Centred section title with lines on either side

Question

I am trying to typeset a document with the following style for a section title:

The text is centred. There is a thick line on either side of the text extending to the margin The rule is vertically centred relative to the height of the title.

So far, I have tried using the titlesec package, and I have consulted similar queries other people have had about text with lines on either side. However, none of those were trying to define a section heading using this style.

This is the code that I got so far:

\makeatletter
   \def\vhrulefill{\leavevmode\leaders\hrule height 1ex depth \dimexpr0.4pt-0.7ex\hfill\kern\z@}
\makeatother

\titleformat{\section}[runin]%
{\LARGE\bfseries}%
{}{0pt}{\vhrulefill\space}[\space\vhrulefill\null]%

\begin{document}
\section{Foo}
Bar!
\end{document}

The end result of this has been that the text following the section does not break to a new line. Instead, it squeezes the title and the rule and encroaches upon the title.

Could someone suggest a better way of defining the section heading with this kind of rule on either side?

Best wishes

Answer 1

Simply use the block style with the explicit option:

\documentclass[11pt]{article}
\usepackage[explicit]{titlesec}

\makeatletter
   \def\vhrulefill{\leavevmode\leaders\hrule height 1ex depth \dimexpr0.4pt-0.7ex\hfill\kern\z@}
\makeatother

\titleformat{\section}[block]%
{\LARGE\bfseries}%
{}{0pt}{\vhrulefill\space#1\space\vhrulefill\null}%

\begin{document}

\section{Foo}
Bar!

\end{document}

Without the explicit optopn, you can use the runin style with the following code, but the vertical spacing after the section title won't be exactly the same:

\titleformat{\section}[runin]%
{\LARGE\bfseries}%
{}{0pt}{\vhrulefill\space}[\space\vhrulefill\null\break]%