Variables for book and chapter names

Question

I am trying to configure a book using fancyhdr. I want the book name centred on even pages, and the chapter name centred on odd pages. That is all very well, except for two simple questions:

Is there a variable which stands for the book name?
Is there a variable which stands for the chapter name?

I may be stupid, but I can't seem to find the names of these obvious variables.

I could of course hardwire this in the preamble and at the beginning of chapters, for my own variables, but this strikes me as a horrible kludge.

I don't really understand what you want, but perhaps sectioning - how to get the current chapter name, section name, subsection name, etc? - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange is? — user202729, Nov 29 '21 at 16:45
You probably want to place the book or chapter name in your header. You should have a look at how to set up the \leftmark and \rightmark macros (just search for these names on this site). — Jasper Habicht, Nov 29 '21 at 16:52

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Nov 30 '21 at 06:20

1

As far as I am aware there is no variable that contains the book's title. You will have to create one yourself. I think that the MWE below gives you what I think you are after.

% titleprob.tex  SE 624386
\documentclass{book}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\setlength{\textheight}{0.4\textheight}
\newcommand{\booktitle}{THE BOOK} % the title of the book
\usepackage{fancyhdr}             % your pagestyle
\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyhead[CE]{\booktitle}
\fancyhead[LE,RE]{}
\fancyhead[CO]{\leftmark}
\fancyhead[LO,RO]{}
\fancyfoot[C]{\thepage}
\begin{document}
\title{\booktitle}
\author{A N Other}
\maketitle
\chapter{Chapter}
Some text. the book's title is ``\booktitle''.
\lipsum[1-6]
\end{document}

You might want to use different text for the actual title of the book and a another (shortened) version for the page headings.

edited Nov 30 '21 at 06:20

CarLaTeX

62,716

answered Nov 29 '21 at 19:11

Peter Wilson

28,066

I believe \title{THE BOOK} stores that in \@title. – Teepeemm Nov 29 '21 at 19:19
But isn't that cleared after \maketitle? – Ingmar Nov 29 '21 at 19:31
@Teepeemm Ingmar is correct, also the author and date data are deleted. However the memoir class provides the \thetitle, \theauthor and \thedate which can be used after \maketitle. – Peter Wilson Nov 29 '21 at 20:38

Variables for book and chapter names

1 Answers1