[Tex/LaTex] Create a banner for section style

Question

I am wondering if there is any way to change the default style for sections. I would like to create a banner (across the page) with a dark-gray background and the section title in white. It would be great if I can also put two black bold lines on the top and bottom edge of the banner. I saw someone use TikZ to style the section but I am not familiar with that; is there any other package that can do that for me?

Answer 1

Of course this could be done using TikZ, but there's not really need to use it here. Here's one possibility using the titlesec package:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage[explicit]{titlesec}
\usepackage{lipsum}% just to generate text for the example

\titleformat{\section}
  {\normalfont\large\sffamily\color{white}}%
  {}{0em}%
  {{\color{black}\titlerule[3pt]}\vskip-.38\baselineskip\colorbox{gray!80}{\parbox[t]{\dimexpr\textwidth-2\fboxsep\relax}{\raggedright\strut\thesection~#1\strut}}}[\vskip-.2\baselineskip{\color{black}\titlerule[3pt]}]
\titleformat{name=\section,numberless}
  {\normalfont\large\sffamily\color{white}}%
  {}{0em}%
  {{\color{black}\titlerule[3pt]}\vskip-.38\baselineskip\colorbox{gray!80}{\parbox[t]{\dimexpr\textwidth-2\fboxsep\relax}{\raggedright\strut#1\strut}}}[\vskip-.2\baselineskip{\color{black}\titlerule[3pt]}]

\begin{document}

\section{Test Numbered Section}
\lipsum[4]
\section*{Test Unnumbered Section}
\lipsum[4]

\end{document}