Page Layout ⇒ Alter Margins on the first ToC Page only

[Arya]

Hi

I am writing my thesis in LaTeX and have had to make some adjustments to fit my college's guidelines. I have to change the top margin for the first page of Table of Contents only. But I have no clue of how to do that only for the first page.

The geometry for the rest of the thesis is

Code: Select all

\usepackage[left=3cm,right=2.5cm,top=2.5cm,bottom=2.5cm]{geometry}

but for the first page of the ToC should be

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\geoemetry{left=3cm,right=2.5cm,top=2cm,bottom=2.5cm}

Thanks in advance to any help you can give me

[localghost]

[…] I have to change the top margin for the first page of Table of Contents only. […]

Is there a special reason for this?


Thorsten

[Arya]

Hi
the thesis format requirements in my university require those ridiculously specific geometries. They think that everybody use Ms Word to write the thesis, and they have stablished that the top margin is for the first page of every chapter is 2.5 cm + 3 enters, thats "exactly" 5cm. I have fixed the margin for every chapter but I don't know how to do that for the first page of the TOC, were the margin is 5.5 cm on this moment

If I don't fix that they could reject the thesis, even if everything else is ok

[Juanjo]

You should post a complete minimal example showing, at least, the document class you are using and how you have fixed the issue for each chapter. This would allow to devise a solution. Without seeing your code, it is difficult to help.

[Arya]

Hello Juanjo

I have one file for each chapter, and to fix the margin for the first page I'm doing the following on each one;

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\newgeometry{left=3cm,right=2.5cm,top=2cm,bottom=2.5cm}

\chapter{Geology}

and on page two of the same chapter:

\restoregeometry  

Below is part of the master tex file I'm using to compile all the chapters

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\documentclass[12pt,oneside,letterpaper,openany]{book}
\usepackage[left=3cm,right=2.5cm,top=2.5cm,bottom=2.5cm]{geometry}
\usepackage{sectsty}
\usepackage{pdflscape}
\renewcommand{\baselinestretch}{1.5}
\usepackage{fancyhdr} 
\renewcommand{\chaptermark}[1]{} 
\renewcommand{\sectionmark}[1]{}
\fancyhead{} 
\rhead{\thepage} 
\fancyfoot{} 
\usepackage{ textcomp }
\usepackage{SIunits} 
\setlength{\headheight}{15pt}
\usepackage{setspace}  

\begin{document}

\chapterfont{\centering\Large\mdseries\scshape}
\sectionfont{\large}
\subsectionfont{\large}

\newpage
\renewcommand\listtablename{Índice de Tablas}
\tableofcontents
\newpage
\listoffigures
\newpage
\listoftables

\mainmatter

\pagestyle{empty}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\lhead{}
\chead{}
\rhead{\thepage}
\lfoot{}
\cfoot{}
\rfoot{}


\normalsize
\include{chapter1}
\include{chapter2}
\include{chapter3}

\backmatter

\renewcommand\bibname{REFERENCIAS}
\bibliographystyle{amsplain}
\begin{thebibliography}{}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{REFERENCIAS}

\bibitem{dd} x
\bibitem{r} y
\bibitem{ronda} z

\end{thebibliography}
\newpage

\end{document}

[Juanjo]

I think that the technique you are using to change dimensions in the first page of chapters is error prone and not optimal. First, you do it manually, adding commands before and after each chapter heading. Second, it may be difficult to find a good point to place \restoregeometry, since this command inserts, in turn, a \clearpage command.

I've seen that you are using the sectsy package. Hence a simple approach is to directly redefine some commands, avoiding that package and solving your issue. Please copy the following code in a new file and name it as mysectsty.sty.

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% This is file mysectsty.sty
% Redefinition of several commands in book.cls related to chapter and 
% section headings, as requested by user Arya in the LaTeX Community 
% Forum. Code contributed by user Juanjo.
% See http://latex-community.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=22734

\NeedsTeXFormat{LaTeX2e}[1998/06/01]
\ProvidesPackage{mysectsy}[2013/03/04, v 0.1]
\typeout{}
\typeout{Loading mysectsty...}
\typeout{}

\def\@makechapterhead#1{%
% \vspace*{50\p@}%      <--- Original
  \vspace*{\dimexpr 50\p@-0.5cm}% <--- New
  {\parindent \z@ \raggedright \normalfont
    \ifnum \c@secnumdepth >\m@ne
      \if@mainmatter
%       \huge\bfseries \@chapapp\space \thechapter %<--- Original
        \centering\Large\scshape     % <--- New
        \@chapapp\space \thechapter  % <--- New
        \par\nobreak
        \vskip 20\p@
      \fi
    \fi
    \interlinepenalty\@M
%   \Huge \bfseries  #1\par\nobreak %<--- Original
    \centering\Large\scshape #1\par\nobreak  % <--- New
    \vskip 40\p@
  }}
\def\@makeschapterhead#1{%
% \vspace*{50\p@}%      <--- Original
  \vspace*{\dimexpr 50\p@-0.5cm}% <--- New
  {\parindent \z@ \raggedright
    \normalfont
    \interlinepenalty\@M
%   \Huge \bfseries  #1\par\nobreak %<--- Original
    \centering\Large\scshape #1\par\nobreak  % <--- New
    \vskip 40\p@
  }}
% \newcommand\section{\@startsection {section}{1}{\z@}%<--- Original
\renewcommand\section{\@startsection {section}{1}{\z@}%<--- New
                                   {-3.5ex \@plus -1ex \@minus -.2ex}%
                                   {2.3ex \@plus.2ex}%
%                                  {\normalfont\Large\bfseries}}%<--- Original
                                   {\normalfont\large\bfseries}}% <--- New
\endinput

Put mysectsty.sty in the same folder as the main tex file. Now, in the preamble, replace
\usepackage{sectsty} by \usepackage{mysectsty} and comment the following lines:

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\chapterfont{\centering\Large\mdseries\scshape}
\sectionfont{\large}
\subsectionfont{\large}

[By the way, the last line is superfluous, since subsections are written with "large" size by default].
Comment also any \newgeometry and \restoregeometry commands before and after each chapter heading. Compile and see if everything goes fine.

It seems that you are writing in Spanish. I would advise you to load the babel package with the spanish option. This avoids the need of redefining \listtablename and similar commands.

[Arya]

Thanks Juanjo

It worked perfectly

Thanks again!!