More section headings?

Question

I am a novice in LaTeX and I have one question.

Can someone tell me what if you want more heading's in LaTeX. Like 5 or 10 or even 15. Is there a package for that?

Answer 1

This shouldn't be taken too seriously, as deep numbering is not recommended. However, here's how one can have 100 sectional levels (all are modeled after \subsubsection after that level).

\documentclass[a4paper]{report}

\makeatletter
\newcommand\level[1]{%
  \ifcase#1\relax\expandafter\chapter\or
    \expandafter\section\or
    \expandafter\subsection\or
    \expandafter\subsubsection\else
    \def\next{\@level{#1}}\expandafter\next
  \fi}
\newcommand{\@level}[1]{%
  \@startsection{level#1}
    {#1}
    {\z@}%
    {-3.25ex\@plus -1ex \@minus -.2ex}%
    {1.5ex \@plus .2ex}%
    {\normalfont\normalsize\bfseries}}

\newcounter{level4}[subsubsection]
\@namedef{thelevel4}{\thesubsubsection.\arabic{level4}}
\@namedef{level4mark}#1{}
\count@=4
\loop\ifnum\count@<100
  \begingroup\edef\x{\endgroup
    \noexpand\newcounter{level\number\numexpr\count@+1\relax}[level\number\count@]
    \noexpand\@namedef{thelevel\number\numexpr\count@+1\relax}{%
      \noexpand\@nameuse{thelevel\number\count@}.\noexpand\arabic{level\number\numexpr\count@+1\relax}}
    \noexpand\@namedef{level\number\numexpr\count@+1\relax mark}####1{}}
  \x
  \advance\count@\@ne
\repeat
\makeatother
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{100}

\begin{document}

\level{0}{abc}
\level{1}{abc}
\level{2}{abc}
\level{3}{abc}
\level{4}{abc}
\level{5}{abc}
\level{6}{abc}
\level{7}{abc}
\level{8}{abc}
\level{9}{abc}
\level{10}{abc}
\level{11}{abc}
\level{12}{abc}
\end{document}

The commands \level{0}, \level{1}, \level{2}, and \level{3} are synonymous with \chapter, \section, \subsection, and \subsubsection.

ADDED

In case you want also to arrange for the table of contents, here's a way.

\documentclass[a4paper]{report}

\makeatletter
\newcommand\level[1]{%
  \ifcase#1\relax\expandafter\chapter\or
    \expandafter\section\or
    \expandafter\subsection\or
    \expandafter\subsubsection\else
    \def\next{\@level{#1}}\expandafter\next
  \fi}
\newcommand{\@level}[1]{%
  \@startsection{level#1}
    {#1}
    {\z@}%
    {-3.25ex\@plus -1ex \@minus -.2ex}%
    {1.5ex \@plus .2ex}%
    {\normalfont\normalsize\bfseries}}

\newdimen\@leveldim
\newdimen\@dotsdim
{\normalfont\normalsize
 \sbox\z@{0}\global\@leveldim=\wd\z@
 \sbox\z@{.}\global\@dotsdim=\wd\z@
}

\newcounter{level4}[subsubsection]
\@namedef{thelevel4}{\thesubsubsection.\arabic{level4}}
\@namedef{level4mark}#1{}
\def\l@section{\@dottedtocline{1}{0pt}{\dimexpr\@leveldim*4+\@dotsdim*1+6pt\relax}}
\def\l@subsection{\@dottedtocline{2}{0pt}{\dimexpr\@leveldim*5+\@dotsdim*2+6pt\relax}}
\def\l@subsubsection{\@dottedtocline{3}{0pt}{\dimexpr\@leveldim*6+\@dotsdim*3+6pt\relax}}
\@namedef{l@level4}{\@dottedtocline{4}{0pt}{\dimexpr\@leveldim*7+\@dotsdim*4+6pt\relax}}

\count@=4
\def\@ncp#1{\number\numexpr\count@+#1\relax}
\loop\ifnum\count@<100
  \begingroup\edef\x{\endgroup
    \noexpand\newcounter{level\@ncp{1}}[level\number\count@]
    \noexpand\@namedef{thelevel\@ncp{1}}{%
      \noexpand\@nameuse{thelevel\@ncp{0}}.\noexpand\arabic{level\@ncp{1}}}
    \noexpand\@namedef{level\@ncp{1}mark}####1{}%
    \noexpand\@namedef{l@level\@ncp{1}}%
      {\noexpand\@dottedtocline{\@ncp{1}}{0pt}{\the\dimexpr\@leveldim*\@ncp{5}+\@dotsdim*\@ncp{0}\relax}}}%
  \x
  \advance\count@\@ne
\repeat
\makeatother
\setcounter{secnumdepth}{100}
\setcounter{tocdepth}{100}
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents

\level{0}{abc}\thispagestyle{empty}
\level{1}{abc}
\level{2}{abc}
\level{3}{abc}
\level{4}{abc}
\level{5}{abc}
\level{6}{abc}
\level{7}{abc}
\level{8}{abc}
\level{9}{abc}
\level{10}{abc}
\level{11}{abc}
\level{12}{abc}
\end{document}

However I can't stand looking at the result.

