I'm writing my PhD thesis in latex and learned a lot from this forum. However, I could not find an answer to the question how do I put an decorative hook before the chapter title.
I think that it looks rather nice to have this but thats personal.
[Tex/LaTex] Decorative hook or symbol before chapter (or section) title
chaptersdecorationssections-paragraphs
Related Solutions
\documentclass[10pt,twoside,b5paper,showtrims]{memoir}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\addto\captionsenglish{\renewcommand\chaptername{Section}}
\begin{document}
\chapter{Foo}
\section{bar}
baz
\end{document}
You didn't give the documentclass you are using. So I will let loose my guess that it is book. Here the default space above is defined by \vspace*{50\p@}. This can be patched as in this code:
\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{blindtext,showframe} %% just for demo
\usepackage{xpatch}
\makeatletter
\xpatchcmd{\@makechapterhead}{\vspace*{50\p@}}{\vspace*{20\p@}}{}{}
\xpatchcmd{\@makeschapterhead}{\vspace*{50\p@}}{\vspace*{20\p@}}{}{}
\makeatother
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\Blinddocument
\end{document}
Adjust 20 in \vspace*{20\p@} as you wish.
Best Answer
If you want to look further than just a "hook" before the chaper title look at the examples of Vincent Zoonekynd for the normal book class. Lars Madsen has compiled some nice examples for memoir: MemoirChapStyles. There is even one with TikZ by Stefan Kottwitz onTeXblog