[Tex/LaTex] \pagebreak[number] only breaks with number = 4

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I wanted to try out encouraging of pagebreak using \pagebreak[number].

As far for now it only breaks the page when I define \pagebreak[4] and only then (it won't work on any other circumstances).

Can someone explain to me how should it work ?

If I have a new section just in the bottom of the page and if I use \pagebreak[3] over \section{xxxxx} it will not break it then.

The manual says :

The \pagebreak command tells LaTeX to break the current page at the
point of the command. With the optional argument, number, you can
convert the \pagebreak command from a demand to a request. The number
must be a number from 0 to 4. The higher the number, the more
insistent the request is.

Best Answer

The command \pagebreak[3] only modifies the chances that the break appears at that place. Namely, it reduces the penalty for such a break by 301. The command \pagebreak[4] reduces the penalty by 10000 which is a sort-of "TeX's infinity", and it enforces a page break by making it not cost anything.

However, \pagebreak[3] cannot work in cases where LaTeX does not see anything wrong with the output (which is the case of a section title quite close to the bottom of the page). So you have to tell LaTeX to consider bottomtitles as a bad thing, and the easiest way to do this is by using a feature of the titlesec package:

\usepackage[nobottomtitles]{titlesec}

Its idea is simple: Enforce a page-break if there is not much space left on the page. The implementation is more complicated, and I am sure that I am not able to explain in here in a good way.

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