8

I want to place an \fbox inside of some \part, \chapter, and \section commands. Instead, I get this message:

Use of \@chapter doesn't match its definition.

Update:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\begin{document}
    \section{\fbox{hi}}
\end{document}
lockstep
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Village
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  • Using \chapter{A \fbox{test}} or \section{A \fbox{test}} works without a problem, even if you include \tableofcontents. Would you be able to provide an MWE that duplicates the problem? – Werner Nov 12 '11 at 07:58
  • While making the MWE, I discovered it only has problems when I add \usepackage{xcolor} to my document. – Village Nov 12 '11 at 08:04

1 Answers1

12

Protecting your \fbox in a section command (since it is fragile) allows for it to be used without problem:

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}% http://ctan.org/pkg/xcolor
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\section{\protect\fbox{hi}}
\section{\colorbox{green!25}{there}}
\end{document}

Alternatively, the etoolbox package provides \robustify{<cmd>} which can make <cmd> non-fragile:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{etoolbox}% http://ctan.org/pkg/etoolbox
\usepackage{xcolor}% http://ctan.org/pkg/xcolor
\robustify{\fbox}% Make \fbox non-fragile
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\section{\fbox{hi}}
\section{\colorbox{green!25}{there}}
\end{document}

Similar functionality is provided by makerobust. Also see the discussion What is the difference between Fragile and Robust commands? When and why do we need \protect?

David Carlisle
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Werner
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  • Good, that has done it! I find that introduced a new problem. The \fbox{}'s are inside \footnote{}'s which are in the section titles using \usepackage[stable]{footmisc}. The footnotes now run too long on the page (covering up the page number). Is that likely a side-effect of using \protect? – Village Nov 12 '11 at 08:13
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    It shouldn't be. Since this may be related to footmisc, post a new question that shows this in an MWE. – Werner Nov 12 '11 at 08:20