Which one is standard?
The migration to a newer document class should be considered the "current" standard (since 17 December 2009). So, using elsarticle should be what you go with if you're producing a publication for Elsevier.
How can I change them all like a set?
You should modify this at the document-level, rather than on an individual basis. The reason for this is that the other font sizes of document elements are relative to the base, most likely set using font switches like \small, \large, etc. Using
\documentclass{elsarticle}
creates a 10pt default text font size (since it's based on the classic article document class). You can also try class options 11pt or 12pt, which is supported by default.
Here are some more details regarding elsarticle:
The title (or \maketitle under the final or default option) is set using \MaketitleBox:
\long\def\MaketitleBox{%
\resetTitleCounters
\def\baselinestretch{1}%
\begin{center}%
\def\baselinestretch{1}%
\Large\@title\par\vskip18pt
\normalsize\elsauthors\par\vskip10pt
\footnotesize\itshape\elsaddress\par\vskip36pt
\hrule\vskip12pt
\ifvoid\absbox\else\unvbox\absbox\par\vskip10pt\fi
\ifvoid\keybox\else\unvbox\keybox\par\vskip10pt\fi
\hrule\vskip12pt
\end{center}%
}
setting the title in \Large (not bold), the author in \normalsize and the address in \footnotesize. If you want a bold title (\bfseries), 14.5pt authors (\large or 14.4pt under 12pt) and 11pt address (\small or 10.95pt under 12pt), you need to use
\documentclass[12pt]{elsarticle}% `\normalsize is 12pt
\title{{\bfseries My title}}% Bold title, 17.28pt
\author{\large An Author}% \large or 14.4pt author
\address{\small Random City}% \small or 10.95pt address
\begin{document}
\maketitle
%...
\end{document}
You get three times a page 1 in the front matter: in the report class the titlepage environment which is used also by abstract resets the page number to 1.
I suggest you to use the book class with its \frontmatter and \mainmatter commands, with \chapter{\abstractname} for the abstract in the front matter.
However also the report class can be used, after patching the relevant commands; I show only the important parts, add the rest to suit. It's probably better to \usepackage[<options>]{geometry} for setting the page parameters and \usepackage{setspace} for the interline spacing.
Remember the \clearpage command before \pagenumbering{arabic}.
\documentclass[12pt]{report}
%%% PATCHES %%%
\usepackage{etoolbox}
\makeatletter
% Patch `titlepage` not to reset the page number
\patchcmd{\titlepage}{\setcounter{page}\@ne}{}{}{}
\patchcmd{\endtitlepage}{\setcounter{page}\@ne}{}{}{}
% Patch `abstract` so that it shows the page number
\patchcmd{\abstract}{\titlepage}{\titlepage\thispagestyle{plain}}{}{}
\makeatother
%%% END PATCHES %%%
\begin{document}
\pagenumbering{roman}
\begin{titlepage}
abc
\end{titlepage}
\begin{abstract}
dddd
\end{abstract}
\tableofcontents
\clearpage %%%%% <---- IMPORTANT
\pagenumbering{arabic}
\pagestyle{myheadings} \markright{}
\chapter{A}
\end{document}
Best Answer
The solution is to use the
geometrypackage.