Title Block

A title block is composed of a title, author, thanks, and date. These items are added by preamble commands. The \maketitle command is used to construct a title block. While notitlepage or titlepage option of documentclass is used to specify the form of a title block to be displayed.

\maketitle

\maketitle is used to construct a title. \maketitle

Preamble Commands

\title

\title is used to specify the title of the document. \title{text} Required. text can be any text. Multiple lines entry of the title can be separated by a double backslash, \\

\author

\author is used to specify the document authors. \author{name1 \and name2 \and ...} Required. name1, name2, ... is a list of authors separated by \and commands. Multiple lines entry of the same author can be separated by a double backslash \\.

\date

\date is used to specify the document's date. \date{text} Optional. text can be any text other then a date. \today command can be used to specify current date during compling. If \date command is omitted then LaTeX will used the current date, i.e. \today. \date{} command is used to specify no date at all.

\thanks

\thanks is used to add a corresponding superscript and a footnote accordingly. \thanks{text} Optional. \thanks command can be used in any place that a footnote is needed. text can be any text.

Title Block Examples

Simple Title Block

\title{•} is used to specify the documnet title. \author{•} is used to specify the author name. An optional \thanks{•} command can be added after the name of the author inside the curly braces of \author to specify additional text. This additional \thanks command will add a superscript and a footnote with the text inside the braces to the document.

Code

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[showframe]{geometry}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\makeatletter
%\let\org@Gm@pageframes\Gm@pageframes
%\renewcommand*{\Gm@pageframes}%{%
%  \begingroup
%    \color{showframe}%
%    \org@Gm@pageframes
%  \endgroup
%}
\def\Gm@hrule{\color{red!30}\hrule height 1pt depth\z@ width\textwidth}%
\def\Gm@vrule{\color{red!30}\vrule width 1pt height\textheight depth\z@}%
\def\Gm@hruled{\color{red!30}\hrule height\z@ depth 1pt width\textwidth}%
\makeatother
\title{Document Title}
\author{Author Name \thanks{Thanks}}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\LaTeX{} Text
\end{document}

Output

Simple Title Block with Specified Date

\title{•} is used to specify the documnet title. \author{•} is used to specify the author name. An optional \thanks{•} command can be added after the name of the author inside the curly braces of \author to specify additional text. This additional \thanks command will add a superscript and a footnote with the text inside the braces to the document.
\date{•} is used to specify the date to be displayed on the title block manually. The \today command can also be used as the value of \date so that the date will be updated automatically during compiling.

Code

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[showframe]{geometry}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{advdate}
\makeatletter
%\let\org@Gm@pageframes\Gm@pageframes
%\renewcommand*{\Gm@pageframes}%{%
%  \begingroup
%    \color{showframe}%
%    \org@Gm@pageframes
%  \endgroup
%}
\def\Gm@hrule{\color{red!30}\hrule height 1pt depth\z@ width\textwidth}%
\def\Gm@vrule{\color{red!30}\vrule width 1pt height\textheight depth\z@}%
\def\Gm@hruled{\color{red!30}\hrule height\z@ depth 1pt width\textwidth}%
\makeatother
\title{Document Title}
\author{Author Name \thanks{Thanks \today}}
\date{\AdvanceDate[-11]\today}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\LaTeX{} Text
\end{document}

Output

Simple Title Page

By adding the titlepage option to the \documentclass, the title block will be displayed in form of a title page.
\title{•} is used to specify the documnet title. \author{•} is used to specify the author name. An optional \thanks{•} command can be added after the name of the author inside the curly braces of \author to specify additional text. This additional \thanks command will add a superscript and a footnote with the text inside the braces to the document.
\date{•} is used to specify the date to be displayed on the title block manually. The \today command can also be used as the value of \date so that the date will be updated automatically during compiling.

Code

\documentclass[titlepage]{article}
\usepackage[showframe]{geometry}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{advdate}
\makeatletter
%\let\org@Gm@pageframes\Gm@pageframes
%\renewcommand*{\Gm@pageframes}%{%
%  \begingroup
%    \color{showframe}%
%    \org@Gm@pageframes
%  \endgroup
%}
\def\Gm@hrule{\color{red!30}\hrule height 1pt depth\z@ width\textwidth}%
\def\Gm@vrule{\color{red!30}\vrule width 1pt height\textheight depth\z@}%
\def\Gm@hruled{\color{red!30}\hrule height\z@ depth 1pt width\textwidth}%
\makeatother
\title{Document Title}
\author{Author Name \thanks{Thanks \today}}
\date{\AdvanceDate[-11]\today}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\LaTeX{} Text
\end{document}

Output