The style of section headings
Suppose that the editor of your favourite journal has specified that section
headings must be centred, in small capitals, and subsection headings ragged
right in italic, but that you don’t want to get involved in the sort of
programming described in section 2.2 of The LaTeX Companion
(see TeX-related books; the
programming itself is discussed elsewhere in this
FAQ).
The following hack will
probably satisfy your editor. Define yourself new commands
\newcommand{\ssection}[1]{%
\section[#1]{\centering\normalfont\scshape #1}}
\newcommand{\ssubsection}[1]{%
\subsection[#1]{\raggedright\normalfont\itshape #1}}
and then use \ssection and \ssubsection in place of
\section and \subsection. This isn’t perfect: section numbers
remain in bold, and starred forms need a separate redefinition.
The titlesec package offers a structured approach to the
problem, based on redefinition of the sectioning and chapter commands
themselves. This approach allows it to offer radical adjustment: its
options provide (in effect) a toolbox for designing your own
sectioning commands’ output.
The sectsty package provides a more simply structured set of
tools; while it is less powerful than is titlesec, it is
perhaps preferable for minor adjustments, since you can use it after
having read a smaller proportion of the manual.
The fncychap package provides a nice collection of customised
chapter heading designs. The anonchap package provides a
simple means of typesetting chapter headings “like section headings”
(i.e., without the “Chapter” part of the heading); the
tocbibind package provides the same commands, in pursuit of
another end. Unfortunately, fncychap is not attuned to the
existence of front- and backmatter in book class documents.
The memoir class includes facilities that match
sectsty and titlesec, as well as a bundle of
chapter heading styles (including an anonchap-equivalent).
The KOMA-script classes also have sets of tools that provide
equivalent functionality, notably formatting specifications \partformat,
\chapterformat, \sectionformat, ..., as well as several
useful overall formatting specifications defined in class options.
Finally, the indefatigable Vincent Zoonekynd supplies examples of how
to program alternative
chapter heading styles
and
section heading styles.
The web pages are not useful to users unless they are willing to do
their own LaTeX programming.
- anonchap.sty
- macros/latex/contrib/misc/anonchap.sty
- fncychap.sty
- macros/latex/contrib/fncychap (gzipped tar, browse)
- KOMA script bundle
- macros/latex/contrib/koma-script (gzipped tar, browse)
- memoir.cls
- macros/latex/contrib/memoir (gzipped tar, browse)
- sectsty.sty
- macros/latex/contrib/sectsty (gzipped tar, browse)
- titlesec.sty
- macros/latex/contrib/titlesec (gzipped tar, browse)
- tocbibind.sty
- macros/latex/contrib/tocbibind (gzipped tar, browse)
This question on the Web: http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=secthead