[Tex/LaTex] \rightmark not displaying subsection

fancyhdrheader-footersectioning

Current situation

My document (report) consists of chapters, sections and subsections. Now I want to display the section name and the subsection name on the left side of the footer. However if I use \rightmark I only get the section name, not the subsection one too.

A minimal example

I tried to reduce the problem to this minimal example which is basically the code from my actual document:

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{report}

% <header_footer>
    \usepackage{fancyhdr}
    \pagestyle{fancy}
    \fancyhf{}
    \fancyhead[L]{\rightmark}
% </header_footer>

% ...
% a lot of other stuff here
% ...

% <toc>
    \setcounter{secnumdepth}{0}

    \newcommand\invisiblesection[1]{%
        \refstepcounter{section}%
        \addcontentsline{toc}{section}{#1}%
        \sectionmark{#1}}

    \newcommand\invisiblesubsection[1]{%
        \refstepcounter{subsection}%
        \addcontentsline{toc}{subsection}{#1}%
        \subsectionmark{#1}}
% </toc>

\begin{document}
    \tableofcontents
    \newpage

    \chapter{a chapter}
    \newpage

    \invisiblesection{section}
    \invisiblesubsection{subsection}
    content to ensure the page is there
    \newpage

    \invisiblesection{another section}
    \invisiblesubsection{subsection 1}
    content to ensure the page is there 
    % the header should now display "another section - subsection 1"
    \newpage

    \invisiblesubsection{subsection 2}
    content to ensure the page is there 
    % the header should now display "another section - subsection 2"
    \newpage

    \invisiblesubsection{subsection 3}
    content to ensure the page is there 
    % the header should now display "another section - subsection 3"
\end{document}

What it looks like

What it should look like

What I tried so far

overriding both marks – didn't work as the \leftmark was defined as the chapter's name
getting the current section name with nameref – didn't work as it was fetching the chapter's name
\defining custom variables each time a \invisiblesection is created – didn't work either

Question

I suppose there's just one dead simple flag which I forgot but google didn't tell me. Does anybody have a solution to display both the section and subsection name in a header/footer?

Best Answer

The \subsectionmark command is defined to do nothing, so you need to change its definition if you want it issues a mark.

Similarly, you have to change \sectionmark so it doesn't issue a mark.

\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{report}

\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyhf{}
\fancyhead[L]{\rightmark}

\setlength{\headheight}{14.5pt}
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{0}

\newcommand\invisiblesection[1]{%
  \refstepcounter{section}%
  \addcontentsline{toc}{section}{#1}%
  \sectionmark{#1}%
}

\newcommand\invisiblesubsection[1]{%
  \refstepcounter{subsection}%
  \addcontentsline{toc}{subsection}{#1}%
  \subsectionmark{#1}%
}

\renewcommand{\sectionmark}[1]{%
  \gdef\currsection{#1}%
}
\renewcommand{\subsectionmark}[1]{%
  \markright{\currsection\ \textbullet\ #1}%
}

\begin{document}

\tableofcontents
\newpage

\invisiblesection{section}
\invisiblesubsection{subsection}
content to ensure the page is there
\newpage

\invisiblesection{another section}
\invisiblesubsection{subsection 1}
content to ensure the page is there 
% the header should now display "another section - subsection 1"
\newpage

\invisiblesubsection{subsection 2}
content to ensure the page is there 
% the header should now display "another section - subsection 2"
\newpage

\invisiblesubsection{subsection 3}
content to ensure the page is there 
% the header should now display "another section - subsection 3"

\end{document}

Here's the top of page 4

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Header not displaying correctly on chapter page due to subsection

We must give more structure to the right mark emitted by the \chapter command; so we do

\renewcommand{\chaptermark}[1]{%
  \markboth{\chaptername\ \thechapter}
           {\noexpand\firstsubsectiontitle}}

The \subsectiontitle macro will be defined by the \subsection command; of course it won't work if no subsection starts in the first page:

\renewcommand{\subsectionmark}[1]{%
  \markright{#1}\gdef\firstsubsectiontitle{#1}}

Here's an example; notice some changes I've made to your code. For instance I've redefined the \sectionmark command so it doesn't emit any mark.

The solution to the numbering problem of subsection is to \setcounter{secnumdepth}{1}.

\documentclass{report}

% PACKAGES
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{lastpage} % Allows referencing of the last page to allow footer to read: "Page [Current page] of [Total number of pages]."
\usepackage{comment} % Allows comments of the type: \begin{comment}This text is commented out.\end{comment}
%\usepackage[colorlinks=true]{hyperref} % Turns table of contents and labels into clickable links. Commented out to speed up compiling.
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} % Allows use of ">" symbol.
\usepackage{lmodern} %Not really sure what this is for.

