Chapter Thumbs or Tabs in Book Class

Question

I'm currently finalizing a book, and would like to add chapter thumbs or tabs to the document. While I've found a fair number of packages which are likely capable of doing so, I can't seem to get the document to successfully compile with the tabs in place. I've uploaded some sample content below in hopes someone has some insight.

\documentclass [11pt] {book}
\usepackage{graphicx,array,paralist,lastpage}
\usepackage[fleqn]{amsmath}
\usepackage[left=1in,top=1in,right=1in]{geometry}

\usepackage{wrapfig}
\usepackage{chappg}
\usepackage{enumerate}



\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\renewcommand{\chaptermark}[1]{\markboth{#1}{}}
\fancyhead{} % clear all header fields
\fancyhead[RO,LE]{\thepage}
\fancyhead[RE,LO]{\chaptername { }\thechapter: \leftmark}
\fancyfoot{} % clear all footer fields
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0.4pt}

\renewcommand{\thesection}{\Alph{section}.}

\parindent=0in
\usepackage{subfig}




\begin{document}
\vspace*{0.75in}
\begin{center}
\begin{Large}
\textbf{\huge{DYNAMICS}}\\[16pt]
\end{Large}
\end{center}
\thispagestyle{empty}

\newpage {}\thispagestyle{empty}

\newpage
\textbf{About the Authors:}\\[\baselineskip]    
\thispagestyle{empty}
\newpage {}\thispagestyle{empty}

\newpage
\tableofcontents
\thispagestyle{empty}
\newpage\thispagestyle{empty}


\setcounter{chapter}{-1}
\chapter{Fundamentals and Review Materials}
\thispagestyle{fancy}
\newpage
\thispagestyle{fancy}
\mbox{}
\newpage
\section*{Introduction}
To be successful ...


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%5
\chapter{Particle Kinematics}
\thispagestyle{fancy}
\newpage
\thispagestyle{fancy}
\mbox{}
\newpage
\section{Planar Kinematics: Cartesian, Path and Polar Coordinates}
\subsection*{Background}
Blah, blah,


\end{document}

Welcome to TeX.SX! A tip: If you indent lines by 4 spaces, they'll be marked as a code sample. You can also highlight the code and click the "code" button (with "{}" on it). — egreg, Jul 17 '13 at 22:56
Can you please explain with a little more detail the desired position and content of the thumbs? — Gonzalo Medina, Jul 18 '13 at 00:36
@GonzaloMedina: I'd love for the thumbs to appear in the margins of the right pages (left and right is fine as well) in a book format. Content will be either chapter number or chapter name. The ability to change font/background color would be nice, but not necessary. Thanks! — Jeff Rhoads, Jul 18 '13 at 01:42
@JeffRhoads in this answer to http://tex.stackexchange.com/q/109800/3954, there's a possible solution. Let us know if that answer solves your problem or if you require further assistance. — Gonzalo Medina, Jul 18 '13 at 13:16
@GonzaloMedina Thanks! I tried the code you posted there, but sadly I get a compiling error as soon as I hit a \pagestyle{empty} or \newpage command (which I use to insert blank pages on the back-side of my new chapter pages. — Jeff Rhoads, Jul 18 '13 at 14:25
@JeffRhoads If you could compose a minimal version of a document (including the code I proposed and your relevant settings) showing the problem, we could diagnose it and propose solutions. You can add this document as an edit to your question. — Gonzalo Medina, Jul 18 '13 at 14:45

Mensch · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-18T20:54:36.637

If you can change from class book to the KOMA-Script class scrbook you can try the following MWE, given from the author of KOMA-Script on his homepage http://www.komascript.de. There you will also find package chapterthumb.sty as a part of the example files for the printed book for download. How the code works is explaned in his printed book.

On my system (MiKTeX 2.9) the MWE runs without problems (it is a example in German, but I marked the important parts for you):

\documentclass{scrbook}
\usepackage{ngerman}
\usepackage{chapterthumb}%<======================================
\pagestyle{scrheadings}
\lohead[\putchapterthumb]{\putchapterthumb}%<====================
\addtokomafont{chapterthumb}{\bfseries}%<========================
\begin{document}
\cleardoubleoddpage\lohead[]{}
\part{teil1}
\lohead[\putchapterthumb]{\putchapterthumb}%<====================
\chapter{Am Anfang beginnt es}\dots
\chapter{Weiter}\dots
\cleardoubleoddpage\lohead[]{}
\part{teil2}
\lohead[\putchapterthumb]{\putchapterthumb}
\chapter{Und weiter}\dots
\chapter{Und noch weiter}\dots
\chapter{Und immer weiter}\dots
\chapter{Geht die Reise}\dots
\chapter{Hinaus}\dots
\chapter{Und weiter hinaus}\dots
\chapter{Immer weiter hinaus}\dots
\chapter{Bis zum Ende}
\end{document}

Edit:

As asked in your comment you can change some lines to use document class book instead of scrbook. See the following MWE:

\documentclass{book}
%\usepackage{scrpage2}% loaded in chapterthumb.sty
\usepackage{ngerman}
\usepackage{chapterthumb}%<======================================
\pagestyle{scrheadings}
\lohead[\putchapterthumb]{\putchapterthumb}%<====================
%\addtokomafont{chapterthumb}{\bfseries}%<========================
\renewcommand*{\chapterthumbfont}{\normalfont\Large\sffamily\bfseries}


\begin{document}
%\cleardoubleoddpage%                           undefined in book
\lohead[]{}%                                     no chapterthumb!
\part{teil1}
\lohead[\putchapterthumb]{\putchapterthumb}%<====================
\addtocounter {chapter} {-1}
\chapter{Am Anfang beginnt es}\dots  % Kapitel 0
\chapter{Weiter}\dots
%\cleardoubleoddpage%                           undefined in book
\lohead[]{}%                                     no chapterthumb!
\part{teil2}
\lohead[\putchapterthumb]{\putchapterthumb}
\chapter{Und weiter}\dots
\chapter{Und noch weiter}\dots
\chapter{Und immer weiter}\dots
\chapter{Geht die Reise}\dots
\chapter{Hinaus}\dots
\chapter{Und weiter hinaus}\dots
\chapter{Immer weiter hinaus}\dots
\chapter{Bis zum Ende}
\end{document}

Now you can use it without class scrbook but you have to use package scrpage2 instead of fancyhdr.

Why do you need a chapter 0? I have never needed one. You have to change file chapterthumb.sty in two lines. Please comment the lines 43 and 47 (theese two lines are not needed if you have a chapter 0).

Now everything should work well ...

Thank you so much! That was exceedingly helpful, everything is now working grand. Now I just need to somehow crop my pdf pages so the thumb appears on the far edge of the page. — Jeff Rhoads, Jul 19 '13 at 13:43

Chapter Thumbs or Tabs in Book Class

1 Answers1

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