DANTE meeting 2017 day 1 – afternoon second session
At the DANTE meeting, Günter Partosch continued. His second topic was: headings.
Headings are for:
- Structuring and sectioning of texts
- Visual indication
- Cross-referencing
There are various things that can be adjusted:
- Size
- Appearance such as font and decoration
- Distance before and after
- Numbering
The first look was at the base classes. They allow structuring by \chapter and \section etc. in various depth. There are basic commands in LaTeX that can be used for example for switching numbering off or on and to change how that looks.
He showed additional packages, such as:
- fncychap – offers seven chapter heading styles, rather decorative
- quotchap – decorative chapter headings with quotations or sayings
- sectsty – Changing appearance of headings including lines above and below
- titlesec – Alternative heading styles with complex interface
- varsects – simple changing of headings
In his presentation he showed output examples of those packages, such as for decorative chapter headings and various formatting such as indented, centered, block-like or embedded headings.
A table showed the packages versus the features mentioned above.
Finally he considered the customization features included in KOMA-Script. They go far beyond the capabilities of base classes. A variety of settings are possible. Basic properties, such as base font size, can be set via class options. There are commands for setting and changing of font or formatting of various headings (\setkomafont, \addtokomafont). Furthermore there are commands such as \RedeclareSectionCommand for (complex) customizing of distances before and after headings as well as indentation.
Ulrike Fischer followed with the final talk of today. Her topic was how to work with errors:
- Analyzing errors
- Correction
- How to find help if one is stuck with an error
What are good tips that can be given?
- Better tackle errors immediately, instead of postponing until there are too many errors
- No nonstopmode
- Proceed step by step
- Test new things in a minimal example, such as a bibliography or an index, before it’s implemented in the progressed main document
- Read documentation and package manuals 😉
- Backups, version control, test environment
Will be updated in the late evening…
