Remove section titles from text, but not table of contents -- interaction with columns [closed]

Question

Update: a previous version of this question wrongly attributed the problem to use of minitoc to get section-level tables of contents (\secttoc).

I've got a complicated document with a tables of content, and which switches between one and two-column mode.

I'd like to remove the subsection headings themselves from the text, but leave them in the TOCs.

I tried the recipe from this answer:

\newcommand{\nosubsection}[1]{%
  \refstepcounter{subsection}%
  \addcontentsline{toc}{subsection}{\protect\numberline{\thesubsection}#1}%
  \markright{#1}}

This almost works, but the TOCs comes out wrong. I.E.,

1 first section
   1.1 first sub
     1.1.1 first subsub
     1.1.2 second subsub
     1.2.1 first subsub    % <--- WRONG
   1.2 second sub

but should really be

1 first section
   1.1 first sub
     1.1.1 first subsub
     1.1.2 second subsub
   1.2 second sub
     1.2.1 first subsub

I think this is due to a strange interaction with the switching between one- and two-column mode: the first subsubsection in each subsection are put in the subsection above where they belong. This happens even when I just to include the supposedly do-nothing \onecolumn\twocolumn.

Here's an MWE (or actually, a minimal failing example):

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\newcommand{\nosubsection}[1]{%
  \refstepcounter{subsection}%
  \addcontentsline{toc}{subsection}{\protect\numberline{\thesubsection}#1}%
  \markright{#1}}

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents

\section{first section---show all subs 1---works}
\subsection{first sub 1.1}
\twocolumn[{\subsubsection{first subsub 1.1.1}}]
\twocolumn[{\subsubsection{second subsub 1.1.2}}]
\subsection{second sub 1.2}
\twocolumn[{\subsubsection{first subsub 1.2.1}}]

\section{second section--don't show subs 2 --- fails}
\nosubsection{first sub 2.1} %\label{sub:2.1}
\twocolumn[{\subsubsection{first subsub 2.1.1}}]
\twocolumn[{\subsubsection{second subsub 2.1.2}}]
\onecolumn  %%%% these casuse the problem, I think
\twocolumn
\nosubsection{second sub 2.2}
\twocolumn[{\subsubsection{first subsub 2.2.1 \textbf{WRONG}}}]

\end{document}

(Note that you need both nosubsection and column-switching to get the failure.)

I have also tried using the multicol package, and I get the same problem.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

The relevant part of the \subsection heading is (see macro \@sect in latex.ltx for example)

\begingroup 
  #6{%
    \@hangfrom{\hskip #3\relax\@svsec}%
    \interlinepenalty \@M #8\@@par}%
\endgroup

If this should not appear when the section level is subsection, it could be patched to use a \ifstrequal for testing if #1 is equal to subsection.

I added the \begin{multicols}{2}...\end{multicols} wrappers as well.

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage{blindtext}
\usepackage{xpatch}

\makeatletter
\xpatchcmd{\@sect}{%
  \begingroup 
  #6{%
    \@hangfrom{\hskip #3\relax\@svsec}%
    \interlinepenalty \@M #8\@@par}%
  \endgroup
}{%
  \ifstrequal{#1}{subsection}{%
    % Do nothing here!
  }{%
    \begingroup
    #6{%
      \@hangfrom{\hskip #3\relax\@svsec}%
      \interlinepenalty \@M #8\@@par}%
    \endgroup
  }%
}{\typeout{successful patching}}{\typeout{Nope}}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\tableofcontents

\section{first section---show all subs 1---works}
\subsection{first sub 1.1}
\begin{multicols}{2}
\subsubsection{first subsub 1.1.1}
\blindtext[2]
\subsubsection{second subsub 1.1.2}
\blindtext[2]

\end{multicols}
\subsection{second sub 1.2}
\begin{multicols}{2}
  \subsubsection{first subsub 1.2.1}
\blindtext[5]

\end{multicols}

\section{second section--don't show subs 2 --- works now}
\subsection{first sub 2.1} %\label{sub:2.1}
\begin{multicols}{2}
\subsubsection{first subsub 2.1.1}
\blindtext[10]

\subsubsection{second subsub 2.1.2}
\blindtext[5]

\end{multicols}
\subsection{second sub 2.2}

\begin{multicols}{2}
\subsubsection{first subsub 2.2.1 \textbf{CORRECT}}
\blindtext[5]

\end{multicols}

\end{document}