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I have several chapter titles that I would like to combine with subtitles, typeset in italics.

For example,

Chapter Title

A very fine chapter indeed …

Now, I found an approach on how to do this here, introducing a new \Chapter command, which now looks like this:

\newcommand\Chapter[2]{
  \chapter[#1: {\itshape#2}]{#1\\[2ex]\Large\itshape#2}
}

This somewhat works (although it breaks TextMate's auto-recognition of chapters), but I would like these subtitles to also be visible in the Table of Contents.

Like so:

Chapter Title                                                                                1

A very fine chapter indeed …

Is there any way to achieve that? Note that my LaTeX fu is pretty limited, so I'm not sure where to even start.

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2 Answers 2

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13

This simple solution should work for you. It is not formatted as you wished, but I really cannot imagine a ToC with subtitles below some title there.

\documentclass{report}

\newcommand\Chapter[2]{
  \chapter[#1: {\itshape#2}]{#1\\[2ex]\Large\itshape#2}
}

\begin{document}

\tableofcontents

\Chapter{My chapter}{Nice subtitle}

Lorem ipsum ...

\chapter{Another chapter}

Lorem ipsum ...

\end{document}

Alternative definition of \Chapter to have the subtitle below the title in ToC:

\newcommand\Chapter[2]{\chapter
  [#1\hfil\hbox{}\protect\linebreak{\itshape#2}]%
  {#1\\[2ex]\Large\itshape#2}%
}
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4
  • Is it possible to do this without introducing a new command? I mean, would something like this work too: \renewcommand\chapter[2]{\chapter[#1: {\itshape#2}]#1\\[2ex]\Large\itshape#2}}?
    – user5950
    Commented Sep 24, 2013 at 21:35
  • 1
    @user5950 You have to store the old \chapter first. Therefore you need: \let\oldchapter\chapter \renewcommand\chapter[2]{\oldchapter[#1: {\itshape#2}]#1\\[2ex]\Large\itshape#2}}
    – yo'
    Commented Sep 24, 2013 at 22:28
  • However, \chapter has an optional argument by default which you remove by this. I'd stick to changing the command name.
    – yo'
    Commented Sep 24, 2013 at 22:31
  • 1
    The alternative definition works for me, but how would I go about removing the default Chapter X heading in chapters? I tried using \chapter* instead inside the new command, but it only ruins the layout.
    – MLQ
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 3:01
2

Tiny tweak of yo's answer :):

\usepackage{relsize} %Package to set relative font size (\smaller, \larger)

\documentclass{report}

\newcommand\Chapter[2]{
  \chapter[#1: {\itshape#2}]{#1\\\medskip\smaller\itshape#2}
}

\begin{document}

\tableofcontents

\Chapter{My chapter}{Nice subtitle}

Lorem ipsum ...

\chapter{Another chapter}

Lorem ipsum ...

\end{document}

In that way you make your code adaptable to any font settings in your document:

  • The space you add to the newline is \medskip, which is adapted to the document, not a fixed nummerical value 2ex. You can use \smallskip, \medskip, or \bigskip, and see which fits you better.
  • The size of the subtitle is relative to the title, \smaller. That is very important, first because we do not need to know the size of the chapter title, and second, if the title had size \Large, then, obviously, making the subtitle \Large makes no difference ;). The package relsize provides this command, which has an integer parameter to make it even smaller: you can use \smaller{2} or \small{3} and so on. \smaller{1} produces the same as \smaller alone.
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