[Tex/LaTex] Center body and left margin in page

horizontal alignmentmarginssectioningtitlesec

I'm using the titlesec package to put section titles to the left of their body, but I'd like for the entire page to appear centered. That is, I'd like for the space from the far left of the page to the beginning of the title equal the space from the end of the text body to the far right of the page.

How can I accomplish this?

Relevant WIP code:

\titleformat{\section}[leftmargin]{\raggedright\scshape}{}{0pt}{}
\titlespacing*{\section}{2.5cm}{*2.5}{0.5cm}
\titleformat{\subsection}{\bfseries}{}{0pt}{}
\titlespacing*{\subsection}{0pt}{*2}{*1}

Edit: As @cmhughes pointed out, I can manually adjust the margins with the geometry package to align the page properly. However, things like the title of the page look skewed, since they are centered with respect to the body. Is there any way I can center a different element with respect to the page?

Best Answer

Using titlesec, you set the title spacing to be 2.5cm+0.5cm (or 30mm) from the left margin of the text. As such, specifying the left and right margins, using geometry, as

\usepackage{geometry}% http://ctan.org/pkg/geometry
\newcommand{\mygeometry}[1]{%
  \geometry{right=#1,left=\dimexpr#1+30mm\relax}% Set new geometry
}
\mygeometry{25mm}% 25mm left/right margins

will give you 25mm left/right margins. You can specify any known dimension <len> in \mygeometry{<len>}. If you modify the spacing of your titles, would need to modify the 30mm dimension in \mygeometry as well.

Here is a minimal working example highlighting the above procedure and shows the first two pages of output:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}% http://ctan.org/pkg/lipsum
\usepackage{geometry}% http://ctan.org/pkg/geometry
\newcommand{\mygeometry}[1]{%
  \geometry{right=#1,left=\dimexpr#1+30mm\relax}% Set new geometry
}
\mygeometry{25mm}% 25mm left/rightmargins
\usepackage{titlesec}% http://ctan.org/pkg/titlesec
\titleformat{\section}[leftmargin]{\raggedright\scshape}{}{0pt}{}
\titlespacing*{\section}{2.5cm}{*2.5}{0.5cm}
\titleformat{\subsection}{\bfseries}{}{0pt}{}
\titlespacing*{\subsection}{0pt}{*2}{*1}
\begin{document}
\section{First section} \lipsum[1]
\subsection{First subsection} \lipsum[2]
\subsection{Second subsection} \lipsum[3]
\subsection{Third subsection} \lipsum[4]
\subsection{Last subsection} \lipsum[5]
\section{Second section} \lipsum[1]
\subsection{First subsection} \lipsum[2]
\subsection{Second subsection} \lipsum[3]
\subsection{Third subsection} \lipsum[4]
\subsection{Last subsection} \lipsum[5]
\section{Last section} \lipsum[1]
\subsection{First subsection} \lipsum[2]
\subsection{Second subsection} \lipsum[3]
\subsection{Third subsection} \lipsum[4]
\subsection{Last subsection} \lipsum[5]
\end{document}

lipsum was only used to provide dummy text.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Margin adjustment for section text

Here is a solution with titleps. I define a wideoddhead pagestyle that does what you want (if I understood well) without having to change margins. I had to modify the sectrion formatting. Also simplified your preamble:

\documentclass[10pt, letterpaper, twoside]{article}

\usepackage[vmargin=0.5in, left=1.25in, right=0.75in, headheight=0.75in, headsep=12pt, footskip=30pt, textheight=670pt]{geometry}
\usepackage[pagestyles, indentafter]{titlesec}

\newpagestyle{wideoddhead}{%
\setheadrule{1pt}
\widenhead[0pt][0pt]{0.5in}{0pt}
\sethead[\footnotesize\bfseries\thepage][][\footnotesize\itshape{\sectiontitle}]{10/22/2014}{\footnotesize\textbf{My Title}}{\footnotesize\bfseries\thepage}
}

\titleformat{\section}[block]{\bfseries\large}{\llap{\makebox[0.5in][l]{\thesection.}}}{0pt}{}
\pagestyle{wideoddhead}
\raggedbottom

\begin{document}

\section{The First Section}
Text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text.
As you can see, the header is aligned with the text. I am trying to get the header aligned with the section number while keeping the text aligned with the section title.
\pagebreak
\section{The Next Section}
It also gets really messed up for two-sided documents, if the left and right margin are set to different values. Moving only section text would alleviate this problem.

