[Tex/LaTex] Fit four authors across on one row in “sigplanconf” style

acmformattingtitles

Is there some hack out there to make it possible to fit four authors across in one row in the sigplanconf class?

No matter how short each author's name, affiliation, and email is, by default the style fits only 3 authors across in one row.

Having four authors results in a massive amount of wasted space.

Ideally, I'd like to have this:

                  Article Title

Fname Lname   Fname Lname   Fname Lname   Fname Lname
   dept           dept         dept          dept
  school         school       school        school
 email@edu     email@edu     email@edu     email@edu


     Abstract                .....................
....................         .....................
....................         .....................
....................         .....................

But this is what I have instead:

                  Article Title

Fname Lname        Fname Lname       Fname Lname   
   dept               dept              dept       
  school             school            school      
 email@edu          email@edu         email@edu    

                   Fname Lname
                      dept
                     school
                    email@edu

      Abstract               .....................
....................         .....................
....................         .....................
....................         .....................

Is there something I can do to \authorinfo to force them to be wider, or to squeeze 4 to a column?

My document looks like:

\documentclass[preprint,10pt]{sigplanconf}

\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}

\title{My Title}

\authorinfo{Fname Lname}
           {school}
           {email@edu}
\authorinfo{Fname Lname}
           {school}
           {email@edu}
\authorinfo{Fname Lname}
           {school}
           {email@edu}
\authorinfo{Fname Lname}
           {school}
           {email@edu}

\maketitle

\begin{abstract}
...

Best Answer

By default, the class sigplanconf typesets the authors in rows and uses maximum three authors per row (this is done using the macro \@titleauthors); to change this behaviour, you need to redefine \maketitle and to define a command to allow typesetting four authors in a row (the command \@ivtitleauthors in my example, which was defined in a similar fashion to the default \@titleauthors command):

\documentclass[preprint,10pt]{sigplanconf}
\usepackage{amsmath}

\makeatletter
\def \@ivtitleauthors#1#2#3#4{%
  \if \@andp{\@emptyargp{#2}}{\@emptyargp{#3}}%
    \noindent \@setauthor{40pc}{#1}{\@false}\par
  \else\if \@emptyargp{#3}%
    \noindent \@setauthor{17pc}{#1}{\@false}\hspace{3pc}%
              \@setauthor{17pc}{#2}{\@false}\par
  \else\if \@emptyargp{#4}%
    \noindent \@setauthor{17pc}{#1}{\@false}\hspace{3pc}%
              \@setauthor{17pc}{#3}{\@false}\par
  \else
    \noindent \@setauthor{9.3333pc}{#1}{\@false}\hspace{1.5pc}%
              \@setauthor{9.3333pc}{#2}{\@false}\hspace{1.5pc}%
              \@setauthor{9.3333pc}{#3}{\@false}\hspace{1.5pc}%
              \@setauthor{9.3333pc}{#4}{\@true}\par
    \relax
  \fi\fi\fi
  \vspace{20pt}}
\def \@maketitle {%
  \begin{center}
  \@settitlebanner
  \let \thanks = \titlenote
  {\leftskip = 0pt plus 0.25\linewidth
   \rightskip = 0pt plus 0.25 \linewidth
   \parfillskip = 0pt
   \spaceskip = .7em
   \noindent \LARGE \bfseries \@titletext \par}
  \vskip 6pt
  \noindent \Large \@subtitletext \par
  \vskip 12pt
  \ifcase \@authorcount
    \@latex@error{No authors were specified for this paper}{}\or
    \@titleauthors{i}{}{}\or
    \@titleauthors{i}{ii}{}\or
    \@titleauthors{i}{ii}{iii}\or
    \@ivtitleauthors{i}{ii}{iii}{iv}\or
    \@titleauthors{i}{ii}{iii}\@titleauthors{iv}{v}{}\or
    \@titleauthors{i}{ii}{iii}\@titleauthors{iv}{v}{vi}\or
    \@titleauthors{i}{ii}{iii}\@titleauthors{iv}{v}{vi}%
                  \@titleauthors{vii}{}{}\or
    \@titleauthors{i}{ii}{iii}\@titleauthors{iv}{v}{vi}%
                  \@titleauthors{vii}{viii}{}\or
    \@titleauthors{i}{ii}{iii}\@titleauthors{iv}{v}{vi}%
                  \@titleauthors{vii}{viii}{ix}\or
    \@titleauthors{i}{ii}{iii}\@titleauthors{iv}{v}{vi}%
                  \@titleauthors{vii}{viii}{ix}\@titleauthors{x}{}{}\or
    \@titleauthors{i}{ii}{iii}\@titleauthors{iv}{v}{vi}%
                  \@titleauthors{vii}{viii}{ix}\@titleauthors{x}{xi}{}\or
    \@titleauthors{i}{ii}{iii}\@titleauthors{iv}{v}{vi}%
                  \@titleauthors{vii}{viii}{ix}\@titleauthors{x}{xi}{xii}%
  \else
    \@latex@error{Cannot handle more than 12 authors}{}%
  \fi
  \vspace{1.75pc}
  \end{center}}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\title{My Title}

\authorinfo{Fname Lname}
           {school}
           {email@edu}
\authorinfo{Fname Lname}
           {school}
           {email@edu}
\authorinfo{Fname Lname}
           {school}
           {email@edu}
\authorinfo{Fname Lname}
           {school}
           {email@edu}

\maketitle

\begin{abstract}

\end{abstract}

\end{document}

enter image description here

If you are writing for a journal, make sure that this kind of change is accepted; otherwise, maintain the original layout.

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