titlesec - Dual line, vertical (rotated) section marker

Question

Basically I want to imitate this.

On the right page the section marker should be oriented the opposite way.

I think it's possible to achieve this with titlesec page. Here's what I got so far.

\documentclass[twoside]{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{titlesec}
\titleformat{name=\section,page=even}[leftmargin]
{\normalfont\filleft}{}{.5em}{\MakeUppercase}
\titleformat{name=\section,page=odd}[rightmargin]
{\normalfont\filleft}{}{.5em}{\MakeUppercase}
\titlespacing{\section}
{4pc}{}{1pc} %I'm not quite sure with this one
\usepackage{enumitem}
\newlist{paragraphlist}{enumerate}{1}
\setlist[paragraphlist,1]{leftmargin=,label={\arabic}}
\counterwithin{paragraphlisti}{subsubsection}
\begin{document}
\section{Lipsuma \ Amuspil}  %doesn't work
\begin{paragraphlist}
\item \lipsum[1][1]
\item \lipsum[1][2]
\item \lipsum[1][3]
\item \lipsum[1][4]
\item \lipsum[1][5]
\end{paragraphlist}
\newpage
\section{Lipsumb \ Bmuspil} %doesn't work
\begin{paragraphlist}
\item \lipsum[2][1]
\item \lipsum[2][2]
\item \lipsum[2][3]
\item \lipsum[2][4]
\item \lipsum[2][5]
\end{paragraphlist}
\end{document}

Looking around there's sectioning - Put Page Number and Title on Margin with Titlesec - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange and xetex - How to add page numbers and rotated chapter title to the outer margin? - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange — user202729, Dec 11 '21 at 23:29
Yes, but these are fixed on the page, regardless where the section starts, as far as I can see. — Jasper Habicht, Dec 11 '21 at 23:42

Jasper Habicht · Answer 1 · 2021-12-12T08:02:20.060

I was too lazy to do this with titlesec, but it is probably possible. Instead, I knitted together a tikz-based approach:

\documentclass[twoside]{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{tikzmark}
\usepackage{tikzpagenodes}
\newcommand{\verticalsection}[2]{%
    \stepcounter{section}%
    \addcontentsline{toc}{section}{#1 (#2)}%
    \tikzmarknode{sec-\thesection-mark}{\strut}%
    \checkoddpage%
    \ifoddpage%
    \begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture, overlay]
        \node[anchor=south west, align=left, rotate=-90] at (sec-\thesection-mark.north -| current page marginpar area.west) {\textcolor{purple}{\MakeLowercase{\scshape#1}}\ \MakeLowercase{\scshape#2}};
    \end{tikzpicture}%
    \else%
    \begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture, overlay]
        \node[anchor=south east, align=right, rotate=90] at (sec-\thesection-mark.north -| current page marginpar area.east) {\textcolor{purple}{\MakeLowercase{\scshape#1}}\ \MakeLowercase{\scshape#2}};
    \end{tikzpicture}%
    \fi%
}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\verticalsection{Lipsuma}{Amuspil foo}
\lipsum[1]
\verticalsection{Lipsumb}{Bmuspil bar}
\lipsum[1]
\newpage
\verticalsection{Lipsumc}{Cmuspil baz}
\lipsum[1]
\end{document}

Odd pages (sections may start at any position on the page):

Even pages:

Another more basic approach using \marginpar:

\documentclass[twoside]{article}
\usepackage{graphicx, xcolor}
\newcommand{\verticalsection}[2]{%
    \stepcounter{section}%
    \addcontentsline{toc}{section}{#1 (#2)}%
    \marginpar[%
        \raggedleft\vskip5pt\rotatebox{90}{\parbox{10em}{\raggedleft%
            \textcolor{purple}{\MakeLowercase{\scshape#1}}\par\MakeLowercase{\scshape#2}\hskip5pt}%
        }%
    ]{%
        \rotatebox{270}{\hskip5pt\parbox{10em}{%
            \textcolor{purple}{\MakeLowercase{\scshape#1}}\par\MakeLowercase{\scshape#2}}%
        }%
    }%
}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\begin{document}
\verticalsection{Lipsuma}{Amuspil foo}
\lipsum[1]
\verticalsection{Lipsumb}{Bmuspil bar}
\lipsum[1]
\newpage
\verticalsection{Lipsumc}{Cmuspil baz}
\lipsum[1]
\end{document}

With pretty much the same output:

You need to take care of the width of the vertical box though: If it is longer than the paragraph it is attached to, the next section title will be shifted downwards.

Also, if a sections starts too far down the page, it may be better to let it start on the next page, since otherwise the section title will protrude over the lower page margin.

Too much time to realize I've been missing out other possibilities I'd get outside titlesec. Thank you very much. — Andre, Dec 12 '21 at 03:27
Can you explain why the \marginpar approach has result shifted a little high than the first line of paragraph? Surely that can be tweaked, isn't it? — Andre, Dec 12 '21 at 03:28
Right, I added an correction. Also, you may want to adjust the width of the box for the vertical title in the \marginpar approach. It should be as wide as your longest title, but not longer as the shortest paragraph. — Jasper Habicht, Dec 12 '21 at 08:03

titlesec - Dual line, vertical (rotated) section marker

1 Answers1