[Tex/LaTex] Why is rightmark not appearing in header

fancyhdrheader-footer

I am a complete newbie with LaTeX and I couldn't find a solution to the following problem: I want the section to appear on the left hand side of the header, the subsection in the middle and the page to the left. I wanted to use the following:

\usepackage{fancyhdr}  
\usepackage[a4paper,left=2.5cm,right=2.5cm,top=3.0cm,bottom=1.5cm,headsep=1cm{geometry}  
\pagestyle{fancy}  
\fancyhf{}  
\fancyhead[R]{\thepage}  
\fancyhead[C]{\nouppercase{\rightmark}}  
\fancyhead[L]{\nouppercase{\leftmark}}  
\fancyheadoffset[R,L]{1cm}  
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0.5pt}

It works perfectly for the section and the page but the subsection doesn't appear at all. I managed to redefine \rightmark via \renewcommand{\rightmark}{\thesubsection} so that at least the number of the subsection appears but how do I get the title of the subsection as well into the center of the header?

Best Answer

The macro \rightmark is automatically update by LaTeX when it processes a \markright instruction, so you mustn't redefine it yourself.

By default, with the article class, \section issues \markboth, which sets \leftmark (and \rightmark, but usually sets this to empty) via the macro \sectionmark that's automatically called by \section.

You have to redefine \subsectionmark that, by default, does nothing to issue \markright:

\renewcommand{\subsectionmark}[1]{\markright{\thesubsection\ #1}}

Full example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[
  a4paper,
  left=2.5cm,
  right=2.5cm,
  top=3.0cm,
  bottom=1.5cm,
  headsep=1cm
]{geometry}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}

\usepackage{blindtext}

\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyhf{}
\fancyhead[R]{\thepage}
\fancyhead[C]{\nouppercase{\rightmark}}
\fancyhead[L]{\nouppercase{\leftmark}}
\fancyheadoffset[R,L]{1cm}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0.5pt}

\renewcommand{\subsectionmark}[1]{\markright{\thesubsection\ #1}}

\begin{document}

\title{Title}
\author{Author}
\maketitle

\blinddocument

\end{document}

As Gustavo Mezzetti remarks, the macro \subsectionmark does execute \markright, provided twoside is in force and the page style is set to headings or myheadings. However, this is not relevant for the task at hand, since the pagestyle is declared to be fancy.

Related Solutions

[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.

[Tex/LaTex] latex fancyhdr: is possible to use leftmark and rightmark alternatively

You can test if the \rightmark is empty by fully expanding it; the command \rightorleftmark will do what you want (uncomment the \section line to see the difference).

\documentclass{book}

\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}

\fancyhf{}
\lhead{\nouppercase{\rightorleftmark}}
\rhead{\thepage}

\makeatletter
\newcommand{\rightorleftmark}{%
  \begingroup\protected@edef\x{\rightmark}%
  \ifx\x\@empty
    \endgroup\leftmark
  \else
    \endgroup\rightmark
  \fi}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\mainmatter
\chapter{A}
%\section{B}
abc\newpage
def\newpage
\end{document}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

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

[Tex/LaTex] latex fancyhdr: is possible to use leftmark and rightmark alternatively

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