Answer 2

If you are a novice to LaTeX with demands for complex sectioning, you might want to take a look at ConTeXt. Unless you are using MikTeX or an old TeX Live, it should work out of the box, just run context yourfile.tex or texexec yourfile.tex on the example below:

\setupcolors[state=start]
\usemodule[subsub]
\setuphead[section][color=red,style=\bfc]
\setuphead[subsection][color=blue,style=\bfb]
\setuphead[subsubsection][style=\bfa]
\setuphead[subsubsubsection][style=bold]
\starttext
\section{first section}
\subsection{a}
\subsubsection{b}
\subsubsubsection{c}
\subsubsubsubsection{d}
\subsubsubsubsubsection{e}
\subsubsubsubsubsubsection{f}
\subsubsubsubsubsubsubsection{g}
\subsubsubsubsubsubsubsubsection{h}
\subsubsubsubsubsubsubsubsubsection{i}
\stoptext

The \usemodule[subsub] defines some additional levels, but you can just as well easily define and configure your own (there is a slight difference between pdfTeX and LuaTeX-based ConTeXt as far as sectioning is concerned, so I didn't provide any more specific example, but I can provide more details if needed). If you want to provide headings different from \section, you can use

\definehead[myniceheading][section]
\setuphead[myniceheading][color=darkgreen,style=\bib,alternative=middle,number=no]

\myniceheading{Some heading}

See ConTeXt documentation at Pragma ADE and reference for \setuphead.

Answer 3

I found a possible solution - for anyone having the same trouble as I:

http://www-mobile.ecs.soton.ac.uk/scripts/viewvc.cgi/yja02r/thesis/packages/subsections.sty?view=co

http://web.archive.org/web/20100303003122/http://www-mobile.ecs.soton.ac.uk/scripts/viewvc.cgi/yja02r/thesis/packages/subsections.sty?revision=1.1.1.1

new .sty file with possible unlimited number of headings

%% How can I use \subsubsubsection in Latex, so that I can refer to it and also it appears in the table of contents?
% Here is a style file that you will need to use. It has entries to create subsubsubsection and subsubsubsubsection. If you need more then you should add whatever you need by taking the previous level of sub and adding a "sub" everywhere and change the level indicator {5} to {6}.
% I call this file subsections.sty:

% Here is an example file that worked with this style file:
%
% \documentstyle[subsections]{article}
% \setcounter{secnumdepth}{5}
% \setcounter{tocdepth}{5}
% \begin{document}
% \tableofcontents
% \section{section}
% line 1.
% \subsection{subsection}
% line 2.
% \subsubsection{subsub}
% line 3.
% \subsubsubsection{subsubsub}
% line 4.
% \subsubsubsubsection{subsubsubsub}
% line 5.
% \subsubsubsubsection{subsubsubsub}
% line 6.
% \subsubsubsection{subsubsub}
% line 7.
% \subsubsubsubsection{subsubsubsub}
% line 8.
% \subsubsubsubsection{testing}
% line 9.
% \end{document}
%

\newcounter{subsubsubsection}[subsubsection]
\def\subsubsubsectionmark#1{}
\def\thesubsubsubsection {\thesubsubsection
     .\arabic{subsubsubsection}}
\def\subsubsubsection{\@startsection
     {subsubsubsection}{4}{\z@} {-3.25ex plus -1
     ex minus -.2ex}{1.5ex plus .2ex}{\normalsize\bf}}
% mj02r: original:
%\def\l@subsubsubsection{\@dottedtocline{4}
%     {4.8em}{4.2em}}
% mj02r: for VCE reports:
%\def\l@subsubsubsection{\@dottedtocline{4}
%     {7em}{3.8em}}
% mj02r, 29/12/2004: for thesis:
\def\l@subsubsubsection{\@dottedtocline{4}
     {11.1em}{4.6em}}

\newcounter{subsubsubsubsection}[subsubsubsection]
\def\subsubsubsubsectionmark#1{}
\def\thesubsubsubsubsection {\thesubsubsubsection
     .\arabic{subsubsubsubsection}}
\def\subsubsubsubsection{\@startsection
     {subsubsubsubsection}{5} {\z@} {-3.25ex plus -1
     ex minus -.2ex}{1.5ex plus .2ex}{\normalsize\bf}}
% mj02r: original:
%\def\l@subsubsubsubsection{\@dottedtocline{5}
%     {5.8em}{5.2em}}
% mj02r: for VCE reports:
\def\l@subsubsubsubsection{\@dottedtocline{5}
     {10.7em}{4.5em}}

I will try to look at it later.

p.s. I hope it works :)