Spacing after redefining maketitle

Question

I have trouble obtaining the needed space after redefining \maketitle in the article class. I do not want the spacing after the title to depend on whether I start with \section or not.

For instance,

\documentclass{article}

\makeatletter
\def\@maketitle{\Huge\textbf{New Title}}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

    \maketitle

    Some text
\end{document}

yields a much smaller space after the title than

\documentclass{article}

\makeatletter
\def\@maketitle{\Huge\textbf{New Title}}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

    \maketitle

    \section{Some section}

    Some text
\end{document}

I understand why this is the case, and it is trivial to add the needed space manually, but I am wondering if LaTeX can do it for me.

Answer 1

Based on OP comments, it seems that it is desired to make the vertical space conditional, only adding it if there is not additional vertical space added by another following command, for example, \section.

In this case, you are looking for \addvspace, which must be invoked in vertical mode. Thus, adding \par\addvspace{<length>} to the end of your revised \maketitle will only add this space if is not already being added by what follows.

In the MWE, you can comment and uncomment the \section command to see the result.

\documentclass{article}

\makeatletter
\def\@maketitle{\Huge\textbf{New Title}\par\addvspace{15pt}}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

    \maketitle

%\section{Title}
    Some text
\end{document}

With no following \section:

With following \section: