[comp.text] LaTeX Section question.

brister@td2cad.intel.com (James Brister) (08/30/89)

I'd like to use LaTeX for most of my writing now, but I'm having problem with
one part of it.... I'd like sections to be indented relative to their depth.
e.g. 

	1.0 Foo
	   1.1 Foo subsection
	      1.1.1 Foo subsubsection
           1.2 Another Foo subsection
        2.0 Bar
           2.1 Bar subsection
           2.2 Bar subection number 2
    
In troff this nice and easy, but I can't find the answer in the LaTeX book (I
don't have the TeX book though, maybe it's there?) Do I need to explicitly set
the \oddsidemargin and \evensidemargin each time? (Seems pretty ineffecient).
Tnaks.

James
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Brister                 "Is the set of all respectable sets respectable?"
UUCP:	{amdcad,decwrl,hplabs,oliveb,pur-ee,qantel}!td2cad!brister
ARPA:	brister%td2cad.intel.com@relay.cs.net
CSNET:	brister@td2cad.intel.com                          VOICE: (408) 765-9713

chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek) (08/30/89)

In article <BRISTER.89Aug29102815@aries.td2cad.intel.com>
brister@td2cad.intel.com (James Brister) writes:
>... I'd like sections to be indented relative to their depth.  e.g. 
>
>	1.0 Foo
>	   1.1 Foo subsection
>	      1.1.1 Foo subsubsection
>           1.2 Another Foo subsection
>        2.0 Bar
>           2.1 Bar subsection
>           2.2 Bar subection number 2

I hope that you would like this because a layout designer told you to
do it this way (not that I would necessarily believe the layout
designer: I think this looks horrid, and would look only marginally
less so if the `1.1' were under the `F' in `Foo', etc.).  Note also
that LaTeX normally numbers sections as `1', not `1.0', etc.

>Do I need to explicitly set the \oddsidemargin and \evensidemargin each
>time?

No.  In fact, you must not set these.  The quantity that needs to
be adjusted is called `\leftskip'.  The section depth goes in the
`secnumdepth' counter.  For clues as to how to work with the internals
of the sectioning commands, look in latex.tex for the definition
of `\@startsection' and in the style files that you are now using
for the definitions of \section, \subsection, etc.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris

bts@sas.UUCP (Brian T. Schellenberger) (09/03/89)

To get the desired indentation, you need to muck about with the style files
(.sty) and create a special version; eg, if you use 11-point article now,
copy article.sty into artindent.sty and art11.sty into arti11.sty.  Then
change the files to accomplish this.  There should be ".doc" version of the
".sty" files available somewhere which have internal documentation to explain
what the .sty files are doing.  However, the LaTeX manual won't help you.
There is no paper documentation for the LaTeX internals used in the style
files, and you *will* need the TeXbook to explain the lower-level commands
used therein.  You may also need to look at latex.tex (which has lots of
interntal documentation) to set the documentation for the LaTeX internal
macros.  All in all, this is a difficult task.

If, however, you need this for a small number of documents, especially if
they are short (and if not, heaven help your poor reader, given the
desired style), then you would probably be better off using list environments
(or simple enumerate) rather than the actual sectioning commands.  These are
easier to set up---look at the documentation for \begiin{list} in the LaTEX
book, and use \renewenvironment to define your own environments.  Then use
them as:

\begin{chapter}{The first chapter}
    \begin{section}{The first section}
	\begin{subsection}{The first subsection}
	    This is in the first subsection.  Isn't it fun?
	\end{subsection}
	\begin{subsection}

. . . you can have your environments do the \item so you needn't type it
in yourself, and you can even define
	\newcommand \newsection {\end{section}\begin{section}}
to save on typing . . .
-- 
-- Brian, the Man from Babble-on.		...!mcnc!rti!sas!bts
--
"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part
that isn't thinking isn't thinking of" -- THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS