diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 327ae11776..e8862cc68f 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 Package: rmarkdown
 Type: Package
 Title: Dynamic Documents for R
-Version: 1.18.2
+Version: 1.18.3
 Authors@R: c(
   person("JJ", "Allaire", role = "aut", email = "jj@rstudio.com"),
   person("Yihui", "Xie", role = c("aut", "cre"), email = "xie@yihui.name", comment = c(ORCID = "0000-0003-0645-5666")),
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index b9b4dfb42f..54ebc2cad9 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 rmarkdown 1.19
 ================================================================================
 
+- For the output format `pdf_document()`, we no longer adjust the vertical spacing of the title area. This means there will be a larger spacing above the document title in PDF. If you prefers the old (smaller) spacing, please download https://github.com/rstudio/rmarkdown/blob/f6961af/inst/rmd/latex/compact-title.tex and include it to the preamble via the `includes` option of `pdf_document`. However, please note that this means you won't be able to have multiple authors in the `author` field of the YAML frontmatter, unless you use a custom LaTeX template. With the default LaTeX template, you will run into the error in #1716. Besides, the `compact-title` option in YAML is no longer supported.
+
 - The `encoding` argument is no longer passed to the `intermediates_generator` of R Markdown output formats. The `intermediates_generator` function can only accept arguments `input_file` and `intermediates_dir` now (see `?rmarkdown::output_format`). This is a breaking change to developers. If you are an output format developer, you have to remove the `encoding` argument in your `intermediates_generator` if your output format uses this function.
 
 - The `encoding` argument is no longer passed to the `render` element of the site generator (see `?rmarkdown::render_site`).
diff --git a/R/pdf_document.R b/R/pdf_document.R
index c857a98004..b1793a87ac 100644
--- a/R/pdf_document.R
+++ b/R/pdf_document.R
@@ -172,11 +172,6 @@ pdf_document <- function(toc = FALSE,
       # set the margin to 1 inch if no geometry options or document class specified
       if (!any(c("geometry", "documentclass") %in% names(metadata)))
         args <- c(args, "--variable", "geometry:margin=1in")
-
-      # use titling package to change title format to be more compact by default
-      if (!xfun::isFALSE(metadata[["compact-title"]])) args <- c(
-        args, append_in_header(file = pkg_file("rmd/latex/compact-title.tex"))
-      )
     }
 
     if (length(extra_dependencies) || has_latex_dependencies(knit_meta)) {
diff --git a/inst/rmd/latex/compact-title.tex b/inst/rmd/latex/compact-title.tex
deleted file mode 100644
index 9c21bb06ac..0000000000
--- a/inst/rmd/latex/compact-title.tex
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,16 +0,0 @@
-% https://github.com/rstudio/rmarkdown/issues/337
-\let\rmarkdownfootnote\footnote%
-\def\footnote{\protect\rmarkdownfootnote}
-
-% https://github.com/rstudio/rmarkdown/pull/252
-\usepackage{titling}
-\setlength{\droptitle}{-2em}
-
-\pretitle{\vspace{\droptitle}\centering\huge}
-\posttitle{\par}
-
-\preauthor{\centering\large\emph}
-\postauthor{\par}
-
-\predate{\centering\large\emph}
-\postdate{\par}