How to increase counter for \subsection

Question

How can I make the first subsection under a section start on "d"? I currently have the following code to get a,b,c,d...:

\renewcommand{\thesubsection}{\alph{subsection}}

and I tried this to make it start on "d":

\setcounter{\thesubsection}{4}

but that did not work.

Ideas?

Answer 1

There are two things at play here. Counters and their representation. The representation does not need to be numbers, could be letters or a series of symbols.

You need \setcounter{<countername>}{<value>}

Next remember that \subsection increases the subsection counter, thus \setcounter{subsection}{3} will give you a d next time \subsection is executed

Answer 2

that should be:

\setcounter{subsection}{3}