% FORMATTING
% Header and Footer
\pagestyle{fancy}

% Allows calling chapter and section names in headers and footers.
\renewcommand{\chaptermark}[1]{%
  \markboth{\chaptername\ \thechapter}
  {\noexpand\firstsubsectiontitle}}
\renewcommand{\sectionmark}[1]{}
\renewcommand{\subsectionmark}[1]{%
  \markright{#1}\gdef\firstsubsectiontitle{#1}}
\newcommand\firstsubsectiontitle{}

% General Header and Footer
\fancyhf{}
\fancyhead[L]{\DocumentAuthor} 
\fancyhead[R]{\BookAuthor>\leftmark>\rightmark}
\fancyfoot[C]{Page \thepage\ of \pageref{LastPage}}

% Chapter Header and Footer
\fancypagestyle{plain}{%
  \fancyhf{} \fancyhead[L]{\DocumentAuthor}%
  \fancyhead[R]{\BookAuthor>\leftmark>\rightmark}%
  \fancyfoot[C]{Page \thepage\ of \pageref{LastPage}}%
}

% Header/Footer Separation-line Width
\renewcommand\headrulewidth{0.4pt} 
\renewcommand\footrulewidth{0.4pt}

\setlength\parindent{0pt} % Remove paragraph indentation.

% NAME AND CLASS SECTION
\newcommand{\DocumentAuthor}{Author Name}
\newcommand{\BookAuthor}{Book Author}

\setcounter{secnumdepth}{1}

%DOCUMENT
\begin{document}

\tableofcontents
\thispagestyle{empty}

\chapter{Title of Chapter 1}
\section{Sample Problems}
\subsection{Title of Subsection 1}
\pagebreak{}
\subsection{Title of Subsection 2}
\subsection{Title of Subsection 3}
\pagebreak{}
\subsection{Title of Subsection 4}

\end{document}

With this code the first subsection in the page will be put in the header.

What's \noexpand\firstsubsectiontitle doing? The \markboth and \markright commands must record the current values of the counters and titles, so their arguments are passed through an \edef; this, in the case of the first chapter and English language, would set a left mark with value Chapter\ 1. If we said only \firstsubsectiontitle in the second argument, it would be expanded leaving a wrong right mark because it would be empty for the first chapter and would contain the last subsection in the preceding chapter!

So we say "dear TeX, don't expand \firstsubsectiontitle right now, but only when you'll set the header."

Actually, if there can be more than one subsection in the chapter pages, a different solution should be used:

% Allows calling chapter and section names in headers and footers.
\renewcommand{\chaptermark}[1]{%
  \markboth{\chaptername\ \thechapter}
           {\noexpand\firstsubsectiontitle}%
  \global\firstsubsectionmarktrue}
\renewcommand{\sectionmark}[1]{}
\renewcommand{\subsectionmark}[1]{%
  \markright{#1}%
  \iffirstsubsectionmark
    \gdef\firstsubsectiontitle{#1}%
  \fi
  \global\firstsubsectionmarkfalse}
\newif\iffirstsubsectionmark
\def\firstsubsectiontitle{}

so that the first subsection would set the mark.

[Tex/LaTex] How to use short subsection title in header but not in table of contents

This is answered in the TeX FAQ. On the left-hand pages the text used in the title is that of the first mark on the page, so your \subsectionmark is coming too late. This can be solved by adding this command again in the title itself:

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents

\section[some section with quite a lengthy title]{some section with quite 
a lengthy title%
\sectionmark{short section}}
\sectionmark{short section}
\lipsum

\subsection[very very very long title of subsection]{very very very long
title of subsection%
\subsectionmark{short subsection}}
\subsectionmark{short subsection}

\lipsum

\end{document}

Because of the way the writing to the table of contents works you will also have to add the full title to the optional argument of the \(sub)section command, as above. As this is rather clumsy, it is reasonable to introduced commands such as \markedsection to achieve this:

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{scrartcl}
\usepackage[utf8x]{inputenc}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}

\newcommand{\markedsection}[2]{\section[#2]{#2%
\sectionmark{#1}}
\sectionmark{#1}}

\newcommand{\markedsubsection}[2]{\subsection[#2]{#2%
\subsectionmark{#1}}
\subsectionmark{#1}}

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents

\markedsection{short section}{Some section with quite a lengthy title}

\lipsum

\markedsubsection{short subsection}{Very very very long title of subsection}

\lipsum

\end{document}

For the standard cases, you can still use the ordinary commands.

If your are prepared to switch to the memoir class, then you will have sectioning commands that help this proceedure as they have two optional arguments: one for the head and one for the table of contents.