newlength{\tpwidth}\setlength{\tpwidth}{0.9\textwidth}
\newlength{\txtwidth}\setlength{\txtwidth}{0.9\tpwidth}
\newlength{\drop}
\newcommand*{\titleHGP}{\begingroup% Handy Guide to Papermaking
\drop=0.1\txtheight
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.05\txtwidth}
\color{Red}
\rule{6pt}{\txtheight}
\end{minipage}
\hspace{0.05\txtwidth}
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.6\txtwidth}
\vspace*{\drop}
{\Large THE AUTHOR} \\
\rule{0.9\txtwidth}{1pt} \par
\vspace{3\baselineskip}
{\noindent\Huge\bfseries CONUNDRUMS} \par
\vspace{2\baselineskip}
{\Large\itshape A Handy Guide to Puzzles and Enigmas} \par
\vspace{6.5\baselineskip}
{\scshape after the foreign edition of year \\
translated by} \par
\vspace{0.1\baselineskip}
{\Large THE TRANSLATOR} \par
\vspace{\baselineskip}
\rule{0.9\txtwidth}{1pt} \par
\vspace{\baselineskip}
{\Large THE PUBLISHER}
\end{minipage}
\hfill
\begin{minipage}[t]{0.15\txtwidth}
{\color{Red}
\FSfont{5fh}% FontSite Fette Gotisch
\HUGE
\vspace{3.3\baselineskip}
H \\[1.15\baselineskip]
G \\[1.15\baselineskip]
P \\[1.15\baselineskip]
E
}\par
\vspace{4\baselineskip}
{\Large YEAR}
\end{minipage}
\endgroup}

\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
\titleHGP
\end{document}

Answer 3

This at least compiles. It does not quite look right, but it looks the same as when you compile titlepages.tex on a modern LaTeX and remember to redefine \FSfont as it is refering to commercial conts.

\documentclass{memoir}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\newlength{\tpheight}\setlength{\tpheight}{0.9\textheight}
\newlength{\txtheight}\setlength{\txtheight}{0.9\tpheight}
\newlength{\tpwidth}\setlength{\tpwidth}{0.9\textwidth}
\newlength{\txtwidth}\setlength{\txtwidth}{0.9\tpwidth}
\newlength{\drop}

\usepackage{xcolor}
\colorlet{Red}{red}

\newcommand*{\FSfont}[1]{} 

\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}

\begin{titlingpage}

  \drop=0.1\txtheight
  \begin{minipage}[t]{0.05\txtwidth}
    \color{Red}
    \rule{6pt}{\txtheight}
  \end{minipage}
  \hspace{0.05\txtwidth}
  \begin{minipage}[t]{0.6\txtwidth}
    \vspace*{\drop}
    {\Large THE AUTHOR} \\
    \rule{0.9\txtwidth}{1pt} \par
    \vspace{3\baselineskip}
    {\noindent\Huge\bfseries CONUNDRUMS} \par
    \vspace{2\baselineskip}
    {\Large\itshape A Handy Guide to Puzzles and Enigmas} \par
    \vspace{6.5\baselineskip}
    {\scshape after the foreign edition of year \\
      translated by} \par
    \vspace{0.1\baselineskip}
    {\Large THE TRANSLATOR} \par
    \vspace{\baselineskip}
    \rule{0.9\txtwidth}{1pt} \par
    \vspace{\baselineskip}
    {\Large THE PUBLISHER}
  \end{minipage}
  \hfill
  \begin{minipage}[t]{0.15\txtwidth}
    {\color{Red} 
      \FSfont{5fh}% FontSite Fette Gotisch
      \HUGE
      \vspace{3.3\baselineskip}
      H \\[1.15\baselineskip]
      G \\[1.15\baselineskip]
      P \\[1.15\baselineskip]
      E
    }\par
    \vspace{4\baselineskip}
    {\Large YEAR}
\end{minipage}
\end{titlingpage}


\end{document}