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I would like to include just the subsection number of a subsection, without the section number.

I think this MWE summarizes what I am after. Is there an alternative to \ref?

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\section{Section A}
\section{Section B}
\section{Section C}
\subsection{Subsection 1}
\subsection{Subsection 2}
\label{subsec:Subsection}
I would like "\ref{subsec:Subsection}" to just return "2".
\end{document}
bers
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  • How should the reader distinguish if this ref points to section 2 or to subsection 1.2, 2.2, 3.2, ...? – leandriis Aug 07 '19 at 19:21
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    Probably related: ref to subsection number only – leandriis Aug 07 '19 at 19:23
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    @leandriis The same way we distinguish "on Friday": context. If you say in subsection 2, you mean of the current section. (I'm not defending the system, but I don't think the disambiguation problem is real.) – Alan Munn Aug 07 '19 at 19:24
  • @AlanMunn: Thanks for the explanation. So, one would still use 1.2 if the reference occures in section 3 but points to a subsection of section 1? – leandriis Aug 07 '19 at 19:26
  • @leandriis Yes, one supposes so. Or use "in subsection 2 of section 1" (clunky, but it gets the job done). – Alan Munn Aug 07 '19 at 19:27
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    @hair-splitter This doesn't do what is asked for, since it will change the format of the subsection number in the heading, which is not desirable. – Alan Munn Aug 07 '19 at 19:28
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    Dear all: I've taken the liberty of re-opening this posting, as the solutions provided to the earlier posting ref to subsection number only are all incompatible, to varying degrees, with \autoref of the hyperref package and \cref of the cleveref package. The answer given below does not suffer from this issue. – Mico Aug 08 '19 at 05:05

1 Answers1

4

Here's a solution that's based on a technique that I learned from the book "The LaTeX Companion" (2nd ed.). It executes \renewcommand\thesubsection{\arabic{subsection}} to reset the representation of the subsection counter, and it makes use of the low-level LaTeX command \subsection@cntformat, which governs how the subsection counter is displayed in subsection-level entries.

This solution is, by design, compatible with the hyperref and cleveref packages and their cross-referencing macros, e.g., \autoref, \cref, and \labelcref.

Addendum 2019/08/08: I've added two lines to the code to generalize the solution to handle subsubsection-level headers as well.

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{geometry} % optional

\renewcommand\thesubsection{\arabic{subsection}}
\renewcommand\thesubsubsection{\arabic{subsubsection}}
% Method proposed in "The LaTeX Companion", 2nd ed.:
\makeatletter
    \def\@seccntformat#1{\@ifundefined{#1@cntformat}%
       {\csname the#1\endcsname\space}%    default
       {\csname #1@cntformat\endcsname}}%  enable individual control
    \def\subsection@cntformat{\thesection.\thesubsection\space} 
    \def\subsubsection@cntformat{\thesection.\thesubsection.\thesubsubsection\space}
\makeatother

%Optional:
\usepackage[colorlinks,allcolors=blue]{hyperref}
\usepackage[noabbrev,nameinlink]{cleveref}
\crefname{subsection}{subsection}{subsections} 
\crefname{subsubsection}{subsubsection}{subsubsections} 

\begin{document}
\setlength\parindent{0pt}  % just for this example
The instructions \verb+\ref{sec:C2}+  and \verb+\labelcref{sec:C2}+ return ``\ref{sec:C2}'' and ``\labelcref{sec:C2}''.

The instructions \verb+\ref{sec:C11}+ and \verb+\labelcref{sec:C11}+ return ``\ref{sec:C11}'' and ``\labelcref{sec:C11}''.

\verb+\autoref+: \autoref{sec:C2} and \autoref{sec:C11}

And \verb+\cref+: \cref{sec:C2,sec:C11}

\addtocounter{section}{2} % just for this example
\section{Section C}
\subsection{Subsection 1}
\subsubsection{Subsubsection 1} \label{sec:C11}
\subsection{Subsection 2} \label{sec:C2}

\end{document}
Mico
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    A little side remark: The second upvote on this answer earned me the gold "cross-referencing" badge. Many thanks!!! – Mico Aug 08 '19 at 04:42