\end{document}

enter image description here

[Tex/LaTex] Fancy header and footer including images with tikz

Here is a suggestion using scrlayer to define a new pagestyle.

\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage{tikz}% loads also graphicx, xcolor
\usepackage{lmodern}
\usepackage[top=1.25in, bottom=1.25in, left=1.25in, right=1.25in]{geometry}

\usepackage{scrlayer}[2015/02/07]
\newkomafont{myheadfoot}{\color{white}\bfseries\sffamily}
\newkomafont{myhead}{\Huge}
\newkomafont{mypagenumber}{\normalsize}
\newkomafont{mysepline}{\color{blue}}

\newcommand\headimageheight{2cm}
\newcommand\footimageheight{.5cm}
\newcommand\seplineheight{.2cm}
\newcommand\headtexthoffset{1cm}

\renewcommand\sectionmark[1]{\markright{#1}}
\newcommand\titleinhead{}
\newcommand\mytitle[1]{\title{#1}\renewcommand\titleinhead{#1}}

\newsavebox\headimage
\sbox\headimage{%
  \tikz{
    \clip(0,0)rectangle(\paperwidth,-\headimageheight);
    \node[inner sep=0pt,outer sep=0pt,anchor=north west]{%
      \includegraphics[width=\paperwidth]{image}};
  }%
  \llap{\usekomafont{mysepline}\rule[-\seplineheight]{\paperwidth}{\seplineheight}}%
}
\newsavebox\footimage
\sbox\footimage{%
  \tikz{
    \clip(0,0)rectangle(\paperwidth,\footimageheight);
    \node[inner sep=0pt,outer sep=0pt,anchor=south west]{%
      \includegraphics[width=\paperwidth]{image}};
  }%
  \llap{\usekomafont{mysepline}\rule[\footimageheight]{\paperwidth}{\seplineheight}}%
}

\DeclareNewLayer[
  background,
  area={0pt}{0pt}{\paperwidth}{\headimageheight},
  contents={%
    \parbox[c][\layerheight]{\layerwidth}{%
      \vspace*{\stretch{2}}
      \hspace*{\headtexthoffset}%
      \usekomafont{myheadfoot}\usekomafont{myhead}\smash{\MakeUppercase{%
        \ifodd\value{page}\titleinhead\else\rightmark\fi%
      }}%
      \vspace*{\stretch{1}}}%
    %}%
  }
]{headtext}
\DeclareNewLayer[
  clone=headtext,
  addheight=\seplineheight,
  contents={\usebox\headimage}
]{headimage}
\DeclareNewLayer[
  background,
  align=b,
  area={0pt}{\paperheight}{\paperwidth}{\footimageheight},
  contents={%
    \parbox[c][\layerheight][c]{\layerwidth}{\centering\usekomafont{myheadfoot}\usekomafont{mypagenumber}\thepage}%
  }
]{foottext}
\DeclareNewLayer[
  clone=foottext,
  addheight=\seplineheight,
  contents={\parbox{\layerwidth}{\usebox\footimage}}
]{footimage}

\DeclarePageStyleByLayers{headfootimage}{%
  headimage,headtext,%
  footimage,foottext%
}

\usepackage{lipsum}% dummy text
\begin{document}
\mytitle{Title}
\author{Author}
\maketitle
\tableofcontents

\clearpage
\pagestyle{headfootimage}
\section{First section}
\subsection{First subsection}
\lipsum
\lipsum
\subsection{Second subsection}
\lipsum
\lipsum
\section{Second section}
\subsection{First subsection}
\lipsum
\lipsum
\subsection{Second subsection}
\lipsum
\lipsum
\section{Third section}
\subsection{First subsection}
\lipsum
\lipsum
\subsection{Second subsection}
\lipsum
\lipsum
\end{document}

enter image description here

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Margin adjustment for section text

[Tex/LaTex] Fancy header and footer including images with tikz

Related Question