Sections without chapters in a LaTeX document

Question

I have a document generated by doxygen with just \section directives and no chapters, so they're getting numbered as

0.1 Section 1
0.2 Section 2
0.2.1 SubSection 1

How can I skip the chapter number and display 1.1, 1.2, instead?

In some way, add \renewcommand{\thesection}{\arabic{section}} to your preamble... — Werner, Nov 20 '13 at 00:50

score 14 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:35

Your Mistake

You are actually using the book or report class or something like that.

\documentclass{book}

\begin{document}

\section{Section 1}
\section{Section 2}
\subsection{SubSection 1}

\end{document}

So, your output looks like this as reported by you.

enter image description here

The Solution

Please use the article class in place of book class.

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

\section{Section 1}
\section{Section 2}
\subsection{SubSection 1}

\end{document}

The above gives your desired output.

enter image description here

Relevant Explanations

book class is for real books. And article class is for articles in scientific journals, presentations, short reports, program documentation, invitations.
It is supposed that a book will contain chapters. Unless you specify a \chapter command at the start, your chapter number is zero, which is reflected in your output as you have told us. Please remember that \chapter command is not even recognized in article class.
To get a nice overview of the classes, this one is a must see.

1 Answers1