Org: Add front cover for LaTeX/PDF export?

Question

I want to add a front cover for my Org document which will export as a PDF (#+LaTeX_CLASS: article). I don't want to modify my org-latex-classes and apply globally.

I tried to add the following block before first outline of the Org document, but it will insert the cover under the contents.

Is there any way to insert a LaTeX block to generate front cover for an individual Org article?

#+BEGIN_LaTeX latex
\newcommand*{\titleGP}{\begingroup % Create the command for including the title page in the document
\centering % Center all text
\vspace*{\baselineskip} % White space at the top of the page

\rule{\textwidth}{1.6pt}\vspace*{-\baselineskip}\vspace*{2pt} % Thick horizontal line
\rule{\textwidth}{0.4pt}\\[\baselineskip] % Thin horizontal line

{\LARGE THE BIG BOOK\\ OF \\[0.3\baselineskip] \LaTeX ~TEMPLATES}\\[0.2\baselineskip] % Title

\rule{\textwidth}{0.4pt}\vspace*{-\baselineskip}\vspace{3.2pt} % Thin horizontal line
\rule{\textwidth}{1.6pt}\\[\baselineskip] % Thick horizontal line

\scshape % Small caps
A number of fascinating and life-changing templates \\ % Tagline(s) or further description
presented  in a clear and useable way \\[\baselineskip] % Tagline(s) or further description
New Zealand,  2011--2012\par % Location and year

\vspace*{2\baselineskip} % Whitespace between location/year and editors

Edited by \\[\baselineskip]
{\Large JOHN SMITH \\ JANE SMITH \\ JAMES SMITH\par} % Editor list
{\itshape The University of California \\ Berkeley\par} % Editor affiliation

\vfill % Whitespace between editor names and publisher logo

{\scshape 2012} \\[0.3\baselineskip] % Year published
{\large THE PUBLISHER}\par % Publisher

\endgroup}
\titleGP % This command includes the title page
#+END_LaTeX

Answer 1

As @ramus suggested, you can set org-latex-title-command to a custom macro and have it used in place of \maketitle. If you set org-export-allow-bind-keywords to t you can do this per file using #+BIND org-latex-title-command "\\titleGP", but Emacs will start bugging you about" unsafe variables". This will insert \titleGP immediately after \begin{document}.

Then you just have to make sure the \titleGP macro is defined in the preamble, which we do with #+LATEX_HEADER. A complete example is

#+BIND: org-latex-title-command "\\titleGP"

#+LATEX_HEADER: \newcommand*{\titleGP}{\begingroup % Create the command for including the title page in the document
#+LATEX_HEADER: \centering % Center all text
#+LATEX_HEADER: \vspace*{\baselineskip} % White space at the top of the page
#+LATEX_HEADER:  
#+LATEX_HEADER: \rule{\textwidth}{1.6pt}\vspace*{-\baselineskip}\vspace*{2pt} % Thick horizontal line
#+LATEX_HEADER: \rule{\textwidth}{0.4pt}\\[\baselineskip] % Thin horizontal line
#+LATEX_HEADER:  
#+LATEX_HEADER: {\LARGE THE BIG BOOK\\ OF \\[0.3\baselineskip] \LaTeX ~TEMPLATES}\\[0.2\baselineskip] % Title
#+LATEX_HEADER:  
#+LATEX_HEADER: \rule{\textwidth}{0.4pt}\vspace*{-\baselineskip}\vspace{3.2pt} % Thin horizontal line
#+LATEX_HEADER: \rule{\textwidth}{1.6pt}\\[\baselineskip] % Thick horizontal line
#+LATEX_HEADER:  
#+LATEX_HEADER: \scshape % Small caps
#+LATEX_HEADER: A number of fascinating and life-changing templates \\ % Tagline(s) or further description
#+LATEX_HEADER: presented  in a clear and useable way \\[\baselineskip] % Tagline(s) or further description
#+LATEX_HEADER: New Zealand,  2011--2012\par % Location and year
#+LATEX_HEADER:  
#+LATEX_HEADER: \vspace*{2\baselineskip} % Whitespace between location/year and editors
#+LATEX_HEADER:  
#+LATEX_HEADER: Edited by \\[\baselineskip]
#+LATEX_HEADER: {\Large JOHN SMITH \\ JANE SMITH \\ JAMES SMITH\par} % Editor list
#+LATEX_HEADER: {\itshape The University of California \\ Berkeley\par} % Editor affiliation
#+LATEX_HEADER:  
#+LATEX_HEADER: \vfill % Whitespace between editor names and publisher logo
#+LATEX_HEADER:  
#+LATEX_HEADER: {\scshape 2012} \\[0.3\baselineskip] % Year published
#+LATEX_HEADER: {\large THE PUBLISHER}\par % Publisher
#+LATEX_HEADER:  
#+LATEX_HEADER: \endgroup}

* first section
some content

If you don't want to mess with setting org-export-allow-bind-keywords you could always just call your macro \maketitle instead of \titleGP, clobbering the old definition. You'll need to use \renewcommand instead of \newcommand.

Answer 2

In order to have the following document structure :

1. Cover page
2. Table of content (on a new page)
3. Begining of the content (on a new page)

You can do the following:

#+OPTIONS: num:1 toc:nil % toc is nil to set \tableofcontents manually
#+LATEX_HEADER: ADDITIONAL PACKAGE
#+LATEX_HEADER: PACKAGE CONFIG
#+begin_export latex
\begin{titlepage}
DEFINE YOUR COVER PAGE HERE
\end{titlepage}
\newpage
\tableofcontents
\newpage
#+end_export
YOUR CONTENT IN ORG STARTS HERE