How can I get the Title, Author, and Date on the same line?

Question

I would like to have

• Title flush left
• Author flush right
• Date flush right

How can I do this on the same line or on a shared line? I was hope to achieve the following:

This is as far as I got using xelatex:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{titlesec, blindtext, color}
\definecolor{gray75}{gray}{0.75}
\newcommand{\hsp}{\hspace{20pt}}
\titleformat{\section}[hang]{\Huge\bfseries}{Woche\hspace{.3cm}\thesection\hsp\textcolor{gray75}{|}\hsp}{0pt}{\Huge\bfseries}

\usepackage{titling}
\pretitle{\begin{minipage}{0.4\textwidth}\begin{flushleft}\Huge}
\posttitle{\end{flushleft}\end{minipage}\hfill}
\predate{\hfill\begin{minipage}[t]{0.4\textwidth}\begin{flushright}\large}
\postdate{\end{flushright}\end{minipage}}

\title{Class Plan}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\section{Less is More}
\blindtext
\end{document}

There is one catch. I need this to work in my .emacs file. I would like the MACRO #+Title and #+Author to work without extra code in my org-mode file

Answer 1

The key is using boxes, in this case \parboxes (which allow for line breaks, as needed on the right) and putting them on the very left and right with \hfill in between.

Besides that, I wouldn't try to fix up \maketitle if I don't absolutely have to, but instead just create the title from scratch. To access the values of \author and \title, we can use the titling package.

The section titles can be done with a quick fix, too.

Here are a basic version and one that's closer to your image:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{titling}
    \author{Author}
    \title{Class Plan}
    \date{\today}

\usepackage{xcolor}
    \definecolor{titlebg}{RGB}{186,48,39}

\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{blindtext}

\renewcommand{\thesection}{Week \arabic{section}\hspace{1em}|}

\begin{document}

Basic version: \bigskip

\noindent\parbox{\linewidth}{%
\parbox{.4\linewidth}{\fontsize{24}{28}\selectfont\thetitle}\hfill%
\parbox{.4\linewidth}{\fontsize{12}{14}\selectfont\raggedleft\today\\\theauthor%
}}

\bigskip Fancier version: \bigskip

\noindent\colorbox{titlebg}{%
\parbox{\dimexpr\linewidth-2\fboxsep}{\color{white}%
\parbox{.4\linewidth}{\fontsize{24}{28}\selectfont\sffamily\bfseries\thetitle}\hfill%
\parbox{.4\linewidth}{\fontsize{12}{14}\selectfont\raggedleft\thedate\\\theauthor%
}}}

\section{Less is More}
\blindtext
\end{document}

---

Edit:

As egreg said, just redefine \maketitle as a whole and put this in a .sty file:

\renewcommand*{\maketitle}{\noindent\colorbox{titlebg}{%
\parbox{\dimexpr\linewidth-2\fboxsep}{\color{white}%
\parbox{.4\linewidth}{\fontsize{24}{28}\selectfont\sffamily\bfseries\thetitle}\hfill%
\parbox{.4\linewidth}{\fontsize{12}{14}\selectfont\raggedleft\today\\\theauthor%
}}}}

I'm not familiar with emacs at all, so I can't help you with that, if the package solution is not what you're looking for. In that case, I would probably recommend asking a separate question about what you're trying to do because it seems to be independent from the styling of the title (obeying our one-issue-per-question guideline).

Some resources on writing a package (= .sty file):

• Make your own .sty files (good package template!)
• Style/class tutorials
• How do I create a LaTeX package?