# Hypertext Help with LaTeX
Sectioning

Sectioning commands provide the means to structure your text into units. The document style determines which sectioning commands are supported. They should be used with the following heirarchy:

- `\part`
- `\chapter` (report style only)
- `\section`
- `\subsection`
- `\subsubsection`
- `\paragraph`
- `\subparagraph`
- `\subsubparagraph` (milstd and book-form styles only)
- `\subsubsubparagraph` (milstd and book-form styles only)

The counter for each level is reset when the level above is incremented (except chapters are numbered sequentially regardless of the part).

All sectioning commands take the same general form:

      \chapter[optional]{title}
      \label{lab} % optional, for cross referencing
       text for this unit ...
       ...

In addition to providing the heading in the text, the mandatory argument of the sectioning command can appear in two other places:

1. the table of contents
2. the running head at the top of the page

You may not want the same thing to appear in these other two places as appears in the text heading. To handle this situation, the sectioning commands have an optional argument that provides the text for these other two purposes.

The `title` or `optional` title are moving arguments so fragile commands contained in these arguments must be protected.

All the sectioning commands have *-forms that print a title, but do not print a number with the title and do not incement the relevant counter and do not make an entry in the table of contents.

A blank line before or after a sectioning command has no effect.

Related topics

- `\label`
- `\appendix`

See also Counters, Cross References
See also Table of Contents
Back to LaTeX Table of Contents