I am writing an article with memoir and the \pagestyle{ruled} is very nice but it keeps displaying CONTENTS every even (left) page (which I believe is a Chapter, but being my paper an article there are no chapters at all!).
What I would like to achieve is having the Section title (not in capitals) with its number on every page (with left/right alignment respectively), and the number centred at the bottom.
I know that the documentation is exhaustive, but the deadline is closer then ever and, unfortunately, I cannot dig into it right now. Moreover I couldn't find other questions with related purpose.
[Tex/LaTex] Memoir header for article
header-footermemoir
Related Solutions
As Werner comments, the best way to customize the headers/footers when using memoir is to use the features provided by the class itself.
In the following code I created a customized page style to produce your first layout: page number at the top (I chose at the left) of even-numbered pages and chapter title in italics at the top (I chose at the right) of odd-numbered pages; since I didn't make any special provision for the plain style, the first page of every chapter will retain the default plain style:
\documentclass{memoir}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\nouppercaseheads
\makepagestyle{mystyle}
\makeevenhead{mystyle}{\thepage}{}{}
\makeoddhead{mystyle}{}{}{\itshape\leftmark}
\makeevenfoot{mystyle}{}{}{}
\makeoddfoot{mystyle}{}{}{}
\makepsmarks{mystyle}{%
\createmark{chapter}{left}{nonumber}{}{}}
\pagestyle{mystyle}
\begin{document}
\chapter{Test Chapter}
\lipsum[1]
\section{Test Section}
\lipsum[1-20]
\end{document}
Here are the modifications required in the comments; the headers/footers will now extend to the space reserved for marginal notes; the plain style has also been redefined to match the layout for other pages:
\documentclass{memoir}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\nouppercaseheads
\makepagestyle{mystyle}
\setlength{\headwidth}{\dimexpr\textwidth+\marginparsep+\marginparwidth\relax}
\makerunningwidth{mystyle}{\headwidth}
\makeevenhead{mystyle}{\itshape\leftmark}{}{}
\makeoddhead{mystyle}{}{}{\itshape\leftmark}
\makeevenfoot{mystyle}{\thepage}{}{}
\makeoddfoot{mystyle}{}{}{\thepage}
\makeatletter
\makepsmarks{mystyle}{%
\createmark{chapter}{left}{shownumber}{\@chapapp\ }{.\ }}
\makeatother
\makepagestyle{plain}
\makerunningwidth{plain}{\headwidth}
\makeevenfoot{plain}{\thepage}{}{}
\makeoddfoot{plain}{}{}{\thepage}
\pagestyle{mystyle}
\begin{document}
\chapter{Test Chapter}
\lipsum[1]
\section{Test Section}
\lipsum[1-20]
\end{document}
If you use the standard memoir headings, it suffices to add these lines in your preamble:
\makeevenfoot{plain}{}{\scriptsize\thepage}{}
\makeoddfoot{plain}{}{\scriptsize\thepage}{}
\makeevenhead{headings}{\scriptsize\thepage}{}{\slshape\leftmark}
\makeoddhead{headings}{\slshape\rightmark}{}{\scriptsize\thepage}
In fact, if you don't specify otherwise the page styles used by memoir are empty, plain, and headings.
MWE
\documentclass{memoir}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\makeevenfoot{plain}{}{\scriptsize\thepage}{}
\makeoddfoot{plain}{}{\scriptsize\thepage}{}
\makeevenhead{headings}{\scriptsize\thepage}{}{\slshape\leftmark}
\makeoddhead{headings}{\slshape\rightmark}{}{\scriptsize\thepage}
\begin{document}
\frontmatter
\tableofcontents
\mainmatter
\chapter{Test}
\lipsum[1-4]
\section{A section}
\lipsum[1-5]
\end{document}
Output:
Best Answer
One possibility, with a slight variation on the
ruledpage style: