How can I place a one-column-abstract in a two-column document?

This was (long long time ago) the first question who made me visit UK-TeX FAQ. And I found the answer there.

Commented Sep 12, 2011 at 9:00

@Ignasi excellent reference! The link is now broken, the right ones are UK-TeX FAQ and 1-column abstract in 2-column document.

Commented Apr 29, 2017 at 13:31

5 Answers 5

This should make the trick. Important Note: This is a copy-paste from: I've just tested it

\documentclass[twocolumn] . \begin . % \author, etc \twocolumn[ \begin \maketitle \begin . \end \end ]
778k 70 70 gold badges 1.6k 1.6k silver badges 2.5k 2.5k bronze badges answered Sep 11, 2011 at 11:38 866 8 8 silver badges 6 6 bronze badges

Note that \maketitle must be included if you want to avoid a page break before the abstract environment.

Commented Aug 31, 2012 at 11:51

Users are advised to see some of the other solutions at the linked page, which is an answer on the TeX FAQ. In particular, to get \thanks to work in the author list (instead of just gobbling the footnotes), use of the abstract package (and the \saythanks command it provides) is advisable. See also tex.stackexchange.com/q/80210/17427

Commented Nov 4, 2012 at 11:41

Well this technically works, but it removes all space after the abstract. So some commands to put a sensible amount of space back in are needed.

Commented May 31, 2019 at 11:17

Used @twocolumnfalse as well as the linked onecolabstract (with package \usepackage ) in a \documentclass but neither worked.

Commented Jun 22, 2019 at 15:03 Commented Jun 22, 2019 at 15:12

If you use the multicol package then you can easily mix different column format

\documentclass \usepackage \usepackage% for dummy text \begin \begin \lipsum[1] \end \begin \lipsum[2] \end \end
59.5k 24 24 gold badges 206 206 silver badges 295 295 bronze badges answered Sep 11, 2011 at 16:55 Peter Grill Peter Grill 225k 50 50 gold badges 586 586 silver badges 931 931 bronze badges

The \twocolumn-command takes an optional argument, which will be printed in one-column-mode.

answered Sep 11, 2011 at 17:20 31.5k 6 6 gold badges 73 73 silver badges 133 133 bronze badges Well, that's exactly what the accepted answer by GuillemB is about, isn't it? Commented Sep 11, 2011 at 17:23

@lockstep: No, he added an environment (probably he forgot \makeatother) using @twocolumnfalse , but the simple optional argument does the trick.

Commented Sep 11, 2011 at 19:54 I stand corrected -- +1. Commented Sep 11, 2011 at 19:55 His added environment seems to be necessary if you want both the title and the abstract in there. Commented Apr 4, 2013 at 0:29

If you use the titling package, which I do anyway, you can use the final hook it provides for \maketitle to hold the abstract.

For example, the following code defines a new command, \myabstract[]<> . The optional argument can be used to specify a different proportion of the \textwidth be used for the abstract. The default is width=.8 . To specify something else, just use \myabstract[width=]<> . The mandatory argument just holds the abstract content.

\documentclass[twocolumn] \usepackage \ExplSyntaxOn \coffin_new:N \l_my_abstract_coffin \dim_zero_new:N \l_my_width_dim \keys_define:nn < my / abstract > < width .code:n = < \dim_set:Nn \l_my_width_dim > > \NewDocumentCommand \myabstract < O m >  < #1 >\SetVerticalCoffin \l_my_abstract_coffin <\l_my_width_dim> \renewcommand\maketitlehookd\medskip\par \centering \TypesetCoffin \l_my_abstract_coffin > > \ExplSyntaxOff \begin \author> \title \myabstract <\kant[1]>\maketitle \kant[2-3] \title \author \myabstract[width=.7] <\kant[4]>\maketitle \kant[5] \end

two abstracts for two tales

Although I've used xcoffins and expl3 stuff (which I'm not sure I should be mixing at all), you can do this without the alien syntax, still using xcoffins :

\documentclass[twocolumn] \usepackage \NewCoffin \myabstractcoffin \newcommand \myabstract[2][.8] % \renewcommand\maketitlehookd\medskip\par \centering \TypesetCoffin \myabstractcoffin>> \begin \author> \title \myabstract <\kant[1]>\maketitle \kant[2-3] \title \author \myabstract[.7] <\kant[4]>\maketitle \kant[5] \end

Note that the optional argument now just takes the number e.g. .7 rather than width=.7 .

Or, most easily of all, just using a minipage environment:

\documentclass[twocolumn] \usepackage \newcommand \myabstract[2][.8]\medskip\par \centering \begin #2 \end>> \begin \author> \title \myabstract <\kant[1]>\maketitle \kant[2-3] \title \author \myabstract[.7] <\kant[4]>\maketitle \kant[5